BioWare Still 'Hard at Work' on New Mass Effect, Dragon Age 4

"What are your hopes for BioWare's flagship games going forward?"

That they aren't terrible and boring like every new game they've put out since Mass Effect 3.

The worst part of Inquisition to me was the sheer volume of boring content. This obsession with open worlds is a Blight (pun intended) upon the gaming world because most developers suck at it in my opinion.

I'm waiting for that Dragon Age Remaster Collection. Dragon Age Origins, Awakening, and Dragon Age 2 with all of the DLC.

I am extremely excited about what they do with Dragon Age 4 after how Inquisition ended.

@CynicalGamer Agreed. I enjoyed the core of DA:I but the bloat became too much eventually. I still haven't completed it 😔

Although I do feel it's less the fault of the Open World itself and more the fact that Open Worlds are often criminally underutilised with menial traversal and asinine, repetitive quest objectives (and accompanying narrative themes).

Games such as Spider Man, Witcher III and Ghost of Tsushima have managed to balance this quite well in comparison - Spider Man has fun traversal, GoT has satisfying combat with an intelligently designed, guiding environment, and Witcher III had varied narrative + quest types.

Most studios should stick to a more linear design if they aren't willing to put that extra detail into their open world.

Hoping that Mass Effect 3's multiplayer is added to the Legendary Edition.

Hoping Mass Effect 5 will release in time for Christmas 2023.

@Gloamin
Agreed, too easy to fill in open worlds with generic, bland, repetitive objectives.
I love da:i base gameplay, the combat, camera control on pause, animations.

Sekiro is supposed to be pretty good for open world design, maybe it's not totally open, not sure.

No faith in this studio anymore Dragon Age origins was the last good game they made after Bioware became nothing more than a name

Go back to the roots, strong single player campaign with numerous variables depending on player choice, a rich lore and characters with depth and meaning.

Don't try to fix what isn't broken (looking at you DA2).

Also stay away from trying to make any political points, not saying Bioware have done this necessarily in their previous games but it'd be safer for them not to pander to that crowd.

@Gloamin agree with your examples. I absolutely loved those games. There are good open world games out there and I think the problem is too many publishers hide behind open worlds by using copy paste development tools/code/whatever to generate lots of "content" and show "value". I'm guessing it is more expensive to pay developers to design high quality questing zones so they force copy paste stuff on them.

@themightyant haha I have not even finished the main game but also bought the dlc. Maybe one day I will play it again. (If the next game is good enough to tempt me to catch up on the story)

Dragon age inquisition is so good.especially as a mage.cant wait for dragon age 4.word up son

I can't put into words how badly I want BioWare to be the BioWare of old.

DA:I was a good, not great, 30 hour game stretched out over 90 hours. I have little hope for any bioware game, EA gutted it.

@Jtheripper Thats my issue with things like AC if you peel away the busy work then you probably would have way more focused and fun game.

"single-player experience that is built on choices that matter". Remember when a game designed as a single player title was considered just a game and not promoted or advertised as such. The previous games as a service titles were so bad that no one wanted to play them so they relented and will no doubt try again further down the road. Corporations are not our friends but they are also extremely tone deaf unless it damages the profit margin. We can thank Anthem for that.

This isn't the same Bioware that put out Mass Effect and all the classics. This is the stripped down EA Bioware. All the classic Bioware developers left a long time ago.

@Flaming_Kaiser yh, also doesn't have to be an open field if open world, i mean as long as you are free to explore, go back etc, but with intriguing map design still.
U could consider dark soul open world in a way, or bloodborne. Maybe a balance between those labyrinthine designs and full open maps would be ideal.
Still have interesting diverse environment, with a challenge to discover all nooks and crannies etc.

@Jtheripper Yeah i think thats fair my problem with AC after a while i just want it to be over. Its like a job after my real job. Did you play Syndicate that one was so bad if it wasnt for Evie i would have hated the game. The worst thing is you could have a fantastic game if you remove the busy work and add in the DLC like Jack the Ripper in the storymode.

I've not played many of their games. I finished ME1 and played a good chunk of 2. Didn't get around to 3 or any of the DA games. I do hope they recover from Anthem though. They were put in a ***** position by EA to rush that game out and suffered massively from it.

I think in terms of open world, Witcher 3 nailed it down. Not only with it being single player but it lasting much longer with all the DLC too. Nobody is against DLC as a whole. If it keeps people playing the game long term then I'm all for it. Too many games skimp on story DLC these days and save it for sequels. It's not the way to do it. Hopefully BW go along these lines.

Maybe unpopular opinion but I loved how big and full of things to do was Inquisition. Even if at times was a little repetitive. More of that would be great to me. I got the Platinum for Inquisition and did like 4 playthroughs.

Hey there fellow gamers.
I´m really hoping Bioware can still deliver amazing singleplayer, story driven, player choice games, ya know, like they used to.
With great characters and companions to recruit and fantastical and interesting worlds to explore
Also, as much as I love ME3, be more careful how you end a trilogy. Cause that original ending could have been better.
The ending of that game, or any player choice game for that matter, should be the sum of your entire choices, not just between red, blue and green. Just my two cents.
Cheers, stay safe and happy gaming to us all

Inquisition was bloated and had huge relatively empty hubs but I thought most of the characters were excellent and dragon fights were epic!

@KidBoruto I would like to see Origins remade, but conflicted because I want them to make all new games as well. I want it all.

@ApostateMage I really enjoyed Inquisition, thought it was a great game. Much better than 2 in my opinion.

@KidBoruto If they weren't making ME and DA at the same time maybe! Can you imagine what it's like in that office working on two of the most popular gaming franchises of all time, with absolutely 0 room for F ups this time around. There has to be so much pressure to get everything right.