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All Dragon Age QA staff who formed union laid off

13 contractors leave BioWare project.

Dragon Age Dreadwolf artwork showing antihero/villain Solas and a menacing dark wolf.
Image credit: BioWare

The team of bug-fixing quality assurance (QA) staff who unionised while working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf have all been laid off.

That's according to a Polygon report which states that the 13 staff are no longer working on BioWare's long-awaited RPG project.

These staff were formally employed by QA outsourcing giant Keywords, which was contracted to assist BioWare on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. The group faced something of a fight to form a union, after quibbles around the ability to work remotely.

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Keywords has now confirmed the team members' departure from the project, which it says follows "the end of a fixed term client contract".

The group's union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Union, has now filed an employment standards complaint for offering "minial severance".

The departures follow the layoffs of 50 permanent BioWare staff in August, including several veteran team members who had worked at the studio for more than 20 years.

Just yesterday, seven of these 50 people launched a lawsuit seeking further compensation after their departure from the project, with a better payout for their years of service.

Eurogamer has contacted EA for comment.

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf still lacks a formal release date, and won't arrive at least until April next year.

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