Mark Darrah spent a decade at BioWare pioneering the development of Dragon Age, working through a series of games and expansions, and eventually departing the company before the launch of the ill-fated Veilguard. I recently caught up with him to talk about BioWare, Mass Effect, and, of course, Dragon Age, and to determine the state of play for all these brands.
Unfortunately, barely one day after the questions were put to Darrah, BioWare was shut down by Electronic Arts, and projects under the company’s banner, like Mass Effect: Universe, were cancelled.
‘There Needs To Be Somebody to Quarterback It’
Darrah worked for years on the Dragon Age series as both a producer and a director, leading the development of these award-winning games from the top down. He left the company in 2019 but stayed connected, and in our recent interview, I wanted to know how he felt about BioWare as a whole and the future of the franchises under the studio’s umbrella.
Of course, we had no idea that barely a day later, the company would be shut down by Electronic Arts in a bid to cut costs.
I asked Darrah if Dragon Age could or would return, and he said that it wasn’t a question of the brand being weak, but there being nobody at BioWare to pitch or support the game’s development:
The reality right now is there isn’t anyone at Bioware that would be someone in a position to pitch a Dragon Age game. The team is basically core Mass Effect people. And to pitch something within EA, you need to have someone that’s going to actually do that pitch. And I don’t know who in the world would do such a pitch.
If I was at BioWare still, would I be able to pitch a Dragon Age and get it greenlit? I absolutely think that you could do that. The brand isn’t broken. It’s just that there needs to be somebody to quarterback it. And there isn’t someone at BioWare to do that right now.
In terms of what would be needed to bring Dragon Age ‘back to life’, I asked Darrah what he’d do if he were given a blank slate and the keys to the franchise.
I think the first thing you do is you start with remasters. Dragon Age Origins on PC, unless you’re willing to engage with the mod community pretty deeply, it basically doesn’t run. It barely runs because it’s a 32-bit application. On a modern PC, it has a tendency to rip itself apart relatively quickly. So I think that’s where you start.
Unfortunately, with the Dragon Age series having suffered so much with the last iteration and BioWare’s doors having been closed, it seems highly unlikely that the series will ever see the light of day again. There’s another argument to be made for Mass Effect, which has immense community backing and could be bought wholesale by some other gaming titan, but Dragon Age is a different topic entirely.
Do you hope we get another Dragon Age title one day? Let us know your thoughts on the Insider Gaming Discord server. Thanks to our friends at Eldorado.gg for facilitating this interview.
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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.
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