The Death of Bioware

Alas, Poor Bioware. I Knew Thee Well.

Bioware is gone, dear reader.

Closed down for good.

Kaput.

If you had told me that ten years ago I would have been devastated, but now? Now I feel nothing.

In fact I'm not surprised they were shut down, but that they managed to stay open for so long.

I understand that may sound strange to some of you given Bioware made some of the best RPGs of a generation, and, honestly, I take no joy in typing those words. After all my friends and I played the shit out of Baldur’s Gate, KOTOR, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age and loved every minute of it.

Why, then, am I not joining the many voices online mourning the loss of this industry titan, this Legend?

Because I already accepted the Bioware I loved died a long time ago.

The studio made some of my favorite games of all time, yes, and I'll cherish them always, but the sad fact remains that many- if not most- of the people responsible for said creation have been gone for years at this point.

And boy does it show.

Many blame EA for the sharp decline in quality, dear reader. That company is after all not exactly renowned for fostering artistic expression (case and point their treatment of Respawn) but while I would love nothing more than to blame EA I simply can't in good conscience. No, the fault for Biowares demise is their own, and anyone paying attention has seen this coming for a long time.

I mean just look at their most recent entries.

When Mass Effect 3 came out in 2012 it got some heat for the ending, sure, but it was still a helluva good game and was otherwise received well.

Dragon Age Inquisition came out in 2014 and again people had their critiques but it was still phenomenal (and in my opinion wholely deserved the title Game of the Year).

Despite any perceived flaws both of these games were enjoyed by millions, their writing and world building top notch.

Then in 2017 we got Mass Effect: Andromeda.

The “Crapped Your Pants” Walk Was Actually Foreshadowing For The Company In Real Life. Who Knew?

Suddenly the dialogue was clunky, the gameplay stunted and glitchy to the point of rendering the game unplayable. Gamers rejected the story, characters and premise and sales dipped as a result.

It was a disappointing outing, and a surprising one at that.

The mighty had fallen, but they would fall still further when in 2019 Anthem fell into eveyones laps like a wet fart.

It Is Genuinely Shocking How Badly They Dropped The Ball On This Concept

Unlike everything else in Biowares repertoire Anthem didn't even have an identity of its own, chasing trends that were already stale when the game was announced.

Once again sales underperformed and the game quicky faded into obscurity, limping along like the mortally wounded beast that it was until its small but devoted fanbase was permanently kicked off the servers earlier this year.

Clearly things were not going well and questions were being asked. I mean back to back disappointments? From Bioware? What was going on?

Rumors of butting heads, internal power struggles, studio interference, and general lack of vision began to abound, and as a sort of apology the studio released a Mass Effect Remaster in 2021.

Sure it was just a bit of a polishing up of the old games, but it was still a nice gesture. If anything it served as a reminder of what once was, and what we all hoped would be again.

People were hopeful. Good ol Bioware could surely turn things around. Right?

Then came Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

A sequel ten years in the making, the Veilguard had a lot of hype behind it, right up until they released the first trailer. All of a sudden the audience recoiled in horror as the dark, gritty setting was reduced to a Disney-fied caricature filled with golly gee whizz dialogue and quirk chungus humor.

Who The FUCK Thought This Was A Good Idea?!

People were fucking alarmed, dear reader. Hell, I was alarmed.

Trailers are just that though, and Bioware rushed to do damage control, saying it was a marketing faux paus and not indicative of the of the game itself.

Then the game actually came out and everyone realized that statement was a complete fucking lie.

I devoted an entire review to the Veilguard, dear reader (you should go read it) but suffice it to say the game was an unmitigated disaster.

The tone? Gone. The characters? Insufferable. The art direction? Atrocious. The writing? Gag me with a spoon and fuck me with a rake the writing was terrible.

Veilguard was more than simply a bad entry into the series, dear reader. It was an affront.

Measely narrative choices, dull combat and gameplay, puzzles that were insultingly easy to the point they might as well have been designed for children- this game had it all. Worse it undermined the previous games in a way that seemed to mock anyone who liked them in the first place. This wasn't endearing, it was an insult.

The lore fans loved was thrown out with the bathwater and so they didn't so much walk away from the game as run, taking their checkbooks with them.

No official sales numbers for the Veilguard have been released that I could find and thats generally not a sign of roaring success.

Why is that important? Beacuse it costs money to make video games. Like a lot. Hundreds of millions of dollars were sunk into Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Publishers don't want to invest that much money and time to break even or squeak out a profit but to have resounding successes and none of those games were.

Not only that but after so many years of failure the court of public opinion finally turned against the studio, the doom of which should have been apparent when they announced they were making a new Mass Effect and the geveral reaction was not excitement but dread.

For the root of the problem look no further than the people who worked there. Gander at the teams that worked on their projects over the years and you'll see less and less of the familiar faces, the Old Breed leaving to work at other companies or forming their own.

As the number of returning employees dwindled so too did the quality of Biowares work and the revolving door continued until the company became the corporate equivalent of the Ship of Theseus- with so many parts replaced it was a genuine philosophical question as to whether it could really be called the same.

There were many twists and turns that led us here, dear reader, but in the end the tale of Bioware simply became one of diminishing returns- in both quality and revenue.

Oh they may have posted a sappy goodbye on X or Twitter or whatever the fuck we call it now reminiscing about "the good old days," but that is quite frankly bullshit that deserves none of your sympathy because hardly anyone working there today actually made the games we loved. They piggy backed on the Brand and rode Bioware into the dirt, so fuck 'em.

Yes, Bioware may be dead, dear reader, but make no mistake: it's been that way for a while.

All that changed was they made it official.

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