No longer just a rumour, Star Wars: The Old Republic will be going free-to-play globally later this month. Leading up to this, the game’s producer has issued a “state of the game” address, addressing various issues and concerns that players have expressed. The SWTOR blog has also been updated with information about the free-to-play transition and the upcoming Version 1.5 update.

Naturally, the shift to free-to-play hasn’t been an easy one…which news should surprise exactly no one.

The big BioWare news this week, however, is probably the official confirmation that BioWare Montreal is working on a new Mass Effect game, which will be powered by EA’s Frostbite 2 3D engine. BioWare are also looking to take the series in new and interesting directions, and executive producer Casey Hudson even solicited ideas about content to include via Twitter.

The Mass Effect 3 port for the Nintendo Wii U sounds like it’s progressing well, and the trailer for it is pretty sweet. Development of additional content for ME3 proceeds apace, of course; BioWare just announced a massive single-player DLC featuring the Omega space station.

Oh, and PopMatters is doing a Dragon Age retrospective.