The general manager of BioWare, Gary McKay, has announced the studio is restructuring the studio during the development of Mass Effect 5.
In his blog post, McKay announced, “Given this stage of development, we don’t require support from the full studio. We have incredible talent here at BioWare, and so we have worked diligently over the past few months to match many of our colleagues with other teams at EA that had open roles that were a strong fit.”
While the blog post states that these actions are in lieu of the current development stage for Mass Effect 5, it’s hard to put aside the recent sales figures of Dragon Age: Vielguard as another potential reason for the studio shuffle. Only last week, EA announced in a preliminary sales report that Dragon Age: The Vielguard underperformed by a whopping 50%. A hard pill to swallow for any development team.
The news also comes on the heels of Dragon Age’s director leaving for an offer she “couldn’t turn down,” which garnered gamers’ attention. What was happening at BioWare? Was the studio safe? Would we see Mass Effect 5?
The most recent news assures us that development continues on the project but still leaves worry in the hearts of fans, myself included, about how safe the game is. Coming off back-to-back-to-back underperforming games doesn’t bode well for any game developer. Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem, and most recently, Dragon Age: The Vielguard all failed to capture audiences in any meaningful way.
According to McKay, “Now that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been released, a core team at BioWare is developing the next Mass Effect game under the leadership of veterans from the original trilogy, including Mike Gamble, Preston Watamaniuk, Derek Watts, Parrish Ley, and others.”
Having veterans of the franchise working on the latest installment is almost always a promising item. Continuing, McKay added, “In keeping with our fierce commitment to innovating during the development and delivery of Mass Effect, we have challenged ourselves to think deeply about delivering the best experience to our fans. We are taking this opportunity between full development cycles to reimagine how we work at BioWare.”
Mike Gamble was a former Producer for the second and third games in the series, as well as the lead producer for Andromeda. Preston Watamaniuk was the lead designer for the entire original trilogy and the current director for Mass Effect 5. Given their rich history involved with the first three games of the series (we’ll forgive Andromeda), one can place some faith in the idea that Mass Effect 5 still has a chance to capture audiences and bring the magic back to the BioWare of old.
At least, that’s what this fan is still hoping for. I even forgive you for the ending of Mass Effect 3. Nobody has any idea how hard that is for me to say.
How about you? How does the latest news at BioWare affect you? Do you still feel hopeful for the future of the Mass Effect series and other franchises at BioWare? Let us know below in the comments or on social media. I’ll be sure to check out the conversation as the situation at BioWare seemingly continues to unfold.
