Former BioWare vet says the studio is focused on a single game 'for the first time maybe ever' with Mass Effect 5—and whether that's good or bad is anyone's guess
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is one heck of a mixed bag—receiving a spread of good and bad praise from critics, some resentment from its fans, and apparently falling far from the mark financially. It's also done now, with no plans for major DLC in the pipeline—sort of a first for the series, overall.
That, according to BioWare veteran Mark Darrah, presents a first for the studio as a whole. Darrah, a consultant on Dragon Age: The Veilguard who served as an executive producer at the studio for 24 whole years before that, posted a video to his YouTube channel (via GamesRadar) that paints a fascinating picture of the company's history and the unusual position it's now in.
«We're entering into an unprecedented time for BioWare,» Darrah says, one that can all be summed up by a single chart created by a member of Darrah's community and shared in the video. It almost looks like a funnel if you squint at it right, with a flurry of projects—a «many irons in the fire» approach, as Darrah dubs it—slowly narrowing to a single point as Veilguard tapers off.
«In arguably the most slow and painful way possible, BioWare is figuring out that it simply can't do more than one project at a time anymore,» Darrah explains, citing the gnarly stumbles of games like Anthem, as well as complete departures—like Star Wars: The Old Republic being ferried off to Broadsword.
This led to a scenario where, «for the first time since arguably 1995, maybe not even then, BioWare is only working on a single project. Which is Dragon Age: The Veilguard … everyone is singularly focused on [it].» This is a problem because, well, you've got a bunch of developers with nowhere to go. When it comes to Veilguard, Darrah notes that it was «already up and running at full speed, it was able to suck in every available resource [and] it had existing infrastructure».
«Right now,» however, Darrah points out «there's no plans for DLC, there's only Mass Effect. So everyone at BioWare will be working on Mass Effect … But, of
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