Dragon Age, like Mass Effect, didn’t have the best time when its most recent title was released. In October 2024, BioWare and Electronic Arts dropped Dragon Age: Veilguard, which wasn’t well received by audiences, much like 2017’s Mass Effect: Andromeda. However, Mass Effect has an advantage over Dragon Age in that the series boasts a trilogy remaster.
When recently challenged on why Dragon Age doesn’t have a trilogy remaster, or a ‘Legendary Edition’, former BioWare executive producer of more than 20 years, Mark Darrah, explained what’s up.
‘Do It With The Money You Have’
Mark Darrah departed BioWare in 2022 after spending 24 years rising through the ranks at the company. He saw some of the most popular games of certain eras go out the doors at BioWare, including the Mass Effect ‘quadrilogy’ and every Dragon Age game bar last year’s Veilguard.
In a recent interview with MrMattyPlays, Darrah got onto the topic of a Dragon Age trilogy remaster (not remake) in the vein of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, explaining why it probably won’t ever be a thing:
I honestly think they should do – I don’t think they will – but I think they should do a remaster of the first three. One of the things we pitched at one point, pretty softly, was to retroactively rebrand the first three games as if they were a trilogy and call it the Champion’s Trilogy.
Maybe you do that, and as a first step, you take those three games (and maybe Veilguard), you shine them up, you re-release them, probably remaster, not a remake, see what happens, and then maybe go from there.
Darrah highlighted the stark similarities between the ‘states’ of the Mass Effect franchise and the Dragon Age franchise, but admitted that the latter is much harder to remaster than the former. Not only that, but there’s no money coming from EA to support the idea:
EA has said this publically, they’re kind of against remasters. I don’t really know why, it’s strange for a publically-traded company to seem to be against free money, but they seem to be against it, so that’s part of it.
The other problem is that Dragon Age is harder than Mass Effect to do.
One of the earliest things was, let’s do Frostbite Tools, and then let’s find a mod house that seems talented and just uplift them and pay them to do a remake of Dragon Age Origins.
There were lots of pitches around it, is there a way we can bring Dragon Age Origins forward?
The studios ruin their financials within themselves. I think, to some degree, EA’s stance was, ‘Sure, go ahead and do it, but do it with the money you already have.’ We couldn’t do it with the money that we already have, because we’re doing all these other things.
The full interview can be seen here:
Dragon Age: Veilguard scored well in the review stakes when it was released last year, but failed to resonate with the general audience, as reflected in its low aggregate scores on platforms like Steam.
Do you think a Dragon Age trilogy remaster could revive the franchise a little? Let me know what you’re thinking on the Insider Gaming forum.
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that EA is celebrating Battlefield’s biggest beta ever
Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
Comments