A former writer at BioWare has just come out and said what we’ve suspected for a long time: the studio has become way too corporate.
BioWare used to be one of those shining examples of a game studio. They made glorious single-player RPGs with engaging stories set in beautiful science fiction or fantasy universes. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Baldur’s Gate, and Knights of the Old Republic were award-winning titles that defined a generation of gamers.
Then as with so many other studios, they got too corporate.
It’s easy to blame BioWare’s downfall on EA (and certainly EA’s influence had something to do with it), but former BioWare writer Drew Karpyshyn revealed that it was just a changing culture that did BioWare in.
“When I started at BioWare, everything was fresh and exciting. It was a dream job – talented people working together to create epic games like Baldur’s Gate, KOTOR, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age,” wrote Karpyshyn. “But as we grew and became more successful, things changed. We became more corporate. We were less able to make what we loved, and the teams were pushed to create games based on market research rather than our creative instincts and passions. My dream job became just a job, and I lost the enthusiasm and excitement I once had.”
Karpyshyn left in 2012 shortly after Mass Effect 3 hit store shelves. After that, BioWare released Mass Effect Andromeda to widespread criticism, followed by the disastrous release of Anthem (so disastrous that BioWare is completely redesigning the game from the ground up).
Karpyshyn now works for Archetype Entertainment, a brand new studio in Austin, Texas that’s making games for Wizards of the Coast. Their website says they’re working on “story-driven roleplaying games” and they’re hiring a ton of key positions for whatever it is they’re working on, with Karpyshyn as their new Lead Writer.
We don’t know what Archetype is working on and Karpyshyn isn’t giving us any hints, but if we had to guess, it’d be a single-player story-based RPG set in the D&D universe. It wouldn’t be the first time for Karpyshyn as he’s already published novels set in the world of Forgotten Realms.
Source: Drew Karpyshyn
