Mythic, the EA studio behind Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, has been moved under the control of BioWare, the EA-owned developer behind Mass Effect and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Mark Jacobs, co-founder of Mythic and current GM, has left the company.

An announcement on the WAR website calls the move a 'restructuring' to create a "new RPG/MMO studio group".

Ray Muzyka, co-founder and general manager of BioWare, will be in charge of the group. Greg Zeschuk, the other co-founder of BioWare, will be group creative officer.

Rob Denton, co-founder of Mythic and recently COO of the studio, will be the new general manager at Mythic and will answer to Muzyka.

It's unclear whether Jacobs left of his own accord or was pushed out. According to an anonymous former employee talking to Massively, however, "I can't see that this is voluntary in any shape or form." The source said that they, "can't even fathom Mark leaving a company he loved so much, it was his life".

That said, according to the former staffer, the news isn't bad for Mythic employees. They were apparently assured that there would not be redundancies and that the two studios would not be 'converging'.

While Massively's source noted that staff were "shocked and in disbelief" about Jacobs' departure, they said that "they're also excited to be working with BioWare".

This isn't the only big development in the industry over the last couple of days - Bethesda's parent company, ZeniMax, has just completed a purchase of id Software.