The latest game in BioWare’s fantasy role-playing series went through ten years of development turmoil

In early November, on the eve of the crucial holiday shopping season, staffers at the video-game studio BioWare were feeling optimistic. After an excruciating development cycle, they had finally released their latest game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and the early reception was largely positive. The role-playing game was topping sales charts on Steam, and solid, if not spectacular, reviews were rolling in.
But in the weeks that followed, the early buzz cooled as players delved deeper into the fantasy world, and some BioWare employees grew anxious. Everyone at the subsidiary of Electronic Arts Inc., a video game publisher, had been under a lot of pressure for months. Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, the studio's previous two games, had failed, and there were rumors that BioWare might become another of EA's many casualties if Dragon Age failed. Not long after Christmas, the bad news surfaced. EA announced in January that the new Dragon Age had only reached 1.5 million players, missing the company’s expectations by 50%. The holiday performance of another recently released title, EA Sports FC 2025, was also subpar, compounding the problem.
As a result of the struggling titles, EA Chief Executive Officer Andrew Wilson explained, the company would be significantly lowering its sales forecast for the fiscal year ahead. The price of EA shares immediately dropped 18%. “Dragon Age had a high-quality launch and was well-reviewed by critics and those who played,” Wilson later said on an earnings call. “However, in this highly competitive market, it did not resonate with a sufficient number of people.” Days after the sales revision, EA laid off a chunk of BioWare’s staff at the studio’s headquarters in Edmonton, Canada, and permanently transferred many of the remaining workers to other divisions. It was a stunning fall for the famous game designer, who was only 30 years old at the time. Many fans were left wondering how things had gone so wrong and what the studio might do next. According to interviews with nearly two dozen people who worked on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, there were several reasons behind its failure, including marketing misfires, poor word of mouth and a 10-year gap since the previous title. Above all, sources point to the rebooting of the product from a single-player game to a multiplayer one — and then back again — a switcheroo that muddled development and inflated the title’s budget, they say, ultimately setting the stage for EA’s potentially unrealistic sales expectations. EA did not respond to a request for comment. The union between BioWare and EA started off with lofty aspirations. EA executives made the announcement in 2007 that they were making an $860 million acquisition of BioWare and another gaming studio. The objective was to broaden their game catalog, which was dominated by sports simulations like Madden NFL and devoid of BioWare's signature adventure and role-playing titles. Initially, it looked like a smart move thanks to a string of big hits. In 2014, BioWare released Dragon Age: Inquisition, the third installment in a popular action series dropping players in a semi-open world full of magic, elves and fire-spewing dragons. The fantasy title went on to win the much-coveted Game of the Year Award and sell 12 million copies, according to its executive producer Mark Darrah — a major validation of EA’s diversification strategy.
Darrah and the creative director, Mike Laidlaw, began brainstorming ideas for the upcoming Dragon Age game, codenamed Joplin, with the goal of making a game with a smaller scope. But before much could get done, BioWare shifted the studio’s focus to more pressing titles coming down the pike.