Electronic Arts have gone and had their earnings call for the quarter, that event where execs tell interested parties how many boatloads of money they’ve made and plan to make in the future. It’s also a time for them to answer questions about their products and studios. On the subject of the Dragon Age and Mass Effect developers, EA CEO Andrew Wilson acknowledges that BioWare have had a few recent stumbling blocks but that they’re “an incredible studio filled with incredible people”.
“From the outside wall, there have been some blips in their delivery over the last couple of years,” Wilson says in answer to a question about the studio’s future, “but that has come as a result of them pushing deeply into innovation and creativity”. He also acknowledges concerns over two recent major departures, studio head Casey Hudson and executive producer Mark Darrah. Wilson calls this the natural course of a creative studio.
“We feel very, very confident about their future road map, and we’ve talked about games like Dragon
Age and Mass Effect in their future,” Wilson says. He also mentions how well-received the announced Mass Effect remasters have been.
I know it’s plenty common to express doubt about BioWare given the foibles of Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem in recent years. I admit that I’ve got a lot of emotional investment in Dragon Age, so I’m a bit allergic to such skepticism. Or at least am happy to take morsels of encouragement. That is mostly what this ammounts to—a few nice words but, hey, it’s good to hear the enthusiastic praise. “We look forward to sharing more about what’s coming from BioWare in the near future,” he adds.
Based on what we know BioWare have in the pipeline—the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, a Mass Effect 4, and Dragon Age 4—it does seem like they may be sticking to their tried-and-true series for a while. They’re still working on shoring up Anthem, though that’s been an intentionally slow process.