With the news of veteran BioWare writer Mac Walters leaving the studio after a lengthy nineteen-year service, a fresh discourse has sparked in the Dragon Age community regarding the development of Dreadwolf.
On one side, there are those who argue that Walters leaving the studio in the midst of Dreadwolf’s development is a troubling sign for the game. Others argue that developers depart studios all the time, and it’s nothing to be concerned about. While Walters leaving may not be anything more than it appears to be, there’s no denying there have been a notable number of senior departures from the Edmonton studio in recent years.
First, BioWare general manager Casey Hudson and Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah departed the studio in December 2020. Darrah in particular played a massive role in the creation and production of the Dragon Age series, so his departure was certainly a blow to the community. Darrah didn’t leave under negative circumstances, but he did label the oft-touted “BioWare magic” development cycle as a “shit process” in an interview with PC Gamer. The aforementioned term became popular following the publication of Jason Schreier’s lengthy report on the failure of Anthem for Kotaku.
Then, at the end of 2021, Dragon Age Dreadwolf senior creative director Matt Goldman and BioWare mutually parted ways. Goldman would be replaced by John Epler, who remains in the role. Christian Dailey, who replaced Darrah as executive producer on the series, would in turn leave himself in February of last year. This brings us to the present and the departure of Walters, who was a production director on Dreadwolf.
Walters didn’t have anything negative to say in his farewell post, instead briefly reflecting on the last nineteen years and his decision to leave the studio. However, a pattern of senior developers leaving a project usually indicates that the development is troubled, or if it’s not troubled then it still sounds too stressful for those involved.
The failure of Anthem, as reputation damaging as it was, may prove a boon to the legendary studio. In a post-Anthem world, Electronic Arts will be keen to ensure a finished product is shipped by BioWare this time around. This will hopefully mean less “BioWare magic” and more “Let’s give them enough time to actually finish the game.”
As for the state of Dreadwolf, the studio announced that the game had officially reached an alpha build as of October. According to Darrah, Dragon Age Inquisition shipped nine months after declaring an alpha state. He suspects the turnover will be longer this time around to give the team an adequate amount of time to finish the game.
So, should we be worried about Dreadwolf? A steady bleed of senior developers isn’t promising, but a team doesn’t publicly declare an alpha state without being reasonably confident that they can ship a finished game in the near future. The game can be technically played from beginning to end – now is the time for polishing, fining tuning, and bug fixing. Someone at BioWare was willing to stake their reputation on making that declaration. That’s not something one does lightly.
Furthermore, a big problem with the development cycle of Inquisition, which did end up being a good game mind you, was the transition to the Frostbite engine. Being used most notably in developing the Battlefield series, Frostbite wasn’t designed with RPGs in mind. Dreadwolf shouldn’t have this same problem as the team has had time to develop the appropriate tools within Frostbite and will have more experience in using the (somewhat notorious) engine EA’s invested in all these years.
Anthem was an entirely new genre for the Edmonton studio and Mass Effect Andromeda was an over-scoped project developed by a new subsection of the studio based in Montreal. Dragon Age Inquisition, for all its development faults, did come together at the end. It shouldn’t be a gigantic leap for BioWare Edmonton to deliver the next Dragon Age considering they are building atop the Inquisition framework. That is, provided they have been given enough time.
While I don’t think the rate BioWare is losing senior developers is entirely natural, I also don’t believe it’s fully indicative of how well development on Dreadwolf is going. I firmly believe the studio will be given enough time to perfect Dreadwolf. It’s not going to be a game that appeases everyone. I imagine they’ll largely be following the formula of Inquisition given that it’s a direct sequel. Some will call this blind faith in a studio that’s had a string of high-profile blunders in recent years, but something tells me that Dreadwolf is going to be a success. The key is to reasonable planninng, not BioWare “magic”.