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

That isn't entirely clear. It's all on the optics of the situation. Casey saw it as infringing on his territory and lack of trust from EA. Which makes his position feel more volatile and himself being more uncertain about his future in the company. Which isn't ideal circumstances to be working under. On the one hand, it is understandable for EA to want more control in their investments, on the other hand, Casey didn't exactly have much saying on the one game that was released under him; Anthem. Presumably, he was hired to do a job and now EA were telling him, through no fault of his own, that he wasn't being trusted.

Personally, I would not be happy with that prospect.

Financially, it was profitable, but they wanted the game to have been better received. Which is why the, effectively, 9 months of full development DA2 had, changed to 18 for ME3 and from that to 24 for DA:I. Which got a further extension for the character race choice option, which, honestly, wasn't that great an implementation, especially when 80% of the userbase played human male, either way.


EA doesn't see it as their problem, unfortunately. Not entirely. And ME3, the ending? Entirely laid the blame on Bioware.


Every game gets some complaints. I doubt that even BG2 didn't get complaints, because it dropped the explorable map areas of BG1, for example. Some complaints are inescapable. Which is why I've laid out the 70% rule. You only need to hit the nail on the head 70% of the time. Anything above and you're good, anything less and you're fucked. ME2 hit the nail in the head enough times to be the best received ME game in the entire franchise.


Exactly. We had choice over our character's personality and outlook. We got a lot less with ME3.

Oh, I didn’t mean that the endings were EA’s faults. What I meant was that ME3 still needed more development time, regardless of them. I’m on a similar mindset for the race options in DAI, not as a general rule as I like having them, but because the role of the protagonist (in my opinion), works better with the human background and it’s more tied to humans and their organizations. That, and the execution was quite bad, in regards of their appearance.

I don’t know how EA viewed DAI’s reception beyond sales, but I’d argue it was a step up compared to DA2 and ME3’s reception, overall. 

I also agree on your point on ME3, and I’d say something similar, although it’s more related to attributes and skill trees, happened with DAI. 

As I've said, another 18 months minimum, to have been the game it needed to be.


100% agreed.


I mean, a step up from complete shitshow is an improvement, but it left a lot of players unsatisfied and after Witcher 3, which I haven't even touched, it just got blown out of the water. The internet collectively forgot about it.


There's so many things that ME3 is lacking, we'd be here all day.

*looks up*
Meh.
*Goes back to painting Space Wolf models*

Edit: forgot to put this song in my post, lol! Enjoy:

you know. when Mike left, I freaked out. Spared a few tears of apprehension and took a drink. Then the reboot happened and the level of upset I had just kinda made me... take a step back. Like, I didn't step away on purpose, but restrospectively, that's what I did. Lack luster comics and Tevinter Nights made me step further away.

I don't think I care very much, anymore. Like. I'll buy DA4 when it finally gets around to happening, if it happens. Playing it will be a conversation where at the end of it, I'll decide to stay or say goodbye. So when the information of this settled in, just now, my thought was... I'm glad I found Visual Novels to play. I've found other stories to love and digital boyfriends to smooch.

I have to disagree. ME3 had nuance, while ME2 was as binary as it got. Also had many times we had no choice, such as working with Cerberus in the first place.

Still say ME2 was a worse offender than ME3.

I was expecting the development to go to shit, so this isn't a surprise to me.

I only just heard about this.....omg 🥺😰 I want to be optimistic for DA4 but I am worried. Is the writing on the wall? 😭 Bioware please reassure us die-hard fans 😭 I was so excited for DA day and they leave on the eve!?!?!? wtf....it's literally the fans keeping this ship alive at this point, Bioware can't even be bothered hosting their own forums to discuss events like this. Why would they leave in the middle of development?! 

Just one more way 2020 keeps on giving.

This definitely gives me a melancholy feeling.

Casey Hudson has been at the foundation of a great many of my favorite games ever. I don't need to agree with a person's every decision to admire and respect him or her. I will always respect Casey for his creativity; his willingness to absorb some tough blows and still love to create; and for the high praise his peers and subordinates have generally had for him.

It feels like Casey "just returned". I vaguely hoped he might stabilize BioWare. While his comments state this was precisely his goal and that he feels he's done it, I'm not sure I can feel optimistic about that. No games have yet emerged from his stabilized BioWare, and recent efforts have taught me to expect little.

Mark was one of the people who still inspired positive feelings, nostalgic hope that "Old BioWare" wasn't completely dead. His coworkers always seemed to love him. It's sad to see him go.

I've left a job that I loved and people with whom I loved working. It's always sad to go, but eventually the time comes. I left because my industry and employer had changed. The old ways of doing things, serving clients, etc... weren't going to return. The job had changed enough that my love had dimmed. When given the chance, I jumped on a severance package. I had a wistful, melancholy moment with my team on my last day, and as I drove away for the final time. Yet, it was for the best. A decade later, it's obvious that I made the right call.

I sense that same wistful sadness in their comments, particularly in Mark's. Casey has been down this road previously. Mark had more than 20 consecutive years with BioWare. That's tough. I wish these guys the very best.


I've often felt BioWare needed fresh leadership to break free from some of their silly, repetitive mistakes. That said, I always viewed guys like Casey and Mark as the ones still carrying a bit of the old BioWare Magic. Shit development hurt MEA badly (the last game about which I cared), and the writing was not up to par. Still, some of that magic shined through in a game they basically developed in 18 months. That was enough for me to hope (but not expect) that any future, properly managed Mass Effect might be at least somewhat on par with the earlier efforts.

Maybe these new leaders will make kick ass games. I hope so, but I skip lots of great games. I loved great BioWare games. Every time I see a name like Hudson, Laidlaw, Darrah leave, I'm reminded that all things end. The Old BioWare is long gone. BioWare might produce good games under fresh leadership; but will they have the same feel as the old favorites? Probably not for me. Those were a product of times and creative teams long past. It's not realistic to expect future teams to magically replicate a subjective thing like a "feeling" older games give me.

I, too, have grown older and changed. Now I'm an oldish guy who posts overly verbose comments on message boards when game devs dare make career changes. I've said enough. Forgive the plentiful typos. That's a lot of letters above, and Samsung autocorrect is terribad.