oh no

[artabria]

Two more Bioware veterans down. Casey Hudson (Bioware's General Manager) and Mark Darrah (Dragon Age's Executive Producer) have left the studio.

In the middle of Dragon Age 4 development.

And it was sudden enough that they're still looking for a replacement for Hudson.

I don't like this.

The person taking over Mark Darrah's job, Christian Dailey, was in charge of Anthem's live service part, apparently. Which means I don't really like the potential reason as to why Hudson and Darrah have decided to leave.

At least the Creative Director hasn't changed? But, honestly, between this and that some years ago we were told that DA4 has suffered a massive change and that they have practically started from zero again... This is looking more and more like Dragon Age 4 is deep into Development Hell.

[Source]

Comments

[pict]

Yeah, the shake-up was surprising! Hopefully the studio doesn't lose its footing in the aftermath. I'm a bigger Mass Effect fan than Dragon Age fan, admittedly, but it would be a huge bummer if any of the upcoming banner projects got set aside because of this.

This also came with (to me) the revelation that Greg Ellis is a major league asshole which is another disappointment because I always really enjoyed his performances.

[artabria]

I knew that people had issues with Ellis, but last night I discovered every single one of those issues and oooh, boy.

Apparently, he may be in trouble now. This post from Tumblr explains all of it -> LINK

Basically, it seems like he decided to make a video in character asking his fans to fight against "cancel culture". Someone asked Darrah if Ellis can get in trouble for doing it that. Darrah says that he can.

The guy pretty much thinks that Cullen belongs to him, that he can't be replaced and that Cullen fans and Ellis fans are the exact same thing.

[pict]

That is just so awkward. I have so much secondhand embarrassment now.

Hopefully Bioware shuts that shit down. Like, I don't always agree with every arm of cancel culture (particularly when it pertains to fandom activities and antis) and I think there is a point where you can reasonably separate art from the artist, but this is just. Tinfoil hat level of misreading the situation; and using it as a way to propagate hate while calling suppressing said hate 'inequality'— no. Just no.

[bemused_writer]

I'm trying to stay optimistic, but yeah, sudden departures like that aren't usually a good sign. I still haven't played Anthem, so I really don't know how I'd feel about it, but hopefully it doesn't mess with the DA vibes too much. :0