BioWare Fires Dragon Age: The Veilguard Writers
This fall’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard, that atrocious-looking game from BioWare with the most heavy-handed social commentary since Hank Pym said we should learn communism from ants, hit with a massive thud last fall. The game undersold compared to expectations and, according to Endymion’s sources, received a lot of refund requests. It also had lower-than-expected online numbers on Steam and Origin, parent company Electronic Arts’ subscription service. A number of things could have factored into its disappointing performance, but a decent bet would be to place the blame on the ram-horned fantasy creature that couldn’t stop talking about how it was “non-binary,” the discussion about how to punish oneself for misgendering someone, or the character models with gender-reassignment surgery scars. It’s hard to get lost in fantasy when a game keeps smacking you in the face with the unfortunate madness of modern reality (which is, itself, a kind of fantasy; I guess everything comes full circle).
What made people – and, apparently, the video game industry – take notice of this one, in particular, is that Dragon Age is a popular game franchise that’s been around for twenty-five years, meaning the woke crap in Dragon Age: The Veilguard pushed away a built-in audience. (This is anecdotal, but a friend of mine told me he loved the other Dragon Age games, but there’s no way he’s playing this one.) And another popular BioWare franchise, the sci-fi action series Mass Effect, has a new entry in development now; the new Mass Effect game doesn’t have a release date or even a title yet, but it’s already a big deal, and you can bet EA saw what happened to BioWare’s other franchise and learned something. Actually, you don’t have to bet because BioWare has all but confirmed that. In a blog post on Wednesday, BioWare general manager Gary McKay announced that they’re focusing all their energy on the new Mass Effect, and to make it the best it can be, they’re bringing in “veterans of the original trilogy” to oversee the development of the game. McKay also talks about “delivering the best experience to our fans” and “reimagining how we work at BioWare.”
BioWare restructures! Bring on talent from Mass Effect original trilogy.
Also:
I am told the studio has been trimmed to less than 100 employees, as ME is still in pre production.
Perhaps this is the beginning of good news. What do you think? pic.twitter.com/bGYEi5vs79
— Grummz (@Grummz) January 29, 2025
What does this look like? We know now: it looks like BioWare firing everyone who had a hand in writing Dragon Age: The Veilguard, as reported by VG247 (who, of course, goes to great lengths to downplay the game’s failure, apparently thinking that BioWare fired these people because they’re just evil and crazy, so they do random mean things). The director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Corrine Busche (who seems like a lovely person), also left the company two weeks ago, which Busche said was because he was “presented with an opportunity I couldn’t turn down” and already “did what I set out to do at BioWare.” Oddly, Busche told VG247 about his plans for future Dragon Age games just a month ago, so I don’t quite buy the whole “voluntary” thing. Hypnotic has a video running down BlueSky posts from some of the departing writers:
It’s pretty clear that BioWare is cleaning house. Some of these writers were with the company for twenty-plus years; you don’t start culling people like that unless there was a massive screw-up, especially when you’re replacing them with other veterans of the company and its big franchises. I don’t want to call anything, but it looks to me like they want the upcoming Mass Effect game to be free of any identity politics or woke nonsense that will turn off fans of the series, which, if it’s the case, is good news for gamers. There can only be so many failures before big change comes, especially when they have clear successful alternatives to compare them to. Sure, there will always be a few holdovers from companies run by fanatics, but as a whole, things may be turning around. Also, if you want a quick laugh, look at how the Dragon Age writers are coping with the game’s failure:
The cope is hard on Dragon Age: Veilguard.
If you had listened to fans in the first place, it would not be dead.
You did this by inserting your political tripe and tanking the story and the game. pic.twitter.com/ShNbN7vBpq
— Grummz (@Grummz) January 31, 2025
Let us know what you think of BioWare firing the Dragon Age: The Veilguard writers in the comments!
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