BioWare becoming Activision? (annual releases thread)

Hi, Dutch.

2017 - MEA
2018 - new IP or DA4
2019 - DA4 or new IP
2020 - ME4 - Shepard returns
2021 - MEA2: Nomad has weapons
2022- New IP2 or DA5
2023 - DA5 or new IP2
2024- ME5: After Shepard
2025 - MEA3: Tempest gets weapons

I see nothing wrong with this supposed timeline. It gives Bioware 4 years to work on each game.

Inquisition and ME:A took longer because they were working with a new engine. I doubt MEA:2 and DA:4 will take as long to produce, because of all the assets they can take from the previous game. I'd guess around 3.5 years for each, maximum.

This is a fairly sensible thought, and attractive to an owner like EA who would want regular cash flow/revenue streams.
I would not be upset to see even close to annual releases, games and engine changes permitting.

The 'drought' (or freeze) I would put down to Frostbite which I get the vibe is very pretty but was much harder to attune to BioWare games than they would wish to get into in public.

Assuming that you have the number of studios to handle it, releasing a game every year isn't really a bad thing.

What Activision(and I'm going to throw Ubisoft under the bus here too) was doing that was problematic was they were releasing the same game on a yearly basis. Mainly Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed. You start to run into franchise fatigue as players just get tired of playing the same game over and over again, and your development teams aren't given much time to incorporate feedback into the next iteration so the games start to feel really pretty much the same.

When you've got about 3-5 years between each game franchise getting a new installment that's not a bad development cycle. Again, assuming that each franchise has its own development team.

It's possible they can even speed things up a bit(though they shouldn't rush it) as they get to know the engine better. It also is beneficial that DICE is the developer of the Frostbite Engine. Being another EA studio, that's a pretty solid advantage when you need to get the engine doing stuff it wasn't originally designed to do.

Just over 2 years ago Frostbite reportedly couldn't handle quadruped animals like Horses. Now Battlefield 1 has them, and I'm guessing BioWare was very instrumental in that happening since they got it working first in Inquisition. That sort of stuff works both ways, and things that the other studios get working BioWare can benefit from.

There are also things that can carry between BioWare games. The dialogue systems both use the dialogue wheel now, so they don't need to re-create that code for Mass Effect: Andromeda. It was already done in Inquisition.

You used to be better at this Dutch.

#MakeTrollingGreatAgain

AssCreed is Ubisoft, not Activision.

Anyway, Them alternating between games, but those timelines are way off.

It'd be unnecessary for any succeeding game to take four years with Bioware using the same base engine and technology in all of their games. The next Mass Effect game wouldn't need four years to cook; the standard two and a half years would suffice since they already have the base mechanics and need only supply line and gameplay improvements and refinements from there.

Not to mention, there wouldn't be a need to release a game every year, especially if the new Edmonton game and the Austin game are in differing genres than Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

Realistically, a 7 months to a year and a half between each Bioware release makes far more sense.

One game in the beginning of the year, one in the EOY holiday season with cycling through IPs from there.

For example, if the games were to finish within this year, it'd be Andromeda in March, Austin's title in November/December, DA4 next spring, Edmonton's game in the fall, Mass Effect 5 the following spring, etc.

The gap between ME3 and Andromeda and the gap between DA2 to Inquisition was due to the transition to a new game engine and getting all of their custom stuff working with Frostbite. Now that they don't have to make engine transitions, the pipeline is refined and dev times are streamlined, which means they can push games out faster.

The problem with Call of Duty doing this every year is because the base gameplay is the same. That, plus there's three CoD franchises at this point doing different things, there's fall off each year as people wait for their next CoD line.

Assassin's Creed's problem isn't just an Assassins Creed problem and moreso the fact that every Ubisoft game uses the same open world mission and side-mission design, so regardless of if you're playing Far Cry or Assassin's Creed, you could essentially be playing the same "go climb this tower to unlock this area" three times in the same year.

Even though they're both RPGs with dialog choices, Mass Effect and Dragon Age are different gameplay experiences, so there needn't be a massive gap between their releases. And if the other games are in different genres or thematically different if they're both action games, that avoid this issue even further.

For those interested, no games beyond Mass Effect Andromeda have any sort of solid release date. Another Dragon Age is expected, but we have no idea when it will be properly announced. To address Dutch directly, none of what you're proposing is necessarily bad or really similar to Activision. There are now multiple game development teams at Bioware, but, I'll admit, they do reuse a few key individuals as needed. Unlike Destiny, which uses Bungies year after year, or Call of Duty, which alternates between Treyarch and Infinity Ward. Aside from that, even Bioware's actions do not support your misguided post. Dragon Age Inquisition came out in 2014 and Mass Effect 3 came out in 2012.

That's why I mentioned Ubisoft in my post =P

I'd say about a year between BioWare releases should be sufficient with the new IP so you'd get a new Mass Effect game in 2017, New IP in 2018, Dragon Age 4 in 2019, and Mass Effect 5 in 2020. A year between releases but about 3 years between each game in any given franchise. That's what I was going for with my previous post. You might be able to get it down to about 2.5 but I'd be hesitant about trying to go much faster than that(especially if they want to push this exploration of huge wide open zones, which requires a bit more content than the previous games had).

Ubisoft's problem is trying to rush out games on a mass scale. They don't have the time to change anything because they want every franchise to be a yearly release, so it all must have very little iteration between games in the franchise. As a result their games all start having the same core formula because they're trying to rush everything using what they have. The last new interesting thing they had for me was the naval combat in Assassin's Creed which they made 1 game based around and then ignored it ever existed.

Somebody could make a really good open world pirate game with those mechanics. A proper one that isn't tied to needing to also be an Assassin's Creed game.

2017
Yep.

2018
Announcement of KOTOR3 PLEASE!!!!!!!!

2019
Possible.

2020
Probably not...
More then likely another SWTOR expansion.

2021
Teaser of ME:A2

2022
ME:A2

2023
Possible.

Now that they have the exclusive license, I expect EA has at least one Bioware studio on a Star Wars game. KOTOR3 better happen.