Casey Hudson, the former BioWare Creative Director behind the Mass Effect series, is heading back to BioWare after a three-year absence.

The news was posted on the official BioWare blog by Hudson himself, who stated he is excited to return to BioWare, a place he calls home, as the new General Manager.

"The last few years have been transformative for me, from having time to reflect on what I most want to do, to working with new technologies at platform scale," he said. "And now, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to return to lead BioWare – a studio that I think of as home."

Hudson, circa 2012.

Hudson will be taking over for Aaryn Flynn, the current BioWare general manager, who will be stepping down and departing from the studio. Flynn himself posted his own blog post, thanking the fans following BioWare. "I have gone to work every day knowing that I am fortunate to have all of the opportunities I have had at BioWare because of you," he said. "Doing whatever I could to help our developers create some of the best games in the industry for you all has been the most humbling experience of my life. Now, I’ll be playing BioWare’s games in the future from an exciting new perspective – yours."

Hudson departed BioWare in 2014, after a long tenure with the company that included work as the project director of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and the Mass Effect trilogy. In 2015, Hudson joined Microsoft as the creative director of Microsoft's HoloLens, a new VR tech that is still in development.

Before Hudson's departure, he worked on Mass Effect: Andromeda, which was released earlier this year to a mixed reception, and BioWare's current project, Anthem, which was revealed earlier this year at E3. BioWare is currently working on several rumored projects at this time, including what is believed to be pre-production on the next installment of the Dragon Age series and supporting other studios in the development of new Star Wars titles.

Quick Take

This is probably the best case scenario for BioWare, mostly because of how Mass Effect: Andromeda was received. The long-standing reports about the game not getting any single-player DLC and the BioWare Montreal studio being re-structured is probably only part of the equation. Personally, it seems likely that Electronic Arts wanted Hudson back to "right the ship" for Mass Effect, so to speak, if all of the other rumors about the game at this point are true, and Flynn was likely getting burned out in the role as general manager. That is all speculation, of course, there is no way to confirm anything but what was said publicly by both men.

The timing is good though. Anthem is the next big BioWare project and is in its finishing stages after four years of development. The change in leadership between Hudson and Flynn will be of negligible effect for Anthem, and it's early enough where it won't affect any other projects BioWare is working on. Whoever was behind the change in leadership, it seems like, on paper at least, to be a good move.

What are your thoughts though? Leave your comments below.