I really tried to enjoy myself. God, I tried so hard. I attempted to find nuggets of joy within its hamfisted dialogue, one-note companions and the flashy but soulless fights. But I just couldn’t do it. Every time there was a glimmer of hope, it was dashed against the rocks of infinite disappointment.
Honestly, I’m amazed I finished it. There was certainly a point where I was starting to feel like I’d rather do anything else than listen to a hot Grey Warden talk about his big dumb bird for the hundredth time, or play therapist to a giant dragon slayer who just wants to moan about how their mum doesn’t understand them. These should have been great characters. A veteran knight reclaiming his order’s lost legacy, a proud warrior wrestling with their cultural and gender identity—there’s so much good stuff to mine here. But nope, they’re just plain boring. All of them.
I’m beating a dead horse, I know. I’ve already said my piece. But it’s just a real shame. When I got to the final cutscene that teased what we can expect from the next Dragon Age, it really sealed the deal. I’m out. BioWare just isn’t telling stories I care about anymore. Instead of moping around, I’m moving on. BioWare had an exceptional run, but that developer is long gone. What’s left is just an EA studio that makes middling games I’m not really interested in.
Bioware is (was) actually many studios in a trenchcoat - Bioware Edmonton (“old” Bioware, ME trilogy, Anthem), Bioware Austin (Sw:TOR, DA: I) and formerly Bioware Montreal (ME: Andromeda) and a bunch of other smaller teams.
Though almost all of the veterans have left, so it’s now kinda a Ship of Thesius type situation, Bioware only in name.
Seriously this sentiment is old as hell. This comic is old as hell.
The BioWare of today is not the one that made the original Baldur’s Gate. Shit, it’s not even the BioWare that made the original Dragon Age.
They’ve been a hollowed out shell chasing whatever “AAA” style sells the most for a long time now. If Baldur’s Gate 3 had come out before Witcher 3, you can bet your ass Veilguard would look and play a hell of a lot more like BG3, because it’s painfully clear they did everything they could to crib the speed of the combat in Witcher 3, which was the hot shit when they started development. Similar to how Inquisition was chasing the Open World fad. If Baldurs Gate 3 had been the hot shit when they began development? Veilguard would have played like that instead.
It is what it is, and this has been this way since at least Dragon Age 2/Mass Effect 2.
They’re just so risk-adverse. It’s the same as Andromeda, and Ubisoft is another great example. They’re so worried about getting the most players that they’re afraid to take risks. What if players don’t like this, what if the audience is smaller? Everything is done by committee and it becomes a fairly flat game.
Just as an FYI, “averse” is what you want there, rather than “adverse”. Likely an autocorrect thing, but figured I’d mention it just in case.
Strange that that’s the case. The thing that made the Witcher 3 good was the writing of the side quests, not the combat.
Not sure if I’ve played a game that’s pivoted to be more like the Witcher that has met that standard in that regard.
The Witcher games have all had terrible combat, just getting slightly better each game. The folklore and universe are really what sells the Witcher games. Though the first one was still real bad.
I hated the combat in Witcher 3. The combat in Veilguard does not feel the same to me, so if it is biting the Witcher, it also improved it. I get they were probably chasing trends, but Veilguard is a solid action game. The author clearly has a bias to CRPGs, and a soft spot for Origins (as do I), but that does not make Veilguard a bad game. Just different
Bioware was dead 10 years prior…good morning.
I’ve been playing it and enjoying it. It could be better. Most games could. I had kind of low expectations, honestly. I’m glad it’s a single player game with no live-service and no season-pass. I’ll probably play it a second time. Runs kind of like crap, so I might play it again in the distant future where I have better hardware.
I imagine a lot of internet duds are mad about how there’s a queer subplot, but they can go fuck themselves. Unfortunately, this creates a problem where if some random guy is bashing it I have to try to suss out if they’re really just mad about queer stuff. It’s hard to tell. And because we’re all just emotional idiots, some people might be mad about the queer stuff and not realize it, and the words that come out of their mouth will be “boring characters”.
But also a lot of their games have problems. Mass Effect 3’s ending is so bad it has its own wikipedia page.
I think this is an important and distinctive point to be made, and I think it needs some background.
Who else remembers when EA won The Consumerists “Worst Company in America” two years running?
Well, I remember, but I also remember that EA actually placed the blame for winning Worst Company on something else entirely, and we have to be honest with ourselves and question whether this sentiment was real and we ignored it to our detriment.
This is part of what EA CEO Peter Moore had to say when EA won “Worst Company” a second year in a row:
In the past year, we have received thousands of emails and postcards protesting against EA for allowing players to create LGBT characters in our games. This week, we’re seeing posts on conservative web sites urging people to protest our LGBT policy by voting EA the Worst Company in America.
I remember at the time thinking this was pure deflection. Now I’m not so sure.
I mean, they won the awards in 2012 and 2013 and then Gamergate happened in 2014/2015. Seems pretty tied together, to me.
Damn you really held out.
I gave up on Bioware the minute they announced they were purchased by EA all those years ago.
Mass Effect Trilogy and DA: Origins came out after the EA acquisition though. It seems like everything post ME:3 has been disappointing though.
I dropped out with Origins, which was kind of painful because I really hate not finishing a series (Mass Effect in this case). But that of course was just the last straw after all the bullshit EA pulled and all the studios & franchises they destroyed over the decades. I don’t even think they could ever redeem themselves at this point, not that they even make any effort to do so anyway. EA is just a rotten company and the epitome of all that is wrong within the gaming industry.
Once EA came into the picture, things went downhill quick.
Did they? Mass Effect and Dragon Age began under EA, which a lot of people would argue are pretty good.
Also, what does EA do, that’s so bad? As far as I know, they’re really hands-off, so they don’t really meddle in the development, like what we’ve heard from Bobby Kotick.
Before EA, Bioware’s RPGs had some personality and took risks trying new shit. Since Mass Effect, they’ve been especially formulaic, toned down, and sanitized for a larger audience.
EA makes good looking, (usually) well polished games meant to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible, and when you have spent years playing games with a distinct style you can very easily see this shift once EA acquires a studio. Either you’re never going to see those games again, or they will become the most watered-down, generic version of the studio’s greatest IPs.
The one thing I can recall where it was known that EA had little to no involvement in development of one of their own games was when DICE made the first Mirror’s Edge. It was merely a AA game and the execs didn’t think much about it one way or the other during development; and then it became a huge hit so they started getting involved with the sequel. Which was shit.
when you have spent years playing games with a distinct style you can very easily see this shift once EA acquires a studio
Like I said, what does EA do exactly in these cases? People from Bioware themselves said that EA doesn’t interfere with them, and they’re making their own choices:
https://youtu.be/K9Z-nCv7XsI?t=2885
execs didn’t think much about it one way or the other, until it became a huge hit and then they started getting involved with the seque
I highly doubt that, since Catalyst came out eight years after the first one. If EA was just chasing the money, why wait so long.
Are you familiar with the US foreign policy proposed by Theodore Roosevelt? “speak softly and carry a big stick”
EA may speak softly, but they carry a big stick. Bioware has clearly catered to EA, intentional or not, and their games have suffered from it.
Mirrors Edge was not a success either, btw.
DICE marketing director Martin Frain initially projected Mirror’s Edge to sell a total of three million units be sold across all platforms.[56] According to Electronic Arts, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions had combined sold over one million units by February 2009.[57] In October 2010, a court document pertaining to the legal conflict between Electronic Arts and Edge Games revealed that Mirror’s Edge had sold over two million units, with over 750,000 of those units having been sold in North America.[58] EA revealed the game had sold around 2.5 million units by June 2013.[59]
It took them 5 years to reach their initial projected sales, and that’s after combining every available edition. That’s a commercial failure.
They did still chase it with followup games, btw.
This was followed by Mirror’s Edge 2D, a browser game adaptation by The Fancy Pants Adventures developer Brad Borne.[41] A prequel to the game, also titled Mirror’s Edge, was released for mobile devices in 2010.[42]
Catalyst was going to be included, as it was shown at E3 in 2013 and 2014. And delay, delay, delay, all the way into 2016. Catalyst was quite literally EA chasing the money, because Mirrors Edge has only really gotten recognition long after its release – in terms of sales, and it’s availability on Steam really helped solidify it’s presence as a cult classic. The game of course was received well, it just didn’t sell (not much marketing and it’s not a game of the era, so to say, it is not an action heavy shooter game). So now after 8 years of letting this IP rot in development hell they said oh we can add some MTX and make another one, hm, let’s make it open world that’s what gamers like these days. It was actually decided in 2015 that it would be open world, since that wasn’t seen in any of the 2014 promotional. So 1 short year, since June 2016 is the games release.
Nah, I enjoyed parts of Catalyst but it’s a shell of its original. Dying Light and Ghostrunner are almost closer spiritual successors in regards to expanding on mechanics. The gameplay was the same but without any actual dynamics (gunplay wasn’t great in ME but it breaks up and gives variety), the writing was predictable and just really not that great, and that leaves new additions… Which you just avoid because it’s an open world and you only have running tools at your disposal. The mechanics of the game are horrible as well, inputs get dropped all the time it’s a huge problem. There’s just so little about the game that’s designed well, which is insane, because the game still accomplishes scratching the itch of Mirrors Edge, just very poorly.
No, what made Mirrors Edge great was the passion. It was a tight knitted and mechanically rewarding. These levels so carefully designed. Catalyst’s paths do not have the same care, they are just rushed together and it shows during the gameplay and how one path flows and the others are just ways you can go. There’s no depth and attention.
The developers freedom to pursue that passion was the very same thing that allowed Bioware to create the games they wanted to make (and like Bad Company 2’s story with DICE before dropping it entirely for multiplayer only).
BF3 may be a fine game, and 4, but you surely understand that they are copy pasted formulas that explicitly are not impassioned. What made Bad Company beloved was its improvements over the previous iteration along with its differentiation from MW2, on top of having a fair single player story. What made Mirrors Edge beloved was its direction and its gameplay. For both of these, these IP’s to EA became no more than how many zeroes they can generate. It’s a pattern with EA, from Mass Effect to Need for Speed to sports games to Battlefield. Once you have a formula you wait for it to be profitable to sell it again.
Mirrors Edge was received well but sold poorly. They tried to profit on some spinoffs, failed, 4 years later sort of began development and turned Catalyst into another open world microtransaction game without any of the heart that made Mirrors Edge work. Battlefield was mediocrely received until it did something better than CoD, then they focused on repeating that over and over, leading to BF3 and 4 and 2042, with the only “unique” Battlefield even available now being Battlefield One. Before Battlefield, it was Medal of Honor.
EA is a plight. I don’t know how you can say it’s not that bad and shift blame to the developers, that their games are their decisions. It’s just unequivocally untrue. Of course Bioware doesn’t have execs breathing down their necks, the execs are selling the game Bioware pitches to them - Mass Effect now with MTX. In that interview they literally even say, “EA wants to buy a company to do something well, if they ruin Bioware then they won’t get money. We make the games we want to make. They give input absolutely but we make our game.” Oh, and he mentions games, Shadow Realms, which never even came out because it was cancelled in 2015. And this is a video from 2013, so it may not have even been 2 years before this video with the timestamp you like is literally proving the point of the person asking the question (Q: Will Bioware be affected by EA’s acquisition; A: No, Bioware makes the games we want to make, EA wants money, EA gives input, Bioware makes the games we want to make) 2 years later, EA: Yeah, you can’t make that.
All that aside, I’m not really sure what the point of the video is supposed to prove… These people don’t even work there anymore if I remember right (head Bioware all jumped ship, no? I may be misremembering)? EA has the big stick. If you devs don’t follow them, you won’t be a dev at EA anymore. The devs at EA are inherently trapped because you cannot expect your game to be made unless it is within the expectations of the publisher, and thus you see the problem. When you pitch to EA, your creative work is already compromised. You think Bioware made the game they wanted to make with Andromeda? Anthem? Psh, Shadow Realms?
EA bought Bioware in 2007/8. EA killed Bioware in under 10 years and is now playing with its corpse. Literally 5 years after the acquisition is this video, the game of which he’s referencing 2 years later is cancelled and 2 more after that Andromeda releases. I really, really think you have mischaracterized EA and their relationship with their studios. EA is very hands off, yes. But they speak softly to you. And they carry a big stick.
You, too, would compromise your passion when working for this studio. It is actually impossible not to, by design.
I lived near EA’s SF studio for many years, that’s really honestly the main reason I even bothered to reply with something this lengthy. I know many former devs part of studios both made with and acquired by EA. It’s insane, they would be a great company to work for in so many ways. But their business practices ruin all of that. The last 20 years of EA being awful are true, just because you can point to BF2BC and say how could they be bad, you can also point to Madden Fifa and SWBF2. EA perfected this practice of seeping out the creatives from the studios long, long before Bioware was bought out.
You are pretty much just rambling, so I don’t really know what you want to say sometimes.
I never said EA was good, I only ever doubted how EA supposedly just kills their game studios. From all the evidence I’ve seen, they are pretty hands-off with studios like Bioware or DICE, so a lot falls on the devs themselves, if the games are subpar.
You mentioned Anthem, like if that was the game Bioware wanted. No it wasn’t, because apparently the most fun part of the game, the flying, was a suggestion from an EA exec.
Then for Mass Effect Andromeda, EA offered to delay the game again, before it’s release, but Bioware didn’t want to. Why? Must have been EAs big stick. That game also doesn’t have MTX
How is EA chasing money with Mirrors Edge, if they make a sequel, when it took years to barely make money? I’d say that’s the exact opposite. The game also has no MTX.
The point of the video I linked is that the people from Bioware actually say EA doesn’t dictate what kind of games they have to make. Bioware makes what they want. Even if this video is already 10 years old or if the people don’t work there anymore, why would this change? The only reason I could see this change, if the games just continue to underperform constantly, like what’s happening with Bungie at the moment.
Why do you think EA was the reason for cancelling Shadow Realms, pretty far into development? Do you know something others don’t? Don’t just say it’s obvious, because it’s EA.
You also mention how EA destroys or all the passion or creativity from their dev studios, but how are they doing that? You never explain that part, although you make it seem very obvious.
I think the reason why a bunch of these studios that were bought either go under or release sub-par games is much more simple, and it’s not directly EAs fault. After they are bought, management leaves, because they just got tons of money, or they might have a contract, which says they must stay for a few years, but after that they’ll leave anyway. Now there’s nobody left who made the original games, so the studio declines. It’s not like EA can do something against this, unless they make the devs sign some kind of slave contract, where they can never leave the game studio.
Bioware cancelled Shadow Realms because Mass Effect and Star Wars MMO was more profitable.
"Today I’m sharing some important news about Shadow Realms and our BioWare Austin studio. We’ve made the decision to not move forward with development of Shadow Realms. We fully recognize that this news is disappointing to some of our fans, so I want to explain more behind this decision.
"While the team did amazing work on the game concept and we got lots of great feedback from our fans at events and through other game testing, right now there are other projects for the team to work on within the BioWare studios for the coming year and beyond. We’ve got an incredibly talented team here at the Austin studio, and they are excited and already deep on new projects within the BioWare family, ones that will make some great BioWare games even better.
"These include additional ongoing enhancements to the award-winning Dragon Age: Inquisition, as well as the next game in the Mass Effect series and other new IP. But the biggest focus for our team in BioWare Austin will be on Star Wars™: The Old Republic™. As every Star Wars™ fan knows, this is a massive year in the Star Wars universe. We have some great plans for expanding this epic game this year, and look forward to sharing the news about those plans with our players in the coming weeks.
Read between the lines. EA canned it so the studio would give us Andromeda and more Old Republic. Oh but sure, “it wasn’t EA’s decision”.
Big stick.
Sometimes a tree is just a tree, man.
Maybe Bioware just wasn’t happy with the game, it happens all the time. Bioware also cancelled two games in 2013, looks like they were just doing a lot. So, possibly they were just stretched too thin with all those different projects. The founders also left Bioware shortly after Mass Effect 3. Who knows if they were the driving force behind the game, and after they left it didn’t really go anywhere.
There are tons of different explanations, but of course it’s all EAs fault. From what I’ve read, working for EA is actually really great, and people seem to love it. That doesn’t really gel with the soul-sucking image you try to paint. In the early 2000s they were actually garbage, with the whole EA spouse thing, but they have apparently massively improved since then.
Also, while this isn’t really evidence for anything, we’ve had actual stories that some publishers forced some type of game on a developer, like Redfall or possibly Fallout 76. Personally, I just think stories like these can’t stay hidden forever and will eventually make it out into the open, like the Anthem flying stuff.
At least for Dragon Age (2009) was in development since at least November 2002, 5 years before EA purchased Bioware.
You could also look at DICE, and the absolute shitshow every Battlefield has been since they were purchased by EA.
the absolute shitshow every Battlefield has been since they were purchased by EA
That would mean basically no good games for almost 20 years, which I can’t believe. Even Bad Company 2, BF3 and 4, apparently beloved games in the franchise, are terrible?
Look, I barely play EA games, I just think that they aren’t the sole or even major reason a bunch of their dev teams have turned to shit.
Nuance is lost. Simplistic narratives are everywhere - and there’s nothing simpler than blaming the big boogeyman for everything. I’m not saying that they haven’t made mistakes and aren’t to blame for a great many things, but not every time and everywhere for everything.
Destroyed Sim City franchise, made The Sims 4 a DLC hellhole, made Mass Effect 3’s shitty ending, maybe the mishandling of Battlefield 2042 and Battlefield 5?
Other things I could think of is releasing Origin and pulling their games from the Steam store. Other than that, I don’t really follow gaming news enough to list more, nor know enough to determine if everything I already listed are caused by EA.
Edit: I forgot Mass Effect Andromeda.
I guess if a game is bad, it’s EA’s fault, but if it’s good, it’s all because of the dev.
What about Mass Effect 1 and 2, EA had already bought Bioware at that point. What about other Battlefield games? People always rave about Bad Company 2 or maybe 3 and 4, but how come EA only chose to interfere after 20 years?
The interesting thing about BFV was that Dice got spread thin during development of the updates.
Battlefront 2 was not in good shape and started recieving a ton of fixes, and during that time is when BFV development slowed to a crawl.
I’m assuming disney was not happy with the negative press? But I have no real clue
So, one thing that’s funny is the one instance that popped into my head was when an EA exec actually recommended a feature that ended up making Anthem better (but also possibly worse?). There’s a famous story of how they were requested to add flying to the game, which added tons and tons of work and a good portion of dev time. But arguably was the best part of anthem. Unfortunately, they were unable to salvage it as we saw.
I can’t say this for the author since they seemed to have finished the game, but Veilguard starts real rough, but got really fun to play. The story isn’t anything to write home about, but it suits the more action oriented combat well. I get it is not the DA CRPG everyone seemed to want, but it is a damn fun 3rd person action game. Besides, we still have Baldurs Gate 3.
Agreed on all points. I decided to do a full series playthrough after I finished, and aside from how action oriented the combat is, it really reminds me of DA2. It feels more like you’re playing the character of Rook, just like how you’re playing the character of Hawke. You don’t really have “evil” options, and are more railroaded because why the fuck would Varric recruit someone to be his number 2 that has evil tendencies? You’re not a blank slate nobody like your character in 1 and 3.
My biggest complaint is it feels like a lot of your companions don’t really talk to you that much. You get to know 1 part about them and that’s it, we needed more dialogue with them!
I have not quite finished the game, but I did go through and do as many companion quests as possible, and they felt kinda drip fed. Probably just less developed than the main quest, which is a shame.
Yes exactly! I did every available side/companion quest that was available before progressing the main story, and when I ran out I’d do one main story quest and then back to side quests.
Previous games it felt like you got to do more things with each companion. This one there’s like one story each, and they’ll barely talk to you about anything else on the rare occasions you can talk to them.
jesus christ he executed them
Why does the text in the post start halfway through the text in the link?
Is it emphasis given by the OP, or a glitch?
Kind of annoying to have to click the damned link if the text can just be in the body of the post. What, do you work for PC gamer?
Kind of annoying to have to click the damned link if the text can just be in the body of the post. What, do you work for PC gamer?
no offense but why are you on a link aggregator (and a clone of Reddit in particular) if you’re averse to clicking links? that’s literally the point of this form of social media: emphasis on sharing interesting links from other places, with the expectation that you’ll follow them.
in any case we strongly discourage the practice of copying the entire article because it’s technically copyright infringement, we generally expect people to actually engage with what’s posted instead of drive-by commenting, and it’s just generally bad form to rob writers of attention and click-throughs for their work.
in any case we strongly discourage the practice of copying the entire article
Huh, that’s interesting. I’ve been seeing it here so often that I thought it was kind of expected.
Why does the text in the post start halfway through the text in the link?
People sometimes do this to call attention to the part of an article that they found most interesting.
Kind of annoying to have to click the damned link if the text can just be in the body of the post.
Re-posting the entire body of a copyrighted work is sometimes considered bad form. Some forums ban it outright. Even where it’s not illegal or banned, not everyone likes to do it.
