BioWare: Casey Hudson, Mark Darrah to Leave Studio, All Current Projects Planned to Continue

I think what we tend to forget in a lot of these departures, is that some of these lead devs want to go back to actually working "in the weeds" when it comes to developing a game. Overseeing development likely grew old for them, and there's some chance they opined for a time in which they were working in the small office building things up from scratch.

I would describe it as "BioWare wants to make games. EA wants to make money."

EA's biggest problem is that they didn't see the value of BioWare as a "halo" studio - which would have been the perfect compromise between the two positions.

The push wasn't against live service, but rather control over Bioware. There's been a restructuring. An overhaul, if you will, in the entire creative process behind Bioware's game development pipeline. I don't like how this change influences the final product that comes out of that process and I am not talking about the MTX part. That is a battle long lost and it isn't Bioware specific. I don't have something to show you, because there's nothing made, under that procedure. You'll see some results with Anthem Next. I expect a lot of streamlining with very little branching in narration, but, as of yet, I have little to nothing to base it on. I'd put it in more Naughty Dog territory. And don't get me wrong, Naughty Dog have made some great games, with the Uncharted series and TLoU ... 1. But in comparison to what Bioware offered, it pales in comparison for me. And, mind you, this is merely the direction I expect EA to have Bioware go. Again, I don't know to what extent the concessions being made will mirror this. Maybe I am wrong. But the "Bioware Experience" mantra, I expect it to die with DA4 and even there, I expect to see a significant downgrade to character personalization. Again, maybe I am wrong, that is just what I expect to see.

As for the departure, yes, there was some creative differences and that had a lot to do with the scope Casey had for Bioware and what EA wanted, but it wasn't about MTX. That was something Bioware had wavered since the ME3MP. EA wants to target larger audiences and they think the old "Bioware Experience" is a drawback at this point.

Tbf though, from EA's perspective, something had to happen. 5 years and MEA disappoints. How long did Anthem have? 5 years as well? And that was a train-wreck. If I'm EA, I'm absolutely demanding some changes. But unfortunately the changes EA knows how to make are the sort of changes that will turn BioWare into another Maxis. (fwiw I'd love to be wrong.)

Well, it doesn't bode well in either cases.

Given those depatures, yes, I'd hope they planned somethign to counter the negativity and anxiety. I mean, those type of departures could generate worry in any case, but in the case of Bioware and EA, it's on another level.

That said, I'm not going to be too optmistic about tomorrow. 

At this point, I'm still keeping an eye for DA4 and maybe ME5, but I will wait and see when it comes to whatever future projects Bioware announces after that.

I didn't mean that either, just that given what happened to those developers, it wouldn't be something I hope it happens to Bioware.

And lead devs don't necessarily make the game. It's the hundreds of employees that work at BioWare do, the ones you don't see on Twitter-- that actually make the game. 

Wow. Both leaving at once and Mark Darrah leaving right in the middle of DA4. Things don't look good for Bioware.

Is it possible EA has put measures in place to have more direct say over BioWare’s game management given the leadership failures with Anthem and Andromeda?

This may be less a case of Darrah and Casey not liking what was happening with the games or just more generally not liking losing some of what autonomy they had.

Well, if they didn't like DA2's reception, maybe they shouldn't have pushed Bioware for a one-year development?
I mean, I do agree that Bioware has a lot of blame for what happened in recent years, but for DA2 and I'd argue ME3, they gave them little development time, expecially DA2. Even with the new direction the game went compared to DAO, I honestly doubt it'd have got that reception if they had a proper development time, even if a part of the fanbase would've still complained about the changes. Expecially since something similar already happened with ME2.

Your point on ME2 is actually true, but that game still gave us plenty of choices in regards of character personalization (not in regards of Shepard's appearance, but that happened for ME as well).