It’s honestly pretty sad to see the state that Bioware is in right now. At one point in time, it was one of the most prominent and reliable game developers out there. It worked on multiple IPs and had great results with pretty much all of them, including original titles. The team was known for expansive yet packed universes/worlds to explore and the freedom to make your own path. Then, the wheels slowly started to fall off, and it left many wondering if the team could bounce back. With Mass Effect 5, the real question from fans is whether we’ll ever get the game at all!
This comes right on the tale of Electronic Arts revealing a dip in stocks due to a certain Bioware title from last year “not living up to expectations.” That game was mired in controversy from its full reveal and hasn’t recovered since. It’s so bad that neither EA nor Bioware has revealed how many people actually bought the game. That’s not good, by the way.
Focusing on the fifth entry in the developer’s spacefaring saga, a former Bioware Director, Mark Darrah posted a video revealing the transition process from one game to another within the company, and it’s not good news that he’s revealing that the game:
“Isn’t ready to suddenly have a team of 250, 300 people working on it. In the past when BioWare was toying with being on just one project, like on Anthem, like on The Veilguard, that project was up and running at full speed so it was able to suck in every available resource. It had enough existing infrastructure that it was able to absorb everything.”
To that end, Darrah noted that while some people will be moving to the 5th entry, others will go to other parts of EA for the time being for the simple reason that the game “doesn’t need them” at the moment.
That is indeed how the game development process works in most cases. After all, you don’t need everyone working on everything all at once, as you’d just clash over various things. Instead, there’s a pipeline of processes that grows and shrinks depending on the game’s status and needs.
As such, Darrah noted that Mass Effect 5 is likely still in pre-production, which is a far cry from the teases that Bioware has given us recently about how the game will be great due to the “leadership” that it’s under. Such promises have been made before, and it’s not turned out well.
