I’m already back with another news update on the next Dragon Age game. In today’s stories: we’ve got a new Dragon Age Creative Director since Matthew Goldman’s departure, I’m going over the Dragon Age team’s shuffling since Executive Producer Christian Dailey's departure, a brand new EA patent, and former Executive Producer Mark Darrah’s has offered plenty of his insights on Dragon Age 4 in a separate YouTube video and an interview with Last Stand Media hosted by my favourite YouTuber MrMattyPlays.
New Creative Director John Epler:
Moving on to the news, most importantly, we have a new Creative Director since Matthew Goldman’s bombshell departure. Narrative Director John Epler announced on Twitter that he’s a Regular Arby's regretter, and he’s the new Creative Director of the next Dragon Age game.
I’m so excited to hear this news, based on what I’ve seen online, John Epler is a fantastic person to helm the next Dragon Age with the rest of the team. Back in 2020, BioWare’s 25 years book shared a message from John Epler on the change going on within BioWare:
“I am excited for what the future holds. I think BioWare is changing. I think we’re at a crossroads where we can either accept that and move into the new BioWare, or we can try to cling to the past. We have to be respectful of our origins without being constrained by them. It’s an exciting time and I’m really looking forward to what the next five years brings.”
“’I’m one of those people who is probably going to be here until they have to literally wheel my desiccated corpse out of the building, because I love working here and I love the people I work with and I love getting to come into work every day to have long, detailed conversations about how eluvians work.”
With those words, I fully believe he’s perfect for this CD role. But don’t just take my word for it. David Gaider, the former Lead Writer and Creator of Dragon Age tweeted, “To the DA fans who've been (understandably) wringing their hands in concern: if the other names announced don't mean much to you, look at John Epler becoming the Creative Director for DA as a really positive sign. He is marvelous, and this is a fantastic development.”
This is honestly fantastic to hear! For those who don’t know what a Creative Director does, Dragon Age Writer Mark Kirby tweeted about their role within the team, Mary said. “For those who need to know this: A Creative Director is like the coach for a sports team. Their job is not to tell each team member what to do and how to do it. That's not possible in the daily pace of game dev. Their job is to get their team to work together well. Directors make the call on whether a given piece of game content fits the overall plan for the game, and whether it meets quality to ship. They work to get their teams to reach their fullest potential. If they're not doing those things, either because they constantly change their minds, or because nothing is good enough, or because they don't care about the team itself, they are bad directors. Period. Endstop. The vision doesn't matter. Ideas are cheap. Implementation is hard.”
I’m super glad that we’ve got John Epler as the CD since Matthew Goldman’s departure. Speaking on the current Dragon Age team in production, I wanted to go over the new roles given to each member since Chrisitan Dailey’s departure.
Dragon Age Team In Production:
The latest BioWare blog stated that a strong leadership team of industry and Dragon Age veterans is in place to carry us through Production and beyond. The game’s Production Director is Mac Walters, who recently led the development for Mass Effect Legendary Edition and has an 18-year history with BioWare. Corrine Busche, who has been leading the design direction for Dragon Age, is our Game Director. She has a wealth of experience, including 15 years at EA, and a passion for the franchise. Benoit Houle is the Director of Product Development, and he brings an in-depth understanding of the franchise thanks to having worked on every single Dragon Age game – starting over 16 years ago on Dragon Age: Origins. I will also be working more closely with the Dragon Age team as they go through production while continuing to guide the studio.
And now John Epler presses on as the Creatve Director. I am so happy to hear about the team’s shuffling and changes, it paints a brilliant picture of the many people in charge creating this game, and I’m so happy with the team we’ve got at the moment. Moving on to the next story…
New EA Patent:
Comicbook.com reported that a new EA patent has surfaced online, and the technology it protects could play a substantial role in shaping future games from EA and its studios, particularly BioWare, which is currently working on a new Mass Effect game and Dragon Age 4.
The patent in question involves NPC behaviour, and, more specifically, equipping NPCs with the ability of self-learning, which in turn would permit NPCs to adapt to the decisions the player is making. Of course, NPCs reacting to the decisions players make isn't a revolutionary idea nor a new one. If you play a Renegade Shepard in the Mass Effect games, NPCs react differently to you compared to a Paragon Shepard. They do this though because of precise scripting on the behalf of BioWare.
So, what's different about the patent? Well, if you read between the lines of the technical jargon, it sounds like the aim is to make NPCs react not only to decisions players make over the course of a story but to the player's playstyle as well. In other words, rather than check if you made a certain decision to influence dialogue, the NPC would react to all available data about the player, and then adapt themselves based on this data.
The implications for the new Mass Effect and Dragon Age games are obvious, as this would be an evolution in the BioWare formula, which is predicated on giving weight to the micro and macro decisions players make by having NPCs and the larger game world react differently based on said decisions.
That said, for now, these possibilities are locked behind a patent. Not only is it common for nothing to ever come from patents, but even if this patent is put to use, it could be years before we see fruit from it, and of course, it may not be utilized in the way we are imagining.
Always exciting to hear about potential patent AI’s that may shape the next Dragon Age, and potentially the next Mass Effect.
Former Executive Mark Darrah’s Insights:
Former Executive Producer Mark Darrah created a video on his YouTube channel called, “Why I'm not worried about Dragon Age 4”, and I just wanted to air some of his thoughts in this video because I think it can help calm a few sentiments regarding the next Dragon Age game in development. I will link this video down below, so you can hear it for yourself and support Mark’s YouTube channel.
Essentially in this video, Mark Darrah said that Dragon Age 4’s development has many similarities to Dragon Age: Origin’s development, i.e, the team have been working on it for a really long time, the overall project direction has changed a couple of times, some key leadership members have departed and then been replaced - Mark Darrah was potentially the third or fourth Executive Producer on Dragon Age: Origins. And just like Dragon Age 4 recently, the Creative Director of Dragon Age: Origins changed late in development. But despite all of that difficulties, and to the outside perspective- what would seem like a disaster of development, Dragon Age: Origins was fantastic and incredibly successful. I’ll talk more about Mark Darrah’s hope for the next Dragon Age in my next story, but ultimately he is very hopeful for this game and trusts its team. Mark said that triple-A games aren’t made by individuals, they are made by brilliant vision driving the game to completion, it’s about the collective vision, ideas and creativity of the team. While many have left the project, most of the team know this I.P, most of that team know how to create a great game, Mark believes that they will do just that with Dragon Age 4. And he thinks EA understands that and will give them the time to accomplish that.
Former Executive Mark Darrah’s Interview:
Continuing Mark Darrah’s inspiring and hopeful words on Dragon Age 4, Mark was interviewed on Defining Duke, a Last Stand Media podcast hosted by my favourite YouTuber MrMattyPlays - which I just got to throw a massive shoutout to Matty here, he has become a friend lately and exchanged this interview to me for free, when the podcast is a Patreon exclusive perk. So thank you so much, Matty, you’re my hero!
Before we delve into this, it’s worth noting that this podcast was recorded just before Executive Producer Christian Dailey’s departure was announced. So bear that in mind, anyhow, on the podcast, Mark spoke on games industry crunch conditions to Anthem’s rocky development, Mass Effect Andromeda and Dragon Age 2’s backlash, and many insights on the next Dragon Age.
I’ll start with the highlights I’ve picked out concerning the future of BioWare and Dragon Age 4. This might be quite rambunctious, but it’s a lot of info to go through.
Mark discussed something that BioWare has been struggling with, BioWare has big teams, they have a process that is good for 100 - 200 team members, but those teams have grown beyond 200, they’ve had to develop and adapt to new processes. That has been a huge challenge for the studio over the years. They may have just adapted to this.
Concerning EA and BioWare’s relationship, Mark doesn’t think EA knows/knew what BioWare is considering the bouncing back and forth of the next Dragon Age. Shifting between a single-player to live-service back to single-player has largely been EA’s decision. There was pressure for Inquisition and Andromeda to be on Frostbite by EA, it was essentially mandated.
On the other hand, with EA’s management, BioWare hasn’t slipped as much as it used to before EA’s acquisition. They have helped largely maintain the studio.
Regarding Mark’s departure from BioWare, Mark and Casey Hudson didn’t coordinate on their departures in December 2020, there were timing things that lined up for both of them to resign. At the time, It was frustrating for Mark, Dragon Age 4 was getting into the primary driving position for BioWare. Mark doesn’t think anything corporate-related triggered him to leave. He’s unsure about Casey’s reasoning for his departure.
For those wanting BioWare to return to their glory days, Mark doesn’t think that the classic BioWare return to old spirit isn’t gone from the studio, the thing that makes a BioWare game special are the characters, Mark thinks that this is still true, there’s still a pedigree for fantastic characters.
Now, this is where it gets juicy, in relation to Jeff Grubbs's report that Dragon Age 4 is in very good shape, Mark thinks that time-wise, it makes sense that Dragon Age 4 is reportedly in very good shape at the moment, the team would’ve needed to adapt.
Even when Mark Darrah was at the studio in 2020, the team were still expecting a 2023 release window. Mark thinks that’s very plausible, he thinks if the team have been able to increase their completion urgency and bring things to further phases earlier, they could be in really good shape.
There was stuff getting there when Mark was at the studio over a year ago, if BioWare has been stable enough to keep that stuff, then they probably have a really good foundation to build upon. Mark would think that they probably were able to keep the things that were nearing completion when Mark left. For 18 months out, they probably have more done than any other BioWare project probably has had. With a tighter core, it will let them go faster. Ultimately, if they’ve adapted, Mark thinks the team should be in significantly better shape going forward.
Matty said that he feels like there’s a sentiment that BioWare feel like they need to pull the next Dragon Age off. Regarding this do or die speculation, Mark said that in a post-Anthem world, he thinks there’s some truth to that. He’s not sure if EA would shut BioWare down, but he thinks retaining BioWare’s reputation is more important. If BioWare is making quality and getting people excited, that gives them leeway with EA. Mark believes that Dragon Age 4 needs to be a good game, but he also thinks EA knows that now too. He thinks EA recognises the blame in the past for previous mistakes with Anthem and Andromeda. Jedi Fallen Order has also changed perceptions internally at EA.
On Mark’s final exit note that was posted on the BioWare website, Matty asked Mark how much of that was true and did he actually share his final sentiments that the game is in good hands.
Mark said that if it’s on the BioWare website, it’s gone through somebody to approve a message. One of Mark’s frustrations with EA is just how he was effectively a second community manager of Anthem because they weren't willing to them him, no and so he was basically made to out messages that wouldn’t survive this process. But Mark does believe in what he wrote, he believes that at the core, the Dragon Age team remains strong. There are definitely people on this team who know how to make a great game, they know the IP, he thinks they are well-positioned to do this.
And that’s today’s top stories, overall, we’ve got a lot of good news, many things to be excited about. It actually feels like we can get decently hyped for this next game given what we’ve heard today from Mark, the team's restructure of staff, and the project following suit to Dragon Age: Origins, it’s really exciting!