BioWare is still holding on for dear life despite Mass Effect: Andromeda releasing in a messy state, and Anthem being an abysmal project. Although the company is alive… for now, general manager Casey Hudson took to the company’s official blog spot to tease stuff regarding Anthem, Dragon Age, and the team’s new office.
Upon taking a mosey over to blog.bioware.com, you’ll see stuff pertaining to things BioWare as a whole is currently doing.
Firstly, Hudson admits that Anthem needs a lot of work — which I think is an understatement. The general manager and crew have plans to improve the fundamentals behind the looter-shooter in that he claims the team is working toward the longer-term vision for Anthem.
Hudson also believes in Anthem and would love to see it grow, evolve, and thrive for years to come although I think that’s a pipe dream. Anywho, here’s a portion of the paragraph regarding Anthem:
“[…] We have a big team working on Anthem in both Austin and Edmonton, and while it’s been great to see the community response to Cataclysm, I know there’s a lot more work to do to bring out the full potential of the game. We have plans for those more fundamental improvements, but they’ll take time. While the team works towards the longer-term vision of the game, they will also continue to deliver updates to features and content. I believe in Anthem and would love to see its world grow, evolve, and thrive for years to come. Thanks for your patience and support as we do the work of constantly improving and expanding the experience.”
Secondly, Hudson teases that the company has several “other big projects in the works.” One of these “mostly super-secret” IPs consist of a large and growing team in Edmonton working through pre-production. If you haven’t guessed, it’s the next woke Dragon Age game according to the “Dread Wolf” reference:
“We have several other big projects in the works. I wish I could tell you more about them, but they’re mostly super-secret right now. I can say however that one of our projects has a large and growing team in Edmonton working through pre-production, and based on the progress I’m seeing, I can confirm that indeed the Dread Wolf rises.”
According to the next point, it looks like big papa EA is throwing cash at BioWare to move into a newly renovated safe space… I mean, office space:
“One of the things I’m most excited about is that after almost 15 years in our previous Edmonton location we have moved to a brand-new state-of-the-art facility in the thriving ICE District downtown. We’ve been very fortunate to have EA’s support in building out three large floors of amazing new office space, custom-designed from the ground up for the future of game development. This represents a tremendous investment in the future of our studio, and I can’t wait to see what we create here.”
Here are images of the new place:
The new office space is custom-designed from the ground up and made for “the future of game development.” In other words, this space is supposed to represent BioWare’s “tremendous investment in the future” of the studio and company.
I do wonder how all of this will play out for BioWare now that Anthem’s Lead Producer Ben Irving is gone, and the next Dragon Age’s lead producer Fernando Melo is absent too. While we wait to find out, you can read the full blog post on blog.bioware.com.
