Following the disappointing sales of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it’s looking like BioWare’s fantasy IP won’t be making a comeback anytime soon. Former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider believes that the series may be dead, and the game’s poor commercial performance–according to EA’s expectations–was likely the final nail in its coffin.
“Throughout the entire time I was there, we were always one breath away from the project being shelved,” Gaider said to PC Gamer. “The thing that happened is that we kept releasing games, and it would sell much better than they thought it should, and it kept surprising them.”
Gaider added that Mass Effect was treated as EA’s favorite child, even if they didn’t sell as well as early Dragon Age games did. The writer added that Mass Effect was seen as a “slick, modern RPG” that was easy to sell, whereas Dragon Age was perceived to be an “old-fashioned” story-focused RPG, and any success it experienced was deemed to be a “fluke” by EA.
But would Gaider ever consider returning to the franchise? Absolutely, he said, so long as he was handed the keys to the IP and it wasn’t produced under EA. “I think that’d be an interesting thing to do. To go back to the basics of what made Dragon Age appeal to so many people in the first place. And go somewhere dark and dangerous, and do things that will make people upset. I think that’s what I would want to do with it,” Gaider concluded.
In the aftermath of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, EA laid off a lot of BioWare’s staff, leaving behind a “core” team to work on the next Mass Effect game. Other related developments include EA announcing last year that it will go private, as part of a $55 billion leveraged buyout funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, and private equity company Silver Lake. Multiple analysts believe that EA might sell off some of its studios so that it can service its $20 billion debt, and BioWare could be a prime candidate.