With Dragon Age The Veilguard having been in development for many years but receiving mediocre response, EA seems to have learned its lesson, and with the wave of layoffs affecting senior developers, the twilight of this classic RPG series seems to have come. David Gaider, the main creator of the series (left in 2016), recently revealed two truths: one is that EA never knew how to operate the Dragon Age brand, and the other is that BioWare actually split into two hostile studios between 2010 and 2016.
In Bluesky's long article, Gaider recalled: "At that time, BioWare was essentially two teams under the same roof. The Dragon Age team and the Mass Effect team had very different operating models and cultural atmospheres. They were like two independent studios - and they didn't like each other." This confrontation lasted for many years. The management tried to ease the conflict through personnel rotation, but when he joined the Anthem project (led by the original Mass Effect team), he realized the seriousness of the problem: "That team didn't want me to join at all, and they didn't hide it."
Gaider described this confrontation as almost a "high school factional struggle". When Anthem was originally conceived as a hardcore science fiction in the style of Alien, he received an order to transform it into a science fiction fantasy mashup style. Due to poor communication, the team mistakenly thought that this was his personal opinion. "I kept receiving feedback that the design was 'too Dragon Age-like', but in this team that must accept all feedback, I can only keep overturning and redoing it." This deterioration of the creative environment confirms his accusation in 2023 that BioWare has formed a culture of "implicit hatred of screenwriters."
In a subsequent reply, Gaider pointed the source of the conflict to EA's senior management: "During my tenure, EA clearly preferred "Mass Effect". Their marketing team prefers this modern action IP, and never knows how to position "Dragon Age". Whenever the latter's performance surpasses, the former can always be forgiven. If I were to say, "Dragon Age" has been on the verge of being cut since the first generation." Although these remarks are personal, they explain why "Dragon Age" has gradually lost its hardcore RPG characteristics in recent years, and even the new work has been criticized as "Mass Effect in fantasy skin."
After the flop of Dragon Age The Veilguard, CEO Andrew WIlson blamed the lack of game-as-a-service elements, which is far from the criticism of players for weak narrative and failed character creation.