Hudson leaves Bioware... again...

There and Back Again; by Casey Hudson

So we all know about Bioware right? Progenitors of the Western RPG formula and pretty much the folk who teed up Larian to take over as the Western gold standard of the entire genre. These are the guys responsible for Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Jade Empire, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 and one of my favourite games of all time (it sits at number 3) Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. So they've got the sort of history that stands out in the videogame landscape as being defined by quality as well as financial success, a very hard balance to strike. To be absolutely fair to them, trying to grow your company with that sort of reputation intact is nigh on impossible, so it really shouldn't be a huge shock to see that the Bioware of today is vastly different to the Bioware of yesteryear. But with that in mind 'different' doesn't necessarily have to mean 'bad'; except in the case of old Bioware versus new Bioware. And though we've all hoped that something might slip the other way and bring us back the company we used to love, I think the last hope of that may have died with the recently announced departures of Casey Hudson and Mark Darrah.

Now you might be going "hang on, I'm getting Deja Vu here. I've just been in this place before!" And you would be right, because the industry has reeled at the departure of Bioware head Casey Hudson more than once. At the beginning of the troubling times, after the divided wrapping of the Mass Effect trilogy and the heavily draining process of bringing 'Dragon Age: Inquisition' to life, Casey Hudson had reached the end of his time with Bioware and decided to leave in order to pursue other projects. The announcement was a huge shock to everyone because his was a name folk has grown used to seeing attached to some of the best projects the studio had ever made. He was project lead for Kotor, director for the Mass Effect games and just this symbol of quality in this very presence. No matter how bad things became for Bioware, as long as he was attached their's was still a quality to be compared with themselves, because they were that far above other similar game studios at the time. And then he left, and the bad times came.

First there was the cancelled title that Bioware had touched on called: Shadow Realms. Now to be completely honest I had hardly even remembered that name so it was probably already wrapping up to an eventual death when Casey was still working there, but the news just got worse. Three years later and we'd be looking at a follow up to Mass Effect, Andromeda. (which was out 3 years too early in my opinion. They should have waited for the series to grow genuinely nostalgic) Andromeda was a step back in practically everyway except for the fighting, and even then there was a lacking of real flagship showdowns to capitalize fully on that combat. The story was lame, the characters were weak, the Alien designs felt phoned in, the animations were legendarily bad and there was just no space for the series to grow from it. But don't start thinking that was the lowest pit, because Bioware then followed that up with Anthem, a game in which they actively lied about their content in Marketing because the product was so bare!

Now to be fair, Casey Hudson did return to Bioware before Anthem released, but the public was quick to forgive him for the pitiful state of that mess because he wasn't technically there the whole time. Yes, the game was a stark, uncreative embarrassment to a studio that once were championed for their great storytelling, but maybe now with Mr Hudson back at the helm there could be a chance to rectify that image. This was the hope that a lot of us had begun losing out on, and even my cynical-ass was on board the Hudson train. But then Baldur's Gate 3 was announced by Larian and it started to become clear that Bioware had sunk so far that even Wizards of the Coast didn't want to rely on them anymore. (I'm sure in reality the choice was made by mutual agreement through all parties, but the public optics certainly didn't reflect that.) If Bioware weren't worthy to wield one of the series' that they had made great, then what where they good for? A Mass Effect Remaster? Sure, I guess...

But in all honesty, I am excited about the remasters and even more so if we get a bit of actual QOL stuff comedown the pipeline too, but is this the legacy of Casey Hudson's second tenure at Bioware? A remaster of the stuff he directed back in the day? Did that really need his expert supervision? Hidetaka Miyazaki didn't demand control of Bluepoint to conduct the Demon's Souls remake and that still turned out as a blast, so I think a little graphical touch up may not warrant such either. And yet, that is all we have to show for this time except for some vague promises on new projects, neither of which are fresh ideas. We have a Mass Effect (which is being kept so vague that we don't even know if this is going to be a continuation of Andromeda or something else entirely) and a Dragon Age (Which we already know is undergoing a significant identity crisis and could be a mess) coming out; forgive me if I don't halt the presses just yet. 

With calmer heads we might be able to wrangle that these three years, whilst fruitless for gamers, might have been great for Bioware. (I say 'might' because this is pure optimistic speculation.) With Anthem came knowledge that Bioware had descended into practically rudderless anarchy in the absence of Casey, with the project itself being halted and twisted for so long that EA had to twist the company's arm in order to bring the darn thing out. (Yeah, EA were only a tiny bit of the problem here, Bioware were messy as all heck.) Working conditions were apparently atrocious with unending periods of crunch running into each other because there no clear idea of what the product should start looking like. Communication was terrible to the point of Devs literally having no idea they were making a looter shooter until the rest of the world found out at the E3 conference. All and all the company was in shambles. Now Casey may have spent his past 3 years working hard at rectifying that and slowly laying the grounds for a stable transition for this, his second departure. (Maybe)

Hudson hasn't been the only one to leave. Mark Darrah, old school Bioware alum, is walking out the door too and other big names over the years have cut their losses as well. Nothing portrays more weakness then leadership leaving in droves, and Bioware is in a position of a public perception nightmare right now, so more weakness is not what they want to be showing. And it's not as though the industry has just waited around for Bioware to get back on it's feet whilst keeping it's seat warm, multiple other studios have stepped in to fill that Western RPG void and there might not even be a space left for these guys anymore even if they do ever get back to form. Spiders have been making their RPGs that seem built on the exact same model as Bioware's were, Obsidian have risen as an independent force in the genre, and Cyberpunk 2077 has dominated the AAA RPG space. Is anyone even waiting for a new Mass Effect at this point?

In my eyes, this is the sign of a dying studio who are destined for somewhere uncomfortable given their inability to perform as of late. Remember, everyone, that at the end of the day Bioware is a studio in the jaws of EA, a publisher notorious for closing storied companies, and if the staff are already jumping ship for cover than one has to wonder if it's because they've spotted a ticking bomb. In their leaving statements both men have expressed their desire to move onto newer things, which makes sense given how Bioware's only upcoming games are two sequels and a remaster. If these don't work out (I have a feeling that the remaster will at least) then we may not be looking at Bioware as an active studio five years from now. I hate to leave on a bummer, but that just looks to be where things are. Fingers crossed, then, that Bioware's future is more aligned with its past.