Dragon Age Creator Mark Darrah Doesn't See Series Returning Any Time Soon - News
by William D'Angelo , posted 1 day ago / 1,111 Views
Dragon Age series producer and creator Mark Darrah speaking on an episode of the FRVR Podcast doesn't see Electronic Arts greenlighting a new entry in the series any time soon.
"I have no concept of who could, would, possibly pitch that at EA," he said. "EA owns a frightening number of IPs that are dormant.
"What I’ve heard is if you go and decide you're going to make a [game based on an IP]… the instant you're about to start, suddenly like three different people who think they control it come out of the woodwork and essentially like rip you apart and chew you up and spit you out."
He added, "The problem is I don't know who at BioWare would pitch a Dragon Age. So the other option is somebody else within the EA organization decides they're gonna pitch a Dragon Age and what I expect would happen if they try to do that, is somebody at BioWare would essentially become one of those people jumping under the vents to rip that person apart. I suspect that it wouldn’t happen for a variety of reasons."
BioWare is currently busy developing the next entry in the Mass Effect series.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
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Veilguard was a disaster, such a shame.
Good, you guys butchered it.
Doesn't the role of Dragon Age creator belong to David Gaider? As far as I know he devloped everything about the world.
Gaider was the world creator and narrative director of the series up until he left Bioware in 2016, because the original build of Dragon Age 4 got shutdown and Bioware moved him to work on Anthem for awhile, a project he wasn't fond of at all. Mark Darrah was a programmer at Bioware who got promoted to a Project Director starting with Sonic The Dark Brotherhood and then Dragon Age Origin. He was both Project Director and Executive Producer on Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age 2, meaning he lead the whole development team, but moved to just Executive Producing responsibilities on Inquisition with Mike Laidlaw taking over as Director.
I guess you could say it's like the "who created Sonic the Hedgehog" debate. Most remember Yuji Naka as the creator, because he came up with the earliest concept demo of the game when Sega asked them to make a mascot cooler than Mario, and programmed Sonic 1, coming up with the code that would make Sonic run faster than other platformer characters before him. Naoto Ohshima came up with the art for Sonic and other characters and levels. Hirokazu Yasuhara came up with the gameplay, he designed the level layouts, the enemy attacks, the boss fights, etc. Some remember all 3 as the co-creators of Sonic, some only remember Yuji Naka.
1 and 3 were fantastic, 2 and 4 were okay. Means the next one would be great.
Still annnoying that DAV was the direction they were going. DAV spent the entire time basically undoing the lore to create a big overarching story, which wasn't even that good or though provoking and needed retcons to make things fit.
EA basically had an idea and series to rival Elder Scrolls in scope. Each game a new protagonist, dealing with their issues in the world but they had to go and "Epic Trilogy" it instead. Now the world is oddly empty after they basically undo all the world building.
"Any time soon" is an understatement. As a massive fan of DA:O, 2 and I with over 2k hours over the 3, I hope we never get anything from it again. Leave it as a great trilogy and retcon DAV out of existence.
It's too bad what happened to the series. Even with the various issues throughout the first three games, I still loved the lore. But The Veilguard feels much too removed from the world established previously, even considering the changes made from game to game previously.
EA is a terrible owner for an IP like Dragon Age, but to be honest, I have little faith in BioWare either anymore.
This is an industry problem. Many IPs have gone to shit.
Sure, but EA is a particularly bad one.
Yeah, no shit. Watching the previews and release of that game was like a slow motion car crash.
Loved DAO. Did not play 2. DAI was mediocre. DAV just looked so bad I didn't even bother. I'm fine if the series is dead. Had one good game. The talent that made that one good game is long gone.
