I agree with the idea that vets aren't necessarily going to shit gold with every creative project, though to be fair to Darrah IIRC he was brought on to Anthem/Andromeda to get those things shipped super late.
True. And he quite literally managed to get those games to a state they could even ship. He was pulled from Dragon Age both times to try to salvage both projects. I wouldn't pin their failure on him.
I don't know if you can pin it on one or two people. Bioware has been sliding since the founders left. At this point they are probably more of a zombie company that functions because of business processes than some high functioning developer. I have worked for a few companies like that in the past where they are still issuing paychecks but nobody is really driving. Products get released but they are mostly half assed because corporate pressure, lack of vision, and lack of creative passion just suck the life out of people doing the work.
The thing is, BioWare hasn't been "sliding". They've been the same since forever. We've seen multiple reports of how the studio didn't change its ways from the early 2000s despite how significantly game development has changed since then - it's been known many of their projects were messes until late in development when "BioWare Magic" made it all work and they ended up shipping a 90+ MC game. But that was back then and it has been proven it's not working anymore. Anthem is there to prove it.
It seems like they're dealing with the same pains as some Japanese devs early in the HD era inasmuch as it seemed like they were trying to keep working as if it was the early/mid 2000s when that paradigm wasn't workable for what they wanted to put out in the mid 2010s.
I agree to a point. Management is such a broad term when you are talking about organizational dysfunction, though.
It might have been easier to produce while dysfunctional during the limits of the 2000s than the mid-late 2010s.
I'm just referencing the information Jason Schreier obtained from current and former BioWare devs. Anthem and Andromeda suffered greatly from a lack of focus, and doing things over from scratch instead of sticking with what they had and how management seemed to not have a clear vision for the projects or took too long to make decisions. It all went back to management issues sending ripples throughout the entire studio.
The chances are low for BioWare to fuck up an established IP. Dragon Age is most likely going to be fine, as will Mass Effect: Will Continue, provided they don't try to reinvent the wheel
The corporate machine allows you to keep the wheels turning even though nobody is really driving towards any clear goal. I have seen whole teams spend months basically producing meaningless content because they had budget and nobody really noticed.
If an entire team goes months producing meaningless content, that's still a management issue.
It's nothing short of hilarious that DA has enjoyed greater success on Frostbite than the newer Mass Effect.
I think Battlefield 1 is the only Frostbite game to match Inquisition's Metascore. But then, Inquisition has a ton of GOTY awards. Truly a king.
I never finished it, but I probably put a solid 20 hours into Inquisition and I really enjoyed it. It's on my "to play" list for sure. I wonder why they just wouldn't expand off of what they did in Inquisition. To be clear, Inquisition is the only DA game I've played, so I understand I may be overlooking or unaware of things that hardcore DA fans care about.
Even among the hardcore bit of the fan base opinions on Inquisition diverge a bit. A lot of people love it, a lot of people don't, a lot of people like some thing but not all of it.
Yeah, looking at it again, it might not have been. By the time Anthem launched, he was credited as Studio Head. But Anthem has no one credited as Creative Director at all, so it's impossible to say for sure who it was at this point.
DA did a lot AFAIK to lay the groundwork for having shipped tools in Frostbite to build an RPG, while Frostbite traditionally is used for shooters. That Andromeda couldn't leverage this is just crazy.
Man, the DAI DLCs really cement it as one of my games of the generation.
They wrote one of the best BioWare villains so there is a lot to be excited about. Shame Gaider is gone as I love all of his characters, especially Dorian, but we still have the writers of Isabela, Leliana, Varric hanging around so I don't think Dragon Age's writing will get any worse. It's still fun to be excited about a New Dragon Age.
I can't say I was a big fan of Jaw's of Hakkon myself, it was probably the least fun I had with a BioWare DLC which are usually pretty good. I might play the other DLCs one day but the game arbitrarily deciding to make Vivienne the Divine demoralized me from playing any more Inquisition for some time after having spent 100s of hours on the game.
The zone overall was just kinda boring, and the story was meh. I hate how the characters didn't feel that involved in what was going on compared to the DA2 DLCs. Maybe that is a byproduct of it being open world. But what really annoyed me was the enemies and their annoying as invisible debuffs that kills your party before you have time to react.
Yeah, I always saw Jaws of Hakkon as more of a playground. Plot wise, it doesn't do much. It does add a little bit of interesting lore, though. I do like Descent and Trespasser more, though, and they really shake up the lore.
If the game went into full production early 2020 - as one of the producers said -, then yeah, pre-production of this final iteration of the game probably started 2019 or 2018.
