After leaving BioWare for the second time, it looks like Drew Karpyshyn is teaming up with his old pals Chad Robertson and James Ohlen, but this time at the newly founded company Archetype Entertainment — an autonomous division of Wizards of the Coast. Karpyshyn claims that unlike the latter corporate days at BioWare, the crew at Archetype Entertainment will have creative control to make unique games.
You’ll likely know Karpyshyn for his contributions as a video game scenario writer, scriptwriter, and novelist. He’s also known for helping out with projects such as the Star Wars: Darth Bane series of books, Mass Effect, Baldur’s Gate, and many other BioWare titles.
After having left BioWare for the second time in 2018, Karpyshyn is shacking up with Archetype Entertainment’s founders (which happen to be ex-BioWare devs too) that you’ll likely know as Robertson and Ohlen.
We know all of this thanks to drewkarpyshyn.com, which has received a new update by the man himself. The blog site goes on about his successes and failures as a dev/writer in the games industry, as well as his time with BioWare.
We learn that BioWare started “great” because the crew had creative control, but as the team became more “successful,” BioWare too grew as a corporate entity that took away the company’s creative drive to focus on market research:
“I’ve been in the video game industry for twenty years now. When I started at BioWare, everything was fresh and exciting. It was a dream job – talented people working together to create epic games like Baldur’s Gate, KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age. But as we grew and became more successful, things changed. We became more corporate. We were less able to make what we loved, and the teams were pushed to create games based on market research rather than our creative instincts and passions. My dream job became just a job, and I lost the enthusiasm and excitement I once had.
But with Archetype, my passion has been rekindled. The feel in the studio reminds me of my early days at BioWare; I can feel the magic in the air. And even though I can’t get too deep into the specifics of what we’re working on yet,we’re already generating plenty of excitement in the industry.”
Seeing that multiple ex-BioWare devs have failed to make headway in the games industry as of late, including Karpyshyn, we’ll see if Archetype Entertainment and its new sci-fi project follows in the footsteps of other ex-Bioware founded company like QC Games and Knightmayor — which are both dead.
In the meantime, you can check out Archetype Entertainment’s official website by paying the given link a visit.
