Joe Nerds Out: Pouring One Out For BioWare 

If you’re a gamer of a certain age, you most likely felt some kind of way last week when it was announced that BioWare, the legendary game studio behind Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, was being shut down.

I cannot express how big of a role BioWare played in my childhood. I’ve always been a huge Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG) fan ever since I was gifted a copy of Final Fantasy IX when I was eight years old. For a long time, I thought JRPGs were the only way to make an RPG. 

And then I played Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic while I was in middle school. 

I was and still am a huge Star Wars nerd. While I played many Star Wars games growing up, Knights of the Old Republic changed my perception of what was possible in Star Wars and RPGs. It was my first time experiencing character creation, a morality system, and a choose-your-own-adventure system. I didn’t know games could have stories that were so layered and have jaw-dropping twists. Knights of the Old Republic increased my expectations of what was possible in gaming and expanded my horizons. 

BioWare’s impact on me was similar to how certain musicians were the soundtrack to a generation’s childhood. From middle school through my college years, BioWare was dropping banger after banger. After Knights of the Old Republic came Jade Empire, a martial arts-themed RPG that I played the hell out of while in eighth grade. I’ve always held hope that we may one day get a Jade Empire follow-up (I even made a whole video celebrating the game in the hopes of a sequel), and now that hope is thoroughly extinguished. 

During the Xbox 360 generation, BioWare went on a pretty unprecedented run with the release of two franchises: Mass Effect and Dragon Age. In my opinion, the Mass Effect series is one of the greatest achievements in sci-fi storytelling gaming has ever seen. 

As Commander Shepard, the first three Mass Effect games put you on a journey to protect all organic life from an imminent Reaper invasion. The decisions you make across the games connect, so each person’s playthrough is unique. I have fond memories of playing Mass Effect 2 and chatting with my friends about how all our playthroughs differed.

I’m not a huge fantasy gamer, but the Dragon Age series was equally successful in terms of sales and accolades. No matter what your vibe was, BioWare was delivering top-of-the-line experiences across the board. 

Hell, my first experience with a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMORPG) was with BioWare’s The Old Republic in 2010. While college me didn’t have the time (or money) to keep up with the subscription, I’ve revisited the game in its free-to-play era, and I’ve been impressed by how BioWare successfully translated its storytelling fundamentals to such a massive scope. 

Now, look. I’m not looking at this exclusively with rose-tinted glasses. BioWare’s output over the last nine years has left much to be desired. I remember my best friend being so excited for Mass Effect Andromeda when we were roommates back in 2017. Every day for two weeks I’d come home from work, and he’d be on the couch playing that game, hoping that he was getting closer to the fun until he realized there was no fun around the corner; the game was just the game. 

The real death blow came in 2019 when the company released Anthem. Ever since Fortnite Battle Royale dropped in 2017, video game publishers have been pushing for their own live service experience that they can monetize to pieces. For some reason, EA thought that BioWare, a studio known for single-player, story-driven RPG experiences, was the team to make a multiplayer live service shooter. Anthem failed abysmally at launch and lost EA a lot of money. 

The drama around Anthem resulted in many of the people who made BioWare what it was in its prime leaving the company. That lack of institutional knowledge could be felt in BioWare’s final release, 2024’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I didn’t play Veilguard, but I have several friends who did. The consensus was that it wasn’t a bad game; it just didn’t reach the heights that the series had in the past. The gameplay was fine, and the writing was serviceable at best. As one friend put it, “It felt like EA asked BioWare to make Dragon Age baby’s first RPG.” Which is a shame, considering games like Baldur’s Gate III have shown that hardcore RPGs can still have critical and commercial success. 

The tragedy of BioWare is that it did everything EA asked them to do, even if those requests were in line with what the studio historically excelled at. When EA’s bad ideas predictably failed, it wound up being the workers holding the bag, not the decision-makers. It’s truly a tragedy that we’ll never get a proper follow-up to the original Mass Effect series, especially since the leaked trailer for the now-canceled Mass Effect: Universe looked incredibly promising. 

I know every generation believes that their childhood is the best, but I gotta tell you, I really think I had it good coming up. Modern-day gaming has become an incredibly corporate endeavor, where innovation is sacrificed in the pursuit of profit. When I was growing up, studios like BioWare proved that innovation, quality, and profit weren’t mutually exclusive goals. 

It makes me sad that BioWare is no longer around, and the type of games they made are becoming more and more rare at the AAA level. So this weekend I’m gonna pour one out to the studio that shaped me and boot up Knights of the Old Republic for the hundredth time. 

RIP BioWare, you will be missed. 

SEE ALSO:

Spooky Season Is The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Joe Nerds Out: Why Physical Media Is More Important Than Ever [Op-Ed]