Former Dragon Age Lead Writer David Gaider has announced that he has left BioWare. Gaider didn't reveal the reasons for his departure, saying in an email to Polygon that it was “simply time to move on to a new challenge.”

Some news: I must sadly announce that, after 17 years, today is my last day at BioWare. I'll miss my team, and wish everyone here the best.January 22, 2016

“It was indeed my decision, not one made easily since BioWare's been very good to me, and the parting is amicable,” he wrote. “As to where I'm headed next, that announcement will come in due time.”

Gaider is likely best known for his work as the lead writer on the Dragon Age series, from Origins through Inquisition, but his influence goes back much further than that. Mobygames lists his first BioWare credit as a member of the core design team on the 2000 RPG Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, and he also worked on the Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal expansion, Neverwinter Nights and its Hordes of the Underdark and Shadows of Undrentide expansions, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Gaider's departure comes less than a year after he announced that he was leaving the Dragon Age series to work on a new, and at this point still unrevealed, BioWare project.