The 'Dragon Age' Debacle That Gutted EA's BioWare Studio

Archived: https://archive.ph/wbnso

When a franchise has gone ten years without a new title it looks pretty tough to start a new one. Lately I've been playing Persona 5 Royal which was an expansion to the 10 year old Persona 5. I'd say that P5 is great fiction but a poor game because it doesn't make you make social choices that matter, for instance, in one playthrough it is not hard to max out the social connection with all the other characters. A playthrough is too long to expect anyone sane to New Game + it, it gets stretched out longer because you feel compelled to see everything.

A P6 game is almost unimaginable to me, I mean they really could make another game with the same formula, it's hard to see technology really improving it. I guess they could address the problems I pointed out above by making a shorter game which forces you to play through a few times to experience everything. If they do, people will ask "who moved my cheese?" but if they don't it will be "10 years and they didn't change anything". I thought Dynasty Warriors Origins did a good job of being a game with a 10-year gap, but I'm one of the few and not-so-proud who likes Musou games.

This is effectively the same story for their last three games: Andromeda, Anthem, and Veilguard. Constant design changes, cannibalizing teams from other games to try and make dates, inconsistent support from EA, abandonment of core fans to chase new revenue models, going way outside their core competencies, internal political infighting between game teams... It's been this way there for a decade and it's no surprise they can't make a good game anymore.

I'm pretty sure Jason has an article on Anthem that could almost be a search and replace of this article.

Bioware was never the same after the Doctors left and it will never be what it once was again.