Since 1995, Bioware has been creating games that have cemented themselves in history as some of the greatest titles ever made. Games like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur’s Gate, and both the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series’. However, the studio has run into a rough patch, or rather a rough mile. In the last decade, the company has seen a bit of a decline due to underwhelming and overall bad titles. Three games, in particular, seem to be the source of this, each of them ranging in quality and each of them disappointing in some way to consumers. In my personal opinion, having played all two out of three of these games, I feel that some were given too much hate a little too soon and that fans expected a well-known, well-reputed company like Bioware to make polished masterpieces. I want to be clear and state that it is usually not entirely Bioware’s fault for their games being faulty when they are, but we’ll get into that soon enough. Without further ado, here are the three games that are responsible for Bioware’s decline, whether you like them or not.
The Good – Dragon Age: Inquisition
Many fans, including myself, will say that out of the last three major titles released by Bioware, Dragon Age: Inquisition is the best on the list. With an excellent cast of actors, both new and returning, with well-written characters to boot. But why did I put this on the “Bioware’s decline” list? Well, because it’s not the best game they’ve ever made. And that’s all. Granted this is one of my personal favorite games, I’ve played it through three times, but my reasoning for putting it on this list is simply because, as much as I liked it, it left some fans underwhelmed. Now years before, 2011 specifically, was a big moment for Bioware after the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, a game that MSNBC declared best MMO of the year.
Then in 2012, Mass Effect 3 was released and deemed good but not quite as good as the second installment. Then, in 2014, Inquisition was released to the public with a similar reaction. Now you could argue that Mass Effect 3 was the start of the decline, but really it was only thought of like a hiccup, a suitable ending but not necessarily a strong one. Dragon Age: Inquisition was a realization that, while Bioware was still doing well, they were starting to stall, showing that their creative talents may have reached their limit.
There’s nothing wrong with the game, heck fans agree it’s not even the worst of the three Dragon Age games, but it still wasn’t the improvement from the second title they had hoped for. It had a few unfixable glitches that, while harmless, broke the immersion of the game. There were also LONG loading screens, sometimes up to two minutes just to get to a single cut scene. And finally, and probably most importantly, the combat was very unappealing. Hits didn’t seem to register at times and some heavy attacks would make the animation skip, so NPCs would immediately end up on the ground instead of falling back like an actual person would. The game makes up for this in its story and characters; honestly, I like the characters in this game more than any other game I’ve played. So overall it’s good, but it’s still technically at fault in my opinion.
The Bad – Anthem
Bet everyone saw this coming right? I’ll admit right away, I haven’t played this game. Nor do I want to, nor do I have to play it to understand how much of a monumental flop it is. Considered the absolute worst game made by Bioware, Anthem is an unfinished sci-fi game released in 2019 where you fly around in a jetpack with a cool suit of armor and fight beasts on a jungle world. That’s pretty much it. But the game itself isn’t what fans initially dislike/hate, no, they hate that EA pushed it out into the public far too quickly. Bioware wanted to wait and finish the game properly, but EA, desperate to improve their image due to so many red flags pointed out by fans, hit the big red launch button and sent the Iron Man knock-off off to the races.
Once they had, people immediately panned it on all social media platforms, saying that the game was a massive disappointment due to all the hype and barely any content. All bark and no bite, if you will. So what’s being done to fix this? Surely Bioware and EA would want to fix their blunder, right? Not anymore. As of late February of 2021, EA and Bioware announced they were “ceasing production” on Anthem to focus on other projects, which we’ll also get to later. So after making millions in profits, EA and Bioware both have shut down development on a game people paid $60.00+ for, and rightfully expected them to fix. Personally, I think this game probably could have turned out right if EA didn’t push for its release so quickly like it did with our next title.
The Ugly – Mass Effect: Andromeda
I’ve heard many quotes from friends about this game; “Dead on arrival,” or “Unfinished” and “Sloppy,” and none of them is incorrect. In 2017, with fans overjoyed that Mass Effect was seeing a revival, EA and Bioware released Mass Effect: Andromeda to the public, a stand-alone game outside of the main trilogy. However, and this was only the start of EA’s blunders, they released it too early. Because of this, it was drawn and quartered by fans, as the game was so glitchy at launch that it was hard to play at times. I personally arrived after the game was patched, so I have no real knowledge of the glitches other than what I’ve seen and heard from friends, and of course the various memes about Peebee, an Asari companion in the game. Outside of that though, I really enjoyed playing this game. The bugs I did notice were small and didn’t hurt the game in any way, and the character models for the main characters that you constantly interacted with were good as well. I also liked a few of the characters, though most of them were admittedly stale.
So it’s fixed, right? I like it, so why did I name this ugly? Because there was a lot of ugliness to get to where it is now, fans blacklisting the game, terrible bugs and character models in the beginning, and ultimately the truth that the game will most likely not see a sequel, at least not in the near future, since it was left on a cliff hanger. There are two reasons for this: 1. The game was so poorly received that it’s going to take years for fans to trust a sequel. 2. Bioware is focused completely on reviving the milky way based games, with a legendary edition of the trilogy set to be released this year, and a sequel game to that in the works, so attention will be as far away from Andromeda as we actually are. So overall, with a crashing start and a few scars, Mass Effect: Andromeda is ugly but functional as a game, though there’s not much more I can say about it.
Conclusion
Bioware has been given a bad rep, and EA was the one to blame for it ultimately, pushing games too early and hurting both of their images, and some fans might say that it’s a bit of a copout relying on their established Mass Effect games, albeit 4K Ultra-HD enhanced and remastered versions of those games, while they work on their other projects. I think the games deserve a remaster to keep up with the times, but because of the timing, especially with the fresh news that they’re scrapping Anthem, it makes them look all the more suspicious. I’m hoping that the next full game that they release, which is set to be Dragon Age 4, will quell some of the justified anger brought on by years of cutting corners, but in the meantime, Bioware will have to deal with the fact that the only thing helping their image is rehashing.