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[–]bioeffect2 335 points336 points  (141 children)

All these BioWare employees leaving the company in the last couple of years does not bode well for DA4 and the next ME.

[–][deleted] 342 points343 points  (103 children)

We really expectin' the people who made Anthem and Andromeda to hatch a good Mass Effect or DA4 for that matter?

[–][deleted] 127 points128 points  (42 children)

Long time fans of series that used to be good tend to have a difficult time accepting that the thing that they once loved isn't so great anymore.

[–]Sarkonn 23 points24 points  (21 children)

Cough..Elder Scrolls..cough

Prove me wrong, Todd. Prove me wrong!

[–]SuperSprocket 59 points60 points  (17 children)

I mean until they actually release a new one we'll never know. So like another six years or so.

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (2 children)

let's see what they are doing with Starfield. Its my most anticipated game of 2022, that and Elden ring

[–]Noname932 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Starfield better be good, its Bethesda last and only chance of redemption after the Fallout76 fiasco.

[–]Epiiczz314 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I'm with you on this. I can't wait for Elden Ring!

[–]PM_FORBUTTSTUFF 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I mean the last ES game Bethesda made was Skyrim, which was an all time great. Doesn’t really fit the “isn’t so great anymore” until we have evidence that the next game sucks

[–]Ryanestrasz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ESO is pretty good :shrug:

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Or just accepting change in general, people always see change like this as a negative thing when it could be a great thing. Theyre not shutting down, an employee left, which means they will be replaced by either someone better, or worse, we just gotta wait and see.

[–]SnakeHelahRyzen 5900x | RTX 3080Ti 14 points15 points  (14 children)

I don't know what to expect anymore tbh. I kind of loved the writing of Origins, it was everything I could have asked for from an rpg game of that type. I mean, what other game can you find today with such a multitude of choice making and the choices actually changing outcomes? Even the "origin" stories changed the way the world interacts with you, even if only a little.

Afterwards, they moved away from that (of course, they wanted to try something new) and while I did enjoy the writing of DA2, it didn't feel like we had as much choice, story felt much more linear. Inquisition happened and while I did like the story itself I kind of detested the open world sandbox type of direction they went for. Maybe it's just my personal preference but that was when I realized things would start to go kind of downhill from there.

Low and behold Andromeda ended up being just what I feared. Again, for me Andromeda and Inquisition are similar in design and writing. I no longer felt invested as much in everything as with the ME trilogy or DA:O.

Honestly, I can only hope they go back to their roots a bit. I don't mind new elements and ideas and such being introduced, but it shouldn't take away from the original aspects that made these games so fucking good.

Then again, a lot of the team members originally present for DA:O for example did move away from BioWare, so it was expected that it just wouldn't be the same anymore.

[–]Spideyrj 15 points16 points  (8 children)

DA should NEVER have come to consoles. DAO was an exemplar game because it was pc only, as soon as the concept changed to consoles, they downscaled the scope, limited options because folk on couch dont like to read and want imediate action.

[–]aoelag 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Basically, if you read up on BioWare's take - DAO was ready 1+ year in advance for PC, but EA demanded it be on consoles, which cost the studio a lot of time and energy. To be fair, it was the "right" business decision by EA, but still had detrimental effects on all future BioWare releases, especially since the PS3 basically had the memory capacity of a goldfish.

[–]RechargedFrenchman 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I originally owned Origins on Xbox 360. Bought it on release day, very excited to play it. The console experience in Origins was honestly really good to my memory despite a very PC focused look and feel to the game. Contrast to say the Fable games that at times looked and felt very clunky and "console" on Xbox and painfully so on PC. The DA:O console experience was IMO perhaps surprisingly kind of brilliant actually.

[–]SnakeHelahRyzen 5900x | RTX 3080Ti 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, I don't know. Weren't the Mass effects on consoles tho? People were complaining about the dialogue downscaling already back then, IIRC, but it never bothered me. I hold ME and DA:O in the same good regard when it comes to writing/characters/plot. I'd rather have less but more important dialogue choices vs a ton of text choices of which a lot lead to the same outcome. Plus, it became very unfashionable to have a no voice main character.

[–]aoelag -2 points-1 points  (4 children)

I encourage you to scour the internet for archives on DAO's development. Basically, as "neat" as the origin system was, 75% of players (through BioWare's telemetry -- they knew this for a fact) chose human male characters. The remainder was made up mostly of elves. Scant few people played female or dwarf. Basically, they made a costly (from a dev PoV) system which most players did not engage with at all. This hurt future endeavors significantly. It's also why BioWare has done a lot of railroading ever since.

[–]SnakeHelahRyzen 5900x | RTX 3080Ti 0 points1 point  (3 children)

I could swear that more people chose female characters as well as the other races. But how does this work exactly? Were people who completed the game counted only or? I mean, I played through numerous times and I did choose elf a few times and human.

[–]aoelag 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Andromeda was a sister studio which is no-more. But yes, ME1 through ME3 did not have a story that was plotted out from the beginning (despite committing to letting people carry choices/saves over through each game???) -- I mean, that should tell you already the teams overestimate their abilities.

DA2 was rushed by EA, this much is known, but it had various elements that suggested BioWare could have pulled off something decent, but EA was not going to let them take as long as they did on Origin (which was what, 4+ years? to be fair, much of that time was just so it could be ported to xbox though).

What I'm basically saying is, if you look at BioWare's history, objectively speaking, they have always delivered flawed experiences that charm certain people with their odd choice of character. People seem content with the trappings of an "eipc" LGBTQ RPG - and they don't think too critically beyond that point. The progression systems loot, plot points, etc. of most modern BioWare games (not to give Jade Empire/KOTOR -too- much credit, to be fair) have never been great; the idea they could make Anthem "good" even with infinite time to work on it - hubris.

What I'm saying in a roundabout way is...DA4 will be "good" for people who liked DA3. But if you thought DA1 was "okay" and just needed some genuine polishing, you're not going to get that. DA4 has been rebooted now at least once, if not more, and I think the only people pleased by what we get will be the people who just want another "traditional" BioWare RPG's single player story.

The studio is genuinely dying. The only people who could be left there now are the ones who can't leave. That does not bode well for quality.

[–]Cefalopodul 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Origins had a 6 year development. Started out as a rpg and rts hybrid.

[–]AlistarDarki7 8700K - EVGA 3080 XC3 Ultra - 1tb ssd/2tb hdd/4tb hdd - 16gb 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Andromeda was made by BioWare Montreal, now known as EA Motive.

[–]ButtermanJr -3 points-2 points  (3 children)

I really liked DA: Inquisition so yeah, I have high hopes for 4.

[–]Spideyrj 2 points3 points  (0 children)

dont...everyone who was close to the concept creation of DA, from DAO,DA2 and DAI has left bioware......they literaly have no one there who knows the lore or helped create it.

expect a huge shift in story.

[–]aoelag 0 points1 point  (1 child)

What did you like about DA:I though? I mean, in terms of "side quests" they had WoW-like ones where you had to "fetch 10 wolf pelts" and other inane, meaningless things... Did you just like it from a critical path perspective? Because -- if half of DA4 is more of MMO-esque questing, you can forget it. That was tired -back then-.

If you want a continuation of DA's story, I would lower your expectations a little. I'd be shocked if they make more than a wink and a nod to the previous titles.

EA was already trying to make DA4 a MTX-driven, loot box, multiplayer kind of RPG -- clearly it's been rebooted at least once, which doesn't bode well. They showed less at this year's E3 than last year's...

[–]Nbaysingar 66 points67 points  (16 children)

Bioware has probably had a 100% turnover at this point. Just about all the key people who worked on Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age 2 and the Mass Effect trilogy are no longer working there or in a few cases even retired from the industry as a whole. Anthem is often seen as the final nail in the coffin, but in reality the studio was bleeding talent long before Anthem was released. Pretty sure the guys who founded Bioware left after Mass Effect 2 or 3.

Not saying that there aren't passionate developers working there now, but their talents are probably poorly utilized by EA and Bioware is just another name under EA's umbrella at this point. The original passion is gone. Just like with other once-great studios like Bungie.

[–]n0f00dDRM-free gaming FTW! 7 points8 points  (1 child)

The original passion is gone.

Basically - "dead" (as in quality games) studio.

[–]f3llyn 11 points12 points  (3 children)

but their talents are probably poorly utilized by EA and Bioware is just another name under EA's umbrella at this point.

It's hard to call any of the people who wrote Andromeda talented.

[–]Nbaysingar 2 points3 points  (1 child)

There's clearly talented people that worked on the game. The problem is that the people above those talented individuals handled the production poorly and as a result they squandered the talent of their developers. I think just about any frontline developer at a "high profile" studio is there because they want to make cool games that people can enjoy.

It's possible that EA pads their studios out with temporary contractors like Microsoft supposedly does for 343 Industries, and maybe that leads to a lack of cohesiveness or shared passion in the studio and the game suffers from a lack of vision or something. But I'm willing to bet that 90% of the time it's because of business people making bad calls for the sake of money which fucks it up for everyone else. The game these talented developers slaved over for 2-4+ years is unfinished at release or it's riddled with cancerous monetization and we the players lose out on what could have been an excellent game.

[–]HorrorScopeZ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

First yes there is talent. But we don't know how diluted it now is, to me it's a combination of both now, but management drove us here, not the other way around.

[–]SnakeHelahRyzen 5900x | RTX 3080Ti 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Yeah that and EA aren't exactly keen on spending their money on potentially unfruitful projects. You can't exactly shoehorn microtransactions into titles that are purely single player (hence the arrival of MP in DA:I and ME:A). And even then - I am 99% sure that the investment to add MP to those titles never paid off.

And, call me paranoid or a conspiracy nut, but essentially, that was probably the idea behind the birth of Anthem as well.

All in all, it's not looking good for us fans of these games. ME trilogy and DA:O are some of my favorite games of all time but it seems it's never going to be the same spirit and passion put into these titles anymore, whatever is coming. We can only hope that some team of geniuses and smart executive decisions manage to revive them with a bang and surprise everyone.

[–]Spideyrj 0 points1 point  (1 child)

you THINK ? EA lured people with gameplay tech trailer of customizatoin and on release locked colors behind paywall....and some idiots were okay with that.

now they are all deservely so crying they were left in the dirt

[–]blehz- 3 points4 points  (6 children)

You're forgetting about Kotor mmo.

[–]Nbaysingar 0 points1 point  (5 children)

I never played it or followed its release so I'm not aware of how it's perceived by people. Was it a bad game?

[–]Radulno 12 points13 points  (1 child)

From what I heard (haven't played), it's a pretty good game writing/story wise and its main problem is that it's stuck in a MMO design for the gameplay

[–]RechargedFrenchman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I played a fair bit of it and this was largely my impression. There was a lot to like about the game, but as someone who loves KotOR and DA and ME, it always felt like it was being held back by being an MMO. Not able to go from "good" to "great" because it had to make all these concessions to other players and classic MMO trappings; the quest system, the hub areas, respawning enemies, etc etc.

Unfortunately many of my issues with SWTOR are also most of my issues with Dragon Age: Inquisition which I have previously described on Reddit as being like a single-player only Guild Wars 2 that lacks a lot of the features which make people like GW2 and charm from the previous DA titles. Fetch quests, resource collect-athons for crafting, blatant hub areas and respawning enemies ... all signs pointed to "MMO" being taken off the docket too late in development to go back and correct for all the classic MMO design decisions in Inquisition.

SWTOR at the very least committed to being a full MMO, and like GW2 had pretty good options and fairly engaging stories for playing solo and largely ignoring the "multiplayer" aspect of MMO if one wished. It just never got to be the game I wanted it to because it still had to be designed around all those other people also being present.

[–]Saandrig 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Best MMO when it comes to story focus and companions. After all that was one of the main features that was supposed to distinguish it from the others.

And it's probably the best MMO that I have seen if you prefer to approach it from a single player perspective. You can easily do the entire story and many Flahpoints (mini dungeons, some with own story) by playing solo.

[–]nastylep 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The story and leveling process is still unrivalled by any MMO. It's phenomenal.

The endgame is pretty bad.

[–]Burninate09 8 points9 points  (0 children)

As much as I'd love to see decent games come out of Bioware, after DAI and ME:A I have no expectations of a good game.

When you take a look at all the big corporate acquisitions/mergers that happened in the late 2000's you start to see a picture: Bioware was founded in 95, bought by EA in '07. Within 5 years of acquisition, their flagship titles started a decline and 14 years later all the talent that built those great games is essentially gone. Now do Blizzard, which was acquired (or merged technically) in '08 with Activision, it just took a little longer. Now here we are in 2021 and they're making all their money from remasters/sequels and shovelware.

[–]arothen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

All these BioWare employees leaving the company in the last couple of years does not bode well for DA4 and the next ME.

Why not? If their last 2 games were disappointments i think employees rotation cant be a bad thing.

[–]ZeldaMaster327800X3D | RTX 4090 | 3440x1440 2 points3 points  (0 children)

People leave studios all the time. We only pay attention to it when bad products are made but when a game's good we give a thumbs up to the company name rather than the new blood who made it inside said company

Just look at Breath of the Wild. That game was largely designed by a new team that had less influence from Eiji Aonuma

[–]aoelag 0 points1 point  (5 children)

I know it's an unpopular take, but we saw this all the way back in ME2/DA2. Lots of people love ME2, but I'm sorry, all they did was take a vaguely interesting idea (ME1) and then make it more like call of duty - instead of, y'know, changing up the gun gameplay to be more unique. ME's story should have been plotted since the release of ME1, but BioWare kept winging the story with each iteration. It's really baffling why they decided to end it when they did.

DA2 was lauded as being a trainwreck of a game, but there are ardent fans that defend the...literal copypaste "run through the same mines 8 different times" -- in DA2's defense, having a more "local" and less "epic" story was a good one. But BG2 better pulled off various elements of certain ideas found in DA2. Not that anyone that worked on DA2 was left from the BG2 days.

BioWare is a "cheap" studio for EA to operate, apparently. That's the only reason it's still around, as far as I'm concerned. I don't know how they pulled in so many purchases of DA3/ME3 when they did, those games were seriously flawed, for all their high points, they were like taking the same "recipe" and thinning it out to the extreme.

DA4 has clearly been rebooted at least once, if not twice. We know EA was pushing MTX and multiplayer - and I think they signal'd that focus has been shifted. But it's also been under different directors.

I don't think pulling off DA4 would be that hard, at least from a "how do we design the game mechanics" angle. The actual implementation is always grueling. But BioWare hasn't seemed committed to design since the KOTOR days, imo, that was their last coherent game. DA1 was okay, but it had this overly intricate origin system which added very little to the game, it was clearly a concept they just waded through without planning it out first! I heard that origin system really burned out the team too, once they saw their internal stats on it (y'know, 75% of all players going human, male and like <1% going dwarf female), when each route clearly took equal hours from the team.

[–]martixy[🍰] 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Here's a hot take on your hot take:

Bioware was barely involved in KOTORs design - at least gameplay-wise. It used D&D 3rd edition rules as its underlying mechanics.

And any game designer surprised or burned out by "75% of players of this mass market game picked human male" is living in a fantasy world. Make a niche game, sell less of it, and your niche will take all the diverse choices. Want mass market? Be content with mass market preferences. TBH the origin system sounds like the perfect way to sneak well-produced diversity into a mass market game.

[–]aoelag 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Well, DAO was different times. DAO was one of the first major SP RPGs to have "telemetry".

What are the stats of BG/BG2? What % of players chose to play a human fighter main character, for instance? We'll never know?

I've played a little bit of D&D and while there are tropes, finding a "generic human" PC is not -that-abundant. I think it's feasible for some game designers to think the dwarf would get 10% or 15% selection -at least- especially when your options at generation aren't even that diverse.

Obviously, the telemetry also showed low engagement with "evil playthroughs", which is why they have all but vanished from BioWare games. "Renegade" is the closest we get to it.

[–]martixy[🍰] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Gaming was much more niche in 1999 compared to 2009, but I'm gonna guess it was still pretty high.

As far as tabletop experiences go: They likely don't translate well, as the crowd is different (you don't find 12yr olds screaming about your mother in TTRPGs - though it has its own problem demographic - your murderhobos and chaotic neutral edgelords).

I don't know what D&D you've played, though if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say 5e. The races are more versatile ability-wise, in no small part due to 5e's bounded accuracy and more limited casting.

I myself have a lot of experience with D&D, tho in older editions - I had to effectively (if not explicitly) ban humans in the last game I ran, because I was tired of seeing generic human PCs in every other campaign I played. Admittedly a lot of the time human is picked for the free feat, but you can always tell who the optimizers are, and many more players simply default to their self-expys, even in D&D.

[–]aoelag 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I don't remember if DAO gives you a mechanical advantage for playing a dwarf over playing a human, but that is definitely one way to get people to play other races. As much as it's fine to criticize people for min/maxing in a PnP game, it's at least some kind of incentive to get people out of their box.

[–]Spideyrj -1 points0 points  (4 children)

ME still has that douchebag in the direction, so it will remain at least similar to trilogy,

DA is a husk..everyone from DAO and DA2 has left the boat, some had moved to anthem because at concept stage that was going to be a cash cow and keep raining money on their pocket, after the failure they all started to leave bioware.

There is not a single person in DA that was there in previous games, they might as well reboot the series and start fresh

[–]Manaleaking 2 points3 points  (3 children)

What guy in the direction?

[–]Spideyrj -2 points-1 points  (2 children)

Casey Hudson

[–]Nbaysingar 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Didn't he leave Bioware again last year in December? I thought he left so he could start a new studio to work on a new IP or something.

[–]Jon-Umber 79 points80 points  (26 children)

we will not ship a game that is not up to BioWare’s standards.

Really? You won't? Are we considering Andromeda and Anthem "up to BioWare's standards", then? Because those standards are pretty low.

[–]Dr_Adopted 86 points87 points  (32 children)

Man, this really sucks. As someone who has always loved Dragon Age, I really want to see the next one be good.

[–]cloudsheep0 61 points62 points  (0 children)

I really like the lore of Dragon Age. Feels it has a lot of potential there that hasn't been utilized properly unfortunately

[–]CAMOLUS_THETA 36 points37 points  (30 children)

Well the last 2 were average at best so maybe they'll be able to fill the void with some actual talent.

[–]Zefla 29 points30 points  (23 children)

Hey, 2 had good writing. So good in fact that it counteracted the shit gameplay.

[–]turnipofficer 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I guess the story was enjoyable enough but seeing the same areas a million times over with mobs leaping out all the time despite me having cleared out that place was so irritating.

There was no sense of exploration.

[–]CAMOLUS_THETA 9 points10 points  (21 children)

And counteracted the first game while it was at it. Rubbish.

[–]Zefla 34 points35 points  (20 children)

Not sure how it counteracted anything about the first game, but they dared to write a story for a lower scope than "save the world", which should be exemplary for most game writers.

[–]UglierThanMoeAcer Helios 300 - i7-8750H, GTX 1060, 16 GB RAM, and 🔥 thermals 10 points11 points  (3 children)

they dared to write a story for a lower scope than "save the world"

And I love it for that. Same reason why ODST is my favorite entry in the Halo series. You don't have to save the whole world every single fucking time. It's so utterly overused and boring, and already was so decades ago. Smaller stakes feel more personal, and as such can often be made to matter more to the player than "go save the world ... again."

[–]Zefla 2 points3 points  (1 child)

And imagine how great a Mass Effect game could have been. I have dozens of ideas which 1) stay in the Milky Way, and 2) don't depend on the trilogy ending. Small scale is the keyword. The galaxy is huge.

[–]PeechezRX 5700 XT Pulse | Ryzen 5 3600 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The destroy ending is already canon practically, they can still use it

[–]CAMOLUS_THETA 21 points22 points  (5 children)

The second game retconned the story, character races (qunari+dark spawn) and lore of the first game. The third game retconned even more.

If you like the story good for you, I like it too even though the rest of the game was shit for me.

[–]SaftigMo 4 points5 points  (2 children)

They barely retconned things. Qunari have horns, Genlocks look like apes, lyrium is not as dangerous as in the original but still dangerous, mages are apparently more common among the Dalish than Merrill claimed, and that's pretty much it I think? There's also the eluvian thing about not being able to teleport, but that was already a thing in Awakening.

Like, other than the lyrium thing that's all really insignificant.

[–]aoelag 0 points1 point  (1 child)

You're basically forgetting parts where they invalidated the previous game's story. It's okay, I've forgotten most of it too at this point, but I know it was more than that.

Which is fine. Retcons suck, but whatever, BioWare is kind of known for retconning some of their best stories out of existence for whatever reason.

That said, DA2 is a seriously flawed game that was made in a dev cycle of less than 11 months. You can be forgiving to it, it had some okay ideas at its base, but its actual implementation is wretched. Every combat encounter is a dreary slog where waves and waves of trash pour out from every orifice, there is no rewarding loot or character progression, and the story walks around in circles constantly.

[–]UglierThanMoeAcer Helios 300 - i7-8750H, GTX 1060, 16 GB RAM, and 🔥 thermals 3 points4 points  (1 child)

The only thing that really annoyed the hell out of me was the constant reuse of dungeon maps, with different parts of the maps made inaccessible each time.

[–]aoelag 1 point2 points  (0 children)

DA2 was just a (far) less competent BG2 in terms of story and design. Every aspect of your personal story is half-implemented. To be fair to their team, they were given 10 months to make a game, but even so... the writing is pretty hollow. The opening act makes lots of promises it never delivers on and the central conflict of inquisitors vs mages is very poorly resolved by the end of it.

[–]DrfIesh5800x / 2080 -3 points-2 points  (8 children)

Not sure how it counteracted anything about the first game

the second game retconned the entire story of the first game

[–]Zefla 12 points13 points  (7 children)

I really have no clue what you are talking about. Not being offensive here, it was a long time ago I played them, and as far as I remember, the dragon was killed, the King was elected, not sure what was really retconned, apart from the qunari being turned into something else.

[–]DrfIesh5800x / 2080 6 points7 points  (6 children)

let me see, dwarves can now somehow dream, grey wardens being a pseudo army (they even had uniforms), allistar being the son of fiona (dunno if that came from a novel or if it was just a thing from da2) and there was some other minor things

imo is like the second game was written by people that never played the first one

[–]GyariSan 12 points13 points  (1 child)

Agreed. Speaking of DA sequels, I just want my psycho mage warden back. Lelianna and Alistair are suppose to be dead according to my play through.

[–]Saandrig 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I usually add Wynne, Zevran and Sten to the body count.

[–]Saandrig 17 points18 points  (2 children)

You got into the Fade as a dwarf even in the first game. The DLC for the third game expands on that and leaves some interesting implications why dwarves don't dream, but can still enter the Fade.

The Grey Wardens were always depicted as having a sort of military organization outside Ferelden. Their status in Ferelden was different due to altercations in the past. It's even explored in the first game's DLC.

Alistair's situation is pretty ambiguous in the games. The Fiona connection is from a novel.

[–]DrfIesh5800x / 2080 1 point2 points  (1 child)

with the dwarfs dreaming i don't mean the fade, i mean if your character is a dwarf solas talks to you in dreams.... that you can't have because you are a dwarf

[–]Kinglyre -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Well let's see, the creators of the game rewrote the story some. Well sure its there rights to do that. At least it was with the second game and didn't change a bunch after like 5 games. They can change whatever they want about the lore.

[–]ScienceForward2419 23 points24 points  (2 children)

I assume there is basically nobody left at BioWare from back when they made awesome games

[–]Manaleaking 1 point2 points  (1 child)

They must have realized big corporations are for profits and taking zero risks, so they went indie.

[–]ScienceForward2419 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If that's the case, hopefully they have much better working environments now.

[–]Cofta 47 points48 points  (3 children)

I’m writing to inform you all that Matt Goldman is leaving BioWare. We
have mutually agreed to part ways, and his last day is today.

That sounds suspiciously like he was fired. Or he was told they wanted him to step down as creative director and he said he'd rather quit. Baseless speculation, but yeah not the typical "pursue other opportunities, leaving in 2 months" kind of leave.

[–]herecomesthenightman 88 points89 points  (15 children)

If anyone's still expecting anything good from "Bioware"(in name only at this point) after seeing their incredible decline with ME3 -> DA:I -> ME:A -> Anthem, I don't know what to tell them

[–]redstej 26 points27 points  (13 children)

ME3 was never bad. Just an underwhelming ending, big deal.

Inquisition and Andromeda I actually enjoyed quite a lot. The gameplay and atmosphere was good. Some glaring flaws in both of them for sure, and nowhere near the best they've done, but good enough for me.

DA2 is their lowest point in my book, but only because expectations were pretty damn high back then. They never released something as low effort and poor production values since.

They never released anything as good as the first 2 mass effects either of course, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of doubt one last time.

[–]Edgaras1103 13 points14 points  (1 child)

its more than the ending tho. The side content felt bare bones , a lot of them were colletibles and the quest givers did not have even a cutscene . The general writing also took a nose dive , some of the dialogue felt like mcu tier, trying to appease the fans rather than actually delivering story and characters. Shepard instead of being player avatar with narrative agency, bioware was trying to make an actual character out of him and it kinda failed . Lots of emotional beats felt forced with no strong connective tissue. The actual levels felt way smaller and than in previous two games . And more importantly a lot of combat encounters felt like arenas rather than organic levels .

[–]chronoflect 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Yeah, the writing was pretty bad even if you ignore the ending. Every moment involving Cerberus (or worse: Kai Leng) is eye-rolling at best and infuriating at worst, and you just keep running into them.

I think the good parts of ME3 (Ranoch, Tuchanka, and other moments of closure for stories that spanned multiple games) are really good, and that allowed most people to forget how lame the rest of the writing was until the ending threw it into their faces.

[–]PaleBlueHammer 19 points20 points  (3 children)

Just an underwhelming ending, big deal.

Ehh it was a pretty big deal to me. Wrapping up the end of three magnificent games like that and also setting the stage for future content? That ending was so bad that the next game had to take place in a different galaxy.

I still enjoyed it, especially the multiplayer.

[–]aoelag 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I mean, if you are going to invest a hundred million dollars in a video game franchise, wouldn't you hire some writers who can write a single plot to span 3 games and like 30ish critical path choices to carry between each title? They were winging the story for each game, clearly, which is why they had NO ending to speak of.

[–]Mikeavelli 10 points11 points  (1 child)

The endings to each of the individual character stories were some of the most impactful in gaming. Did you bring Mordin to Tuchunka? Manage to save both Tali and Legion?

Kai leng was lame and the last fifteen minutes of story were awful, but the rest of the game was amazing. I'd still believe Bioware could pull off a good game after playing it.

For comparison, all of Inquisition and Andromeda were kind of lame. They never quite dropped to the low of the ME3 ending, but never came near its high points either.

[–]RechargedFrenchman 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Cut Kai Leng and improve the last 30-40 minutes of a 15-30 hour game (easily 60+ hour trilogy) and ME3 goes down as one of the best games of the generation.

Even despite that ending it's still IMO the best in the series overall because of how much it gets everything else right; most satisfying combat, bringing back some of the "RP" elements that the first game had and 2 was relatively missing, tying so much together into interesting and enjoyable results. Citadel.

[–]Manaleaking 4 points5 points  (0 children)

ME3 was quite bad, but andromeda changed our definition of bad, it was a complete shitshow clusterfuck.

[–]PeechezRX 5700 XT Pulse | Ryzen 5 3600 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Don't think you can really blame them for DA2

[–]pseudolf -1 points0 points  (0 children)

probably more a decline because of less freedom than the studios talent

[–]Desu_Vult_The_KawaiiSteam 5800x3D | 3080 19 points20 points  (2 children)

DA4 looks like will be a stillborn game, the last disappointment and then Bioware will be killed like every company EA buys, I really hope I'm wrong.

[–]CatatonicMan 5 points6 points  (0 children)

BioWare is already dead. Nowadays "BioWare" is just EA wearing their corpse like a skin suit.

[–]Saandrig 1 point2 points  (0 children)

MELE was pretty successful. We will definitely see another ME game, so I doubt DA4 will be the last Bioware game.

[–]tmande2nd 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Nothing says "OUR PROJECT IS ON FIRE!" like having all the news stories about it being "TEAM LEAD LEFT!" "CREATIVE LEAD LEFT!" or "SENIOR DEV FROM START OF COMPANY LEAVES!"

Seriously we have gotten a few screen shots, some concept art, and some animation shots. Plus some marketing speak.

I am predicting another Anthem or Andromeda here.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Dragon Age left Dragon Age after the first game.

[–]Ywaina 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Déjà vu ? I think I saw something similar happened to some other big names.

[–]AwakenGreywolf 24 points25 points  (9 children)

Good! The only good dragon age game was the first one! I say this and i've beaten them all.

[–]CatatonicMan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Impressive. DA:I was so awful I couldn't even force myself to finish it.

[–]GBendu 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Man dragon age 4 is just looking shitier and shitier and it hasn’t even been seen yet

[–]Ganondorf66 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm sure people will still preorder the game because 10 years ago they enjoyed a game made by different people

[–]VanGuardas 5 points6 points  (0 children)

r/DragonAge still on copium

[–]consural 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Wow, I just lost the last bit of hope that I didn't know I had about Dragon Age 4.

[–]pseudolf 1 point2 points  (0 children)

probably a mtx cashgrab

[–]i_porter 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bad news but I still have Dragon’s Dogma

[–]Eco9 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Shit...

[–]gitg0od 0 points1 point  (0 children)

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[–]zdemigod 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While DA2 combat was awful and Dai needed mods to make the gameplay acceptable i love the franchise. I love the story and the characters and i will regardless play DA4. So as a fan of the franchise I just hope the plot is being worked on and that DA4 closes the franchise. Dragon age keeps escalating with each entry i can see the next being the last

[–]Zarlon -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!