In a rather bombshell moment, it was revealed earlier this morning via Kotaku that Matthew Goldman, the Creative Director on the next Dragon Age project has suddenly left the Dragon Age team after a mutual agreement with BioWare and EA leadership to part ways.
Catching everyone up to speed, Matthew Goldman was appointed the Creative Director position in 2017, soon after Mike Laidlaw left the studio following the previous Dragon Age’s iteration cancellation, known as project Joplin.
Goldman was Inquisition’s Art Director and has been with BioWare since 1998 - which is the year I was born, Goldman has spent around 23 years at the studio, he did dart to work on Halo Wars at one point, but returned back to BioWare multiple times. In 2017, Matthew took over as the Creative Director of the next Dragon Age, known as project Morrison, a rebooted iteration that has since had an influx development, previously the title focussed on implementing live services elements, however, recently it’s pivoted to a single-player experience.
Matthew Goldman joined Twitter at the start of this year, offering significant Dragon Age 4 updates on the occasion like concept art and other development tidbits. In-fact, just last week, Goldman was tweeting about the many aspects that he loved about the Dragon Age franchise, ranging from its beautiful world of heroes, to spotlighting talented fan-art.
However, in an incredibly sudden turn of events, Goldman unexpectedly left the Dragon Age team this week. With you caught up, let’s fully uncover this story by exploring Kotaku’s article that originally revealed this scope.
As reported, Matt Goldman, the senior creative director of the Dragon Age series—including the long-in-development Dragon Age 4—has left the company after “mutually [agreeing] to part ways”.
His departure was announced earlier today in an email sent to staff by BioWare studio GM Gary McKay. The email stated:
“Hi everyone,
I hope you are well. I’m writing to inform you all that Matt Goldman is leaving BioWare. We have mutually agreed to part ways, and his last day is today.
We understand that Matt’s departure has an impact on you, as well as the game’s development. Rest assured our commitment to a high-quality Dragon Age game has not waivered, and we will not ship a game that is not up to BioWare’s standards.
We, including EA’s executive team, have absolute confidence in the leadership here at the studio and the people working on this game to carry forward our vision.”
Kotaku reported further, An Electronic Arts representative tells Kotaku “Matt Goldman is no longer working at BioWare. He leaves the next Dragon Age game in excellent hands, with the team here at the studio who will carry forward our vision for the game.”
Obviously, I have many thoughts on this announcement. I am very saddened that Matthew’s departure has come to pass, especially in this obscure context.
Currently, we don’t know what has happened, however, it sounds ostensibly that something internally has happened recently that has impacted Matthew’s decision to leave BioWare almost immediately - a decision that was severe enough that it was either accept it or leave the studio. Like I mentioned before, last week Goldman was sharing how much he loved the Dragon Age franchise, and suddenly, a week passes, and he’s decided to leave under a mutual agreement with EA to part ways.
I don’t want to speculate further, so I won’t attempt to - whatever it was that caused this departure, it’s undisclosed at the moment.
Honestly, we haven’t seen anything as enigmatic as this before, in the past when a senior developer has left BioWare, for instance like Mark Darrah or Mike Laidlaw, the BioWare blog has always been the first to publicly inform the news, offering an optimistic conclusion to their departure with a farewell message and a few passing quotes, softening the blow.
In those contexts, BioWare have a prepared and collaborated angle that’s voiced with gaming publications while honouring the departed staff member. However, in Goldman’s case, this departure was abruptly released via Kotaku, almost imminently. BioWare haven't had the head start with this one, and we can all see that, there’s a huge sense of confusion and obscurity online. And y'know what, I can understand why everyone is worried because there hasn’t been any clear message or clarity from BioWare on this departure.
As a remedy to that, I hope for a response from BioWare as soon as possible - perhaps a new blog post. You may say that the EA rep has already responded to this situation with their small comment to Kotaku, but there’s still the matter of the next Dragon Age’s Creative Director following Goldman. Who’s going to helm the next game here on out? Surely we should know that too, right? It’s one way to calm this current situation.
With Mass Effect: Legendary Edition’s marketing, we witnessed a more transparent shift with BioWare’s marketing and communication. It was refreshing and proved that BioWare were learning from the past by opening up to the public more. I’m hoping that they will provide more clarity to this entire situation soon.
Largely because I find the email that General Manager Gary McKay sent to BioWare’s staff really cold and curt. It comes across like right, that’s it, Matthew’s out, continue working as it was. There’s no praise for Matthew’s 23 years of commitment and passion to the studio, no sincere farewells and no indication of what follows, it just comes across as an ousting.
Also, tying into the next Creative Director of Dragon Age 4, according to Gary McKay’s email, EA’s executive team has full confidence in BioWare’s leadership, which to me, suggests that they have someone already in mind to replace Goldman as Creative Director.
I would say I’m worried about the changes a new Creative Director could make, given that the next Dragon Age has already gone through so many different development changes - once a live service, online game, recently rebooted as a single-player experience, what is this project going to be in the next one to two years with a new Creative Director joining the midst?
Even further, Gary wrote they have confidence that the team will ‘carry forward our vision’, but what exactly is our vision in the context that EA Exec’s have full confidence in? Is this the same vision that Matthew Goldman had planned out for the next Dragon Age? Or is this a new vision brought about by EA’s executives? I’m not trying to speculate, it’s just that wording caught me off guard. Whose vision is the next Dragon Age following?
IGN mentioned in their Goldman-related article that in February, EA CEO Andrew Wilson was keen to reassure investors that BioWare still had a bright future ahead. Andrew said, "I think that from the outside world there have been some blips in [BioWare's] delivery over the last couple of years, but that has come as a result of them pushing deeply into innovation and creativity, and we feel very, very confident about their future roadmap.”
Only time will tell if EA’s executives and their confidence is to be trusted. Ultimately, I’m upset that Matthew Goldman has left BioWare. He's an incredibly talented individual with so much creativity, innovation and love for Dragon Age. Of course, his departure doesn’t exclude the hundreds of talented developers who’re still at the studio making the next game a reality, but even so, his departure is still a blow to the team.
This brings me to the departures we’ve had so far. Since November 2020, there have been ten departures from the Dragon Age team from a variety of departments.
Melissa Janowicz (Gameplay Designer), Casey Hudson (General Manager), Mark Darrah (Executive Producer), Justin Masse (Experience Designer), Arone Le Bray (Narrative Quality Lead), Presley Hynes (Audio Artist), Gabe Heiland (Lead Product Director), Asa Roos’ (Principal UX Designer), Scott Chorel (Associate Quality Designer), & Matthew Goldman (Creative Director).
I really do feel for the Dragon Age team, firstly because having your senior’s departure announced via an incredibly cold executive email has a strong stench of mismanagement. If I were a developer working on the game and I received that email, I’d certainly have multiple concerns about what’s going on with management and leadership. And secondly, I feel for the team because of the pessimism and toxicity that this is going to create in online spaces - as if it wasn’t bad enough.
At the end of the day, there’s an entire 300+ team of talented developers who’re working every single weekday to ensure the next Dragon Age releases. I have hope in them. And I trust their talent and ambitions, however, I am incredibly wary of EA’s executives and their vision for the next game.
We started this year on a great note with Dragon Age 4’s single-player pivot, that the developers were able to take control of the project since EA witnessed Anthem’s downfall, and I’m honestly sceptical if BioWare does have full control of this project. Only time will tell, unfortunately.
I have a feeling this story will have a follow-up sometime soon if BioWare or Goldman respond to this situation, or we have more of an explanation behind this, Jason Schrier style. I don’t think this is the end of this story.
Anyways, let’s try and stay calm until there’s further clarity. Dragon Age Day and the Game Awards are almost here, there’s plenty of good reasons to be excited, celebrating what we love in this fandom and having fun harmlessly clowning away.
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