There was a time in which BioWare was the name of the western RPGs. They made classic games like the Baldur’s Gate series and their giant hit Knights of the Old Republic, as well as AAA critical darlings. Mass Effect was The American RPG back in 2007.

That was ten years ago.

For a long time, BioWare reigned supreme, but today, it looks like it has lost its throne. How did that happen? Will BioWare still be relevant in the future? To answer this, we have to look back on how it gained its place and fame.

BioWare initially began in Edmonton, Canada, as a modest game development company. It was created by three recently graduated medical doctors: Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip. They seemed to think making games was more fun than treating sick people (I can’t disagree on that) and decided to form the company. BioWare had humble beginnings with a game called Shattered Steel back in 1996, but soon the trio began the Baldur’s Gate series, probably one of the most famous and cherished RPG series of all time. Both Muzyka and Zeschuk had to abandon medicine so they could focus on their new project (Yip left BioWare around this time, choosing medicine over games), but it was worth it. Baldur’s Gate was a huge hit. Later, Baldur’s Gate 2, even better than the original, and games like Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic paved BioWare’s way as the main RPG developer of the 2000s.

Their triumph wasn’t only due to BioWare’s capability of making great games, though. The industry was changing fast. The 2000s were marked by a huge increase in the cost to make games. As new technologies appeared, the graphics and possibilities were expanded, but so were the costs. Soon, a problem emerged in the computer RPG industry: they were too niche to survive.

All the old RPG american developers were in bad times. Troika shut down in 2005 after making awesome games like Arcanum and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, which sold very poorly; Richard Garriot’s Origin Systems, creator of the possibly most important RPG series of all time, Ultima, was disbanded by EA in 2004; Sir Tech closed in the US in 1998 and in Canada in 2004, leaving Wizardry 8 as their last legacy. Strategic Simulations Inc (SSI); Black Isle was disbanded by Interplay in 2003 and the Fallout franchise was abandoned (until it was bought by Bethesda and Fallout 3, AKA worst game of all the history of mankind, was made). Suddenly, BioWare was the king of western RPG developers.

Most of the western audience only played console japanese RPGs like the Final Fantasy series until mid-2000s. They were very different to play and simpler (or, at least, the popular ones were. Japan always had lots of complex RPGs, but most of them never saw this side of the globe), but more story-focused. Their main quests were more character-focused than those of the CRPGs so far. The single thing that probably made BioWare take the crown was that they knew how to capture this console audience pretty well.

With the expansion of the market, those gamers who played JRPGs were introduced to BioWare’s games like Knights of the Old Republic or Mass Effect. Mass Effect, in special, is a great example of what made BioWare so famous. It was a light action RPG that had simple systems, a straightforward story and a lot of binary moral choices and cool companions to hang out with. With those elements, the game wasn’t alien to JRPG and action players (pun not intended, seriously). BioWare had cinematic games that offered a satisfactory level of choice (for its context) and soon became the new face of RPGs. RPGs were not like Fallout, Ultima or Wizardry anymore, they were like Mass Effect or Dragon Age.

It is important to observe that BioWare had no competion. Bethesda also made a bang in mid-2000s with Oblivion and Fallout 3 (which sucks), but they catered to a different kind of player. While BioWare was the company if you wanted to live an engaging and more focused story, Bethesda made the GTA of RPGs. Lots of (somewhat useless) quests, places to go and do whatever you want. European RPGs were no competition, too. The Piranha Bytes’s Gothic series is probably the most fondly remembered european RPG series of the 2000s, but it wasn’t very famous in the US. The famous The Witcher series was only starting. The first game was so poorly translated that it was barely playable until the enhanced series was released.

When the 2010s came, BioWare’s problems started to appear. Although its easy, seeing their lack of competion in the earlier decade, to think that it was The Witcher 2 or Skyrim that took BioWare from the top, the problem came from inside. Its name was (and is still is) Electronic Arts. BioWare was acquired by EA in 2007, right before Mass Effect was released. The transaction didn’t cause major changes in the main studio in Edmonton at first. Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 were released soon after the transaction and they were still considered good games by most gamers. Dragon Age 2’s release was the first time the cracks started to show.

Dragon Age 2 was full of mistakes. It was an ambitious game that wanted to tell a grand story in a city where your character would spend his life. When it released, after a very rushed development, it turned out as a game that didn’t react to your choices very well and had an offensive number of repeated dungeons and a rushed and incoherent ending. The development only lasted 18 months and it was done so fast because EA wanted to capitalize on the success of their previous game.

It didn’t take long until BioWare’s next mistep: Mass Effect 3. The game was clearly more action-focused and the story received a lot of complaints, but none bigger than the ending’s. Mass Effect 2 had various factors influencing the ending and the gamers were disappointed in how their choices were disregarded in the end of the trilogy. They could only choose one of the three endings that weren’t so different from each other and none of their previous choices made any difference in the ending (even though they influenced significantly the main story during the game).

The end of the Mass Effect trilogy represented more ruptures in BioWare. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk left the company that year. With heavy marketing and the uncertainty of what EA would do with BioWare without their creators there, Dragon Age Inquisition was launched in 2014. The game delivered an epic story that wasn’t worse than the former titles (and it was more well rounded than DA2’s), but was criticized for its bad quest design. BioWare developed a huge game, their first open world (a trend that was getting more and more famous since the release of Skyrim back in 2011), but the content of the world and the design of the quests were accused of being too “MMO-ish”. The decision of doing a follow up to the main story called Trespasser, released as a DLC a year later, was also criticized. Trespasser was, to many (me included), the real ending of Inquisition and it was sold separately by EA.

Amidst the rising tide of controversies since Dragon Age 2, BioWare had a final test: Mass Effect Andromeda. The game was developed during four to five years and it had a really hard development process. When it was released, the animations looked awful, the quests and story were underwhelming and the reception of the game was very negative for a BioWare game. It was way worse received than Inquisition.

I don’t usually link to other sites in my articles, but Jason Schreier’s report on everything that went wrong in MEA is amazing and you should read it after this article. In short, the whole problem with Andromeda and Inquisition was the same: Frostbite. EA’s pressure for the studio to use an engine that wasn’t really good for RPGs made things way harder on BioWare’s team. The shitty quest design of Inquisition or the fact that MEA’s exploration and story were so underwhelming are directly to blame on EA’s decision to force the devs to use tools that didn’t work very well for what they wanted to do. Frostbite was created for action games, not for the complexity of RPGs.

To make things even worse, BioWare has recently announced Anthem, a third person co-op shooter that seems pretty light in the story department, for the sadness of all their RPG fans. The fourth Dragon Age game is still being developed, but it looks like a far away promise right now. It is clear that BioWare is not the king of RPGs anymore. Many would give the title to CD Projekt Red, the polish developer of The Witcher 3, probably the best AAA RPG in years.

Since the start of the decade, there are many differences in the industry too. BioWare arose in a time in which the CRPG genre was dying. Today, we are living in a new bright age for RPGs. The so called RPG Revival happened some years ago and proved to people that the CRPG genre is not dead. We had Legend of Grimrock, Divinity: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity (which wasn’t all that it promised), Tides of Numenera and other games.

Now, the Revival and the Kickstarter rush are slowly fading, but conditions were met for the creation of a strong new indie scene. Now we have games like Age of Decadence or Underrail that really cater to old school gaming and other indies that try something new like Dead State and a lot of upcoming titles like No Truce with the Furies and Kingdom Come: Deliverance. There are RPGs all around and people don’t need to wait for BioWare to make them anymore.

Is BioWare still relevant? Yes. It has its legacy and EA has a lot of money for marketing. Their games will still be famous and will be played by many people, but their influence as an important developer and more, their influence as a company that will present something new in the industry, is vanishing. Inovation is more likely in the hands of the indies, AA developers like Obsidian or european giants like Projekt CD Red. The industry seems to be shifting to be just like it is in cinema. Hollywood might produce the biggest titles, but they are not in front of the biggest inovations in cinema for a long time.

It is sad to see the company that created Baldur’s Gate and Mass Effect in its darkest period ever. EA is taking over every aspect of BioWare and has recently mismanaged the development of their games, so it’s hard to see their story ever getting brighter again. At least we have a bright indie scene now. It’s probable that the dark times in BioWare will only get worse, but the indie RPG market is seeing sunlight after some long dark ages and that’s great. Will a new BioWare appear? Only time will tell.