How BioWare Finally Got Dragon Age to the Finish Line After a Tumultuous Decade
Anticipation was running high within BioWare when Andrew Wilson and Laura Miele, two of EA’s top executives, visited the studio in 2023. They were there to see the latest Dragon Age, which had been in development in one form or another for nearly a decade. It was a chance to show that after struggling through the releases of Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, BioWare was finally back on the right track.
The story of their visit came up more than once in our visit to BioWare for September’s IGN First. Director Corinne Busche, who was conducting the demo, remembers rehearsing for “hours and hours” to make sure she got everything right.
“I knew the content like the back of my hand and everything was going so well. But of course we get to the live demo with Andrew Wilson and Laura Miele in the room, and as soon as I fight a Pride Demon I get walloped right off the edge and down into a pit and die,” Busche laughs. “And he turns and looks at me and goes, ‘Well, at least your load times are great.’”
It was an embarrassing moment for Busche, but in its own way, a victory. At that time, the game that would become Dragon Age: The Veilguard was less than three years removed from a major reset, shifting from the skeleton of a multiplayer game with repeatable quests, a tech base, and the outline of a story, to a full-blown single-player RPG. In that time, BioWare had effectively torn Dragon Age down to the studs, implementing a brand-new battle system along with a host of new content. It was a striking turnaround for a game that at one point looked like it might never release at all.
To cap off our IGN First coverage for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, we’re going to take you inside BioWare on the eve of a major milestone in its history. In the course of reporting on this story, I spent two days at BioWare, played hours of Dragon Age, and had a lengthy sitdown interview with Studio General Manager Gary McKay. Here’s what I found.
BioWare GM Gary McKay is unassuming when you first meet
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