Former Bioware Dev: EA Refused Funding for Dragon Age Origins Remasters or Remake

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Ex Bioware dev says the team had “lots of pitches” for a Dragon Age Origins remaster, but couldn’t get EA’s support

Former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah talks about Bioware’s ideas for an Origins remake or remaster, and why it hasn’t happened.
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Ex Dragon Age boss says Bioware pitched a remaster, but couldn't get EA funding

Former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah talks about Bioware's ideas for an Origins remake or remaster, and why it hasn't happened.

Speaking to Youtuber 'MrMattyPlays,' Darrah talks about why we haven't seen Dragon Age: Origins and its sequels get a similar treatment to the Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Matty says that the remastered trilogy was "the first time in a while there was positivity and optimism around Bioware and their games," reminding players that the developer has brought us some of the best RPGs of all time over the years. "I wondered if Dragon Age Legendary Edition would be the next obvious step," he continues, "Was there a reason why that wasn't pressed any harder internally?"
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"EA's historically been, and I don't really know why but they've even said this publicly, kind of against remasters," Darrah responds. "It's strange for a publicly traded company to basically be against free money, but they seem to be against it. That's part of it. The other problem is that Dragon Age is harder than Mass Effect to do; to some degree unknowably harder. Maybe only a little bit harder, maybe a lot harder."

Mass Effect being built entirely in Unreal Engine, as opposed to the two separate engines used by Origins and Dragon Age 2 before the switch to Frostbite in Inquisition, made the former easier to remaster. "The fact it's Unreal means that you can remaster Mass Effect essentially for money," Darrah explains. "If you're willing to spend money on it, you can go to an external house and they can do most of the work, which is sort of what happened with Legendary Edition. There were a bunch of people at Bioware working on it, I don't remember how many, but it was not a ton."
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Darrah says that Bioware was initially eager to recruit a team to remaster the old games. "Let's do Frostbite tools, and then let's find a mod house that seems talented and pay them to do a remake of Dragon Age: Origins. There were lots of pitches around, 'Is there a way we can bring Dragon: Age Origins forward?'" He notes that a remaster was also considered; "A remaster you kind of get Dragon Age 2 for free, a remake you don't."
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Such a shame, the first 2 games have no controller support on PC, barely playable on emulator RPSC3 and can't be played on modern consoles. And the first one is a Baldurs Gate 3 level game.

This was the same problem with the Mass effect series that the remaster fixed.

And It's not like Bioware is giving us much of anything else anymore, let's be real.
 
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I wouldn't dare let them do a remake/remaster of Origins, no way they wouldn't fuck it up/update it for "modern audiences".

But if they outsourced it to someone who committed to being 100% faithful to the source material then I'd be all over it! 🔥

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Darrah explains that "to some degree, the studios run their own finances within themselves," suggesting that "EA's stance was probably, 'Sure, go ahead and do it, but do it with the money you already have.' And it's like, 'Well, we can't do it with the money that we already have because we're doing all these other things.'"

I mean fuck EA, the greedy cunts. But this seems more like Bioware themselves found more value in pumping all the money and resources into finishing that abortion of a game known as The Veilguard.

Skinsuit studio.
 
Good. Origins is my fav game from Bioware, but why would we need a remaster of an old ass game when this company is incapable of releasing anything new that is even worth playing? They first need to learn how to develop video games, release a few quality titles, and only then they might be thinking of releasing a few remakes on the side. As is, their releases are so bad that EA shouldn't allow them to make anything.
 
Astray said:
Matty has been knocking it out of the park lately tbh, lots of good podcasting mixed with good news and reviews.

I want to dig into the interview when I get home.
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Yeah, Matty is one of the few pro-Xbox podcasters who I legit like. Very passionate Bethesda fan, but he doesn't kiss Microsofts ass. He has been brutal with Starfield at times. And these are games he wanted to love.
 
I think going back and playing Origins would just make it more depressing seeing how far Bioware has fallen.


Like when an aging rock band has only written crappy music for the last 30 years, then they launch a tour celebrating their one fan favorite album from 30 years ago, so it's a bunch of 60+ dudes singing songs about puppy love + rebelling against your parents.
 
JohnnyFootball said:
Yeah, Matty is one of the few pro-Xbox podcasters who I legit like. Very passionate Bethesda fan, but he doesn't kiss Microsofts ass. He has been brutal with Starfield at times. And these are games he wanted to love.
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He simply tells it like it is and his videos are concise and well-spoken.
 
Shame really, I thought since BG3 released it would have stoked a lot more interest in the genre. DA:O is a fantastic game with a great story which I'm sure a lot of those that missed it first time would appreciate. I've been wanting to replay this one and if it ever did get the remaster it needs I would be there day one.

EA are fucking idiots though so...
 
I played through Origins and Awakening fairly recently. Holds up well. I think the benefit of a remaster would be pretty limited, at least on PC, and with a remake they would probably ruin it.

I'm playing through BG3 again rn and I think Origins is still better in some ways. Origins is still very easy to recommend for anyone who hasn't played it yet.
 
calico said:
I played through Origins and Awakening fairly recently. Holds up well. I think the benefit of a remaster would be pretty limited, at least on PC, and with a remake they would probably ruin it.

I'm playing through BG3 again rn and I think Origins is still better in some ways. Origins is still very easy to recommend for anyone who hasn't played it yet.
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I still have it on the ps3, never played it. Watched ganeplaybon YouTube and I don't know if I can get into it. Seems outdated as he'll.
 
They'd fucked too much up. Leave it alone.

If anything let night dive remaster it or blue point remake it.
 
EA I think are too fundamentally hostile to the kind of game Origins was to ever greenlight a remaster.

This quote I think shows the writer and Darrah are a bit deluded, though:

Speaking to the middling launch reception of Dragon Age 2, a game that history has grown to appreciate more, Darrah says a big reason for this was that "we didn't adequately prepare people for the change"
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They don't get how wrong they went with 2 still, it's incredible.
 
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Begleiter said:
EA I think are too fundamentally hostile to the kind of game Origins was to ever greenlight a remaster.

This quote I think shows the writer and Darrah are a bit deluded, though:



They don't get how wrong they went with 2 still, it's incredible.
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The thing that ruined perception of 2 was calling it 2. It began life as a spinoff or side story, probably with a $39 target price. That's why the story is so small. It's not a globetrotting adventure, it's a political web based in one city. Viewed through that lens, people would have cut it a wider path when it comes to expectations. They'd be more willing to give way to the structural changes. I haven't actually played it since launch window, but I remember enjoying it for what it was, and honestly there haven't been many games released since then with a similar scope. But when you tell people the entire direction of Dragon Age as a product is shifting from Origins to this, people are rightly concerned because the ceiling just got a whole lot lower.
 
This is one of the many reasons that I still play on Xbox more than anything else. I have a bunch of older games that play perfectly on modern hardware. This is also why I hope Microsoft continues making it possible to play backwards compatible games on future hardware.
 
At this point they should just sell the IP to a developer/publisher that will do the series some justice.

Because it's probably gonna be collecting a lot of dust now after veilguard.
 
DA2 is frustrating, because they made half of a very good game imo. I love the concept and narratively it is about on par with any other Bioware work. Unfortunately it feels like they developed those elements properly and then realised they only had a month left to develop everything else. The combat mechanics are enjoyable enough despite being 'streamlined', but the re-use of areas and waves of enemies spawning out of thin air makes you feel exactly how rushed development was.

I'd still take it over Inquisition.
 
Snl No GIF by Saturday Night Live
 
I'm guessing they couldn't "modern day it up to the maxx" or thought too much of the game was 'problematic' *for them* and did a hard pass.
Also passing is something they'll never achieve in real life with other human beings.
 
calico said:
DA2 is frustrating, because they made half of a very good game imo. I love the concept and narratively it is about on par with any other Bioware work. Unfortunately it feels like they developed those elements properly and then realised they only had a month left to develop everything else. The combat mechanics are enjoyable enough despite being 'streamlined', but the re-use of areas and waves of enemies spawning out of thin air makes you feel exactly how rushed development was.

I'd still take it over Inquisition.
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EA forced Bioware to make and release DA2 in less than 2 years to make up for the revenue loss from SWTOR being delayed.
 
Remasters and remakes are basically free money and it upskills your workforce.

-It gives them a low-risk project with a fixed scope
-it gives them something to do before embarking on a high-risk new project
-it teaches them how to deliver a project in time
-it teaches the coders what a successful game looks like
-it teaches managers how to, well, manage their team
-development time is much shorter than any new project

What am I missing?
 
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calico said:
DA2 is frustrating, because they made half of a very good game imo. I love the concept and narratively it is about on par with any other Bioware work. Unfortunately it feels like they developed those elements properly and then realised they only had a month left to develop everything else. The combat mechanics are enjoyable enough despite being 'streamlined', but the re-use of areas and waves of enemies spawning out of thin air makes you feel exactly how rushed development was.

I'd still take it over Inquisition.
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DA2 was supposed to be an expansion pack for DAO, but EA turned it into a sequel.

I believe it only had 9 months of dev time as well, which explains the reused areas and enemies.
 
Melon Husk said:
Remasters and remakes are basically free money and it upskills your workforce.

-It gives them a low-risk project with a fixed scope
-it gives them something to do before embarking on a high-risk new project
-it teaches them how to deliver a project in time
-it teaches the coders what a successful game looks like
-it teaches managers how to, well, manage their team
-development time is much shorter than any new project

What am I missing?
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UE 5, added content and poor art choices.
 
Danny22 said:
Such a shame, the first 2 games have no controller support on PC, barely playable on emulator RPSC3 and can't be played on modern consoles. And the first one is a Baldurs Gate 3 level game.

This was the same problem with the Mass effect series that the remaster fixed.

And It's not like Bioware is giving us much of anything else anymore, let's be real.
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wrong dg 1/2 can be played on x box sx with bc.
 
Good on EA for making a smart decision. They should just can the new ME game too. It's been years and actual development has even started yet. It'll be woke garbage anyway.
 
It would be easy money...vs years spent on a GAAS title, to then drop it and re-launch as a bad purple-tinged CW dialog mess of a game made by a director who worked on The Sims.

Speaking to the middling launch reception of Dragon Age 2, a game that history has grown to appreciate more, Darrah says a big reason for this was that "we didn't adequately prepare people for the change."
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This is the crap though that just...makes me hate game devs. Deflecting that they didn't "prepare the audience for change" is such an up your own ass response handwaving away accountability for the real problems of the game (rushed dev cycle, flagrant asset reuse, performance problems/bugs, shallow combat system). DA2 got more appreciated over time because there was some good story stuff, and patches + mods fixed shit that shouldn't have been broken in the first place for selling a full-price game.

Responses like this make me think some people at that studio really believed in the whole "Bioware Magic" bullshit.
 
I just want Bioware to shutter at this point. They have not made a decent game in so long and sitting around hoping that they will one day again be great is asinine. Yes, maybe someone else could do it. Sure why not? Just not Bioware.
 
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