Summary
The past few months have been a rollercoaster forDragon Agefans. Last summer,BioWareandEAwent all out on hyping up the long-awaited fourth entry in the series,Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Then, when we got the game after ten years of waiting, the reception was mixed. But still, wehada new game, finally wrapping up a story set up inDragon Age: Inquisition.
Now, over the course of a week, it’s all come crumbling down. Following the reveal that The Veilguardunderperformed by EA’s standards- reaching 1.5 million players instead of 3 million - it wasconfirmed that BioWare was being restructured. Unsurprisingly in today’s climate,the restructuring has involved layoffs, and it’s being reported thatBioWare now has fewer than 100 employees.
So, with BioWare now apparently less than half the size it was two years ago, and solely focused on Mass Effect 5, where does that leave Dragon Age? Not in a good place at all, fans fear. With so many key writers now gone and only a small team remaining for the next Mass Effect, it looks incredibly unlikely that BioWare would be physically capable of working on anything Dragon Age-related for at least several years. One of the writers has even saidthe series belongs to the fans now, which has the community in mourning
Dragon Age Fans Fear The Series Is Over, Thank Devs For Their Work
It’s unclear where the series goes from here
Tributes are pouring in over social media, as fans share their sympathy for the developers caught up in the situation at BioWare.
“Extremely sad that Dragon Age is on ice, so I just wanna say thank you to every single developer that helped work on the Dragon Age series,” says content creator Kala Elizabeth. “Thank you for Dragon Age.”
To make matters worse,The Veilguard was setting up a new story.
“My heart goes out [to] all the developers who worked on this game and have gotten nothing but s**t treatment by EA and their higher-ups,” says Reddit userValuable-Owl9985. “Dragon Age wouldn’t be the same without them and I hope they move on the much greener pastures than EA.”
It isn’t limited to those who have just left the studio either, as many remember those who left between Inquisition and The Veilguard. In particular, they reference remarks made by the previous lead of the Dragon Age series, David Gaider, who said thatBioWare higher-ups “quietly resented” the writers. Since Gaider left in 2016, it seems that the team has been struggling for some time.
This won’t be too surprising for those who have been paying attention. The Veilguard came about after two different attempts to launch a fourth Dragon Age game fell apart. The first was a traditional single-player game, and the next was multiplayer. From what we can tell, The Veilguard as we know itwas made from the ashes of the multiplayer title.
For now, we can only wait and see what the future holds for BioWare. There is a plan in place for Mass Effect 5, but whatever happens with it, it’s clear that BioWare is a very different studio now.
