BioWare finally released Dragon Age: The Veilguard last month, a release Dragon Age fans had been waiting 10 years for. Unfortunately, for both BioWare and fans, it has not delivered. It’s not selling very well, it didn’t light the world on fire critically, it has divided Dragon Age fans with its contentious changes and various shortcomings, and even got sucked into the ongoing culture war that has engulfed gaming.
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As a result of the underwhelming release, many Mass Effect fans are now worried about the next Mass Effect game currently in development at BioWare. And this is a very reasonable concern, however, everyone seems to have forgotten there is nothing to ruin. BioWare already ruined Mass Effect back in 2017.
Back in 2017, BioWare attempted to reboot Mass Effect with Mass Effect: Andromeda, a mediocre game plagued by many of the same problems that have weighed down Dragon Age: The Veilgaurd. We don’t need to wait and see what modern BioWare does with Mass Effect because we’ve already seen it try. And in the process, it showed itself not to be the shepherd of its future.
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The last time BioWare released a good Mass Effect game was 2012 when it released Mass Effect 3. That was over a decade ago. Many of those responsible for creating Mass Effect are no longer at BioWare. The same is true with Dragon Age. And it’s why Dragon Age: The Veilguard doesn’t feel like a Dragon Age game. It’s not a Dragon Age game; it’s an imposter of one.
At best, Mass Effect fans can hope BioWare does its best to make a very safe copy of the Mass Effect trilogy. Dragon Age: The Veilguard shows it’s not going to do this though. Mass Effect fans hoping to return to the glory years of the series are going to be left disappointed. Unfortunately, that BioWare doens’t exist anymore, and with it has gone the BioWare magic. What it is left is a husk of this former great team that is proving to be both inefficient at not just making great Mass Effect and Dragon Age games, but making games full stop.
It has been a decade since BioWare released a great game. Since then it ruined Mass Effect with the release of Mass Effect: Andromeda in 2017. Then in 2019, it showed it is out of its depth when out of its comfort zone with 2019’s catastrophic failure Anthem. And then in 2024 it killed Dragon Age. That’s three strikes. Most studios would not survive a run of releases like this, let alone a developing pattern of serious development issues. It has though, and now it’s set to bury the series it killed seven years ago.