The studio hasn’t topped Mass Effect 2 since it came out 10 years ago, and the failures of both Andromeda and Anthem have left it in crisis. But the Mass Effect series may yet prove BioWare’s saviour. A Kotaku report from November suggested a new Mass Effect game was in the works under project director Michael Gamble, who sent a tweet the same month asking fans : “Where do you want Mass Effect to go in the future?”

In late 2009, Casey Hudson told a studio-wide meeting at BioWare’s Edmonton, Canada base that Mass Effect 2 would be the company’s best game yet and, quite possibly, the greatest videogame ever made, according to one developer present at the time. Few people would put it top of an all-time list, but you wouldn’t be laughed at for arguing it was BioWare at its peak.

Gamble should look to Mass Effect 2, adored by both fans and critics, for answers. To me, it felt like the most accessible version of the character-driven storytelling the studio had honed over a dozen years, starting with the companions in 1998’s Baldur’s Gate. Mass Effect 2’s lore was as dense as Mass Effect 1’s, but BioWare, with an expanded team packed with new hires, found another level of polish. You can play it today without getting frustrated, whereas Mass Effect 1 feels creaky and unkempt.

But there are more fundamental reasons why it’s the best of the trilogy, according to some of the developers who helped make it. It was partly luck, partly timing, but mostly by design; it was BioWare pivoting to a new development approach that forced writers, technical designers and programmers to work closer than ever before, while allowing a new crop of hungry developers to mix with old heads who had helped establish the universe.

The strength of BioWare’s writing hasn’t, historically, been clever plots or punchy dialogue. Mass Effect 2’s story is standard sci-fi fare: investigate a threat to the galaxy, assemble a strike team, and try to save the day. The dialogue can feel stiff—far too formal for a ragtag group of mercenaries. “I’m just interested in what makes you tick,” says Commander Shepard to Jacob Taylor early on, sounding like an HR rep in an awkward job interview.

Mass Effect’s characters rarely reveal anything meaningful about our own world, either. One former BioWare writer, who wishes to remain anonymous, argues that the series’ characters lack depth on repeated playthroughs. “Take away the spaceships, lasers, aliens, and robots, and there's not much left.”

But what makes Mass Effect 2 stand out is that it plays to the strengths of BioWare’s writers better than either Mass Effect 1 or Mass Effect 3. The studio is known for bringing together characters with conflicting desires and vivid personalities that unfurl over the course of an adventure, and letting you dig deeper into those characters’ backstories than most developers allow. You might not find anything profound beneath the surface, but that process—the repeated chances to find out more about them—builds an undeniable connection. Mass Effect 2 puts this interaction center stage. For its first two-thirds, it’s entirely character-led, and the overarching plot is somewhat irrelevant.