A new studio at EA’s Montreal location has been opened by Bioware, and the first project underway is going to be the highly anticipated Mass Effect 2.

According to GameDaily the team will comprise of about 30 people, and around 50% of those will be brought in from the existing Bioware team in Edmonton. GameDaily writes that some of these people worked on the original Mass Effect, while the rest will be newly hired.

Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare informed GameDaily that; “We’re really excited about it, and we think it’s going to be a huge opportunity to tap into the talent base in Montreal while supplementing our existing teams in Edmonton and Austin, which are doing some great stuff on all the other projects BioWare’s working on,”.

BioWare is hoping to release Mass Effect 2 during EA’s fourth fiscal quarter, which means the first quarter of 2010, so about a year from now. Muzyka also noted that BioWare have a few secret projects that will be announced at a later date. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Neverwinter Nights 3!

Source: Gamedaily