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EA: Ruin Everything (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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[–] 40 points 2 days ago* (4 children)

I gotta be honest, this is not unexpected at all.

BioWare released 4 games since 2017, one of which was just a remaster/collection of the older Mass Effect titles. The other three games were Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, and Dragon Age Veilguard, all of which aren't exactly considered the studio's best work. These games did not sell well, obviously (and in some cases there are EA earning reports that confirm this), leading to studio closure. Honestly I am surprised this didn't happen sooner. The talent that actually made BioWares reputation probably havent been at that studio for a while.

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  • [–] 21 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 child)

    The talent that actually made BioWares reputation probably havent been at that studio for a while.

    Exactly. A few key figures left not long after the EA buyout. The rest trickled out over time. The Wikipedia article for Dragon Age Veilguard has an entire section dedicated to the revolving door of key staff leaving or being laid off over the course of its almost 10 year development.

    It's far from everyone, but a few names from the old Bioware are currently working on this game set to release next year, which is billing itself as a sort of spiritual successor to Mass Effect:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_(2027_video_game)

    Edit: And there is also a spiritual successor to KotOR in development with involvement of a few other key names from old Bioware.

    https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Fate_of_the_Old_Republic

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    This is why I still consider it fair to blame EA for downstream effects like this. There's no guarantee as independent studios that they would function better, but they at least would have original staff from star games. Like PopCap, and Reddit refuses to acknowledge EA had any part of the garbage PopCap releases now.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago

    all of which aren’t exactly considered the studio’s best work

    That's very mildly put

    Andromeda, while a decent game today, was an absolute shitshow on release that was incredibly buggy. Not even thinking about the face animations that still haunt me to this day.

    Anthem, while mechanically being genuinely great, severely lacked content and had seemingly no plan for the future.

    And Veilguard was absolutely bankrupt from a gameplay standpoint. It was the most boring and most shallow game in the franchise, even more than inquisition and that was already fairly shallow. Not even mentioning the horrendous story and writing.

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