BioWare Lays Off Original Baldur's Gate Lead Writer

thegamer.com:

BioWare writer Lukas Kristjanson, who has worked at the studio for more than 25 years, has been laid off. This comes as 50 developers lose their jobs at BioWare, despite having at least two huge games in development: Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and Mass Effect 5.

While any layoff is devastating, Kristjanson's job loss is downright baffling. Over his more than two-decade career, Kristjanson wrote for both Baldur's Gate games and even wrote one of the series' most popular characters, Minsc. Now, his layoff comes as the long-awaited sequel, Baldur's Gate 3, is a critical and commercial success - and even features Minsc as a returning companion.

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"Stunned to learn BioWare also let go of Lukas Kristjanson," says David Gaider, a former BioWare writer who left in 2016. "We used to call him Old Man Luke and Writer Alpha - there since BG1, the writer behind Minsc and [Mass Effect's] Joker and so many more."

BioWare developed the first two Baldur's Gate games before moving on to its own IPs, Mass Effect and Dragon Age. Put simply, we wouldn't have the groundbreaking success of Baldur's Gate 3 right now without the work of these BioWare writers.

Then there's the inspiration that Baldur's Gate 3 developer Larian Studios seems to have taken from BioWare's later work. With parties of up to four, huge romance subplots, and a party camp to chill in, many players have compared Baldur's Gate 3 to Dragon Age: Origins. And since Baldur's Gate 3 launched with no microtransactions, live service elements, or even DLC, it has proven that there's still a huge demand for these single-player experiences that BioWare was pushed away from after Dragon Age: Inquisition. Frankly, many feel that