Baldur's Gate was always owned by WotC, it was a licensed DnD game. They just gave the license to Larian to develop 3 since Bioware wasn't up to it anymore.
Mass Effect is owned by EA. They may task some other internal studio with developing a followup sometime in the future, but I honestly doubt it. They almost certainly will never sell or even license it.
That said, the upcoming Expanse game looks fairly Mass Effect-coded, and Exodus) is effectively a spiritual successor to ME, even having a number of the key developers who were responsible for ME 1 and 2.
I agree, it’s sad to see such a rich universe with so much untapped potential being basically abandoned, but we did get 3 great games out of it, and another game that eventually became great in its own way. Andromeda had sooo much potential, but it got in its own way a lot, too.
I do think, mechanically the games improved over each iteration (Andromeda was imo undeniably a smoother experience gameplay-wise than even ME3, which was smoother than ME2, and ME1 was clunky af sometimes). But the writing and details suffered in Andromeda.
Back to my original point: there were a lot more stories to tell in the ME universe, but we did get to have a hell of a good time in it while it lasted. So I’m glad we at least got we got out of it. Still my favorite franchise of all time.
I’m hoping the players just take it and run with it. I know we can accept it’s closed and move on, but we literally don’t have to. The continuity of it would be weird but if a group of people got together and wrote a coherent story built within a thorough understanding of the universe, we could have a gamer-made saga.
It’d be like modding. Skyrim couldn’t be what it is today without the players. Fallout too. All of these expansions being made just for the love of the game when coding was done manually? The future is gonna get weird and I reeeally hope it goes the cool way where we get to enjoy these worlds and not let them die behind weak ass corporations.
God, those menus still drive me INSANE! Thy are so clunky and just illogically and confusingly stacked on top of one another I never even bothered switching "profiles" because it was just too much of a hassle to manage (only effing THREE) abilities across several such "profiles" you are meant to swap between on the fly, not to mention crafting and other nonsense nested features.
But yes, the overall gameplay was SO much better than the MET and one of the reasons I still replay Andromeda. I will say the writing is def a mixed bag, but not as terrible as everyone thinks it is. Sure, it's nowhere near as good as the MET's, and there are a lot of mediocre, bad, repetitive, and cringe moments, but there are also a fair amount of heartwarming, funny, dramatic, and mysterious moments as well (the now forever unsolved murder mystery revolving around the mysterious "benefactor" of the Andromeda Initiative is one I still think about and there are some pretty cool theories about; another being Cora's potential backstory being TIM's daughter). They're just often buried in sidequests or found much later in the game (though I do think the game's into "hook" storyline with you dad is touching, dramatic, and tragic as well), like all of the companions' personal loyalty quests were very unique and fun to play and most gave a fair amount of depth to the characters. But I think it's lightyears better than Veilguard's writing (for the most part), honestly, and potentially their last game that still has a semblance of "classic Bioware."
Yeah, I was referring specifically to gameplay. I think they tried to do too much that was too new (and going open world didn’t do it any favors either - ME was somewhat linear, and thus they could focus more on narrative, which was always one of ME’s draws) but looking purely at gameplay it was awesome.
There was a ton to critique but it was hella fun combat.
Same. The first game is still my favorite because it did an absolutely masterful job of establishing a universe full of history and potential. It’s a shame to see all that lore just end.
After Anthem and Veilguard, honestly, I didn’t trust BioWare with the next Mass Effect game at all. I hate that the studio is closing, I hate that 400 people are losing their jobs, but part of me is relieved because as a studio BW repeatedly demonstrated incompetence with IPs old and new.
Agreed, but at the same time the trilogy was perfect and as andromeda showed it’s hard to recapture that energy.
I’d rather it be shelved or saved for a company that truly loves the franchise than to see it become a meh game and BioWare as it stood at the end was not that company
Bioware was wasting it already and this guys saying another studio might get to take it up. Im not sure what to tell you but thats literally the best case scenario for fans
While I do agree it’s a waste, please don’t let that paint your potential enjoyment of something that could take its place…help games like this thrive so we can at least TRY to have more of them.
I’m mixed here, I’m glad that current Bioware isn’t making another Mass Effect, as I really didn’t like the sound of where it was going, but this is also tragic in so many more ways than that.
It's one of my biggest gripes with game companies (especially Blizzard): under-utilization of their IPs. There's so much room for so many kinds of games in these universes and they just... don't do it. You'd think the greedy, soul-sucking shareholders at least would realize they're leaving money on the table by not making a Mass Effect 4X game or space sim.
I think there were a lot of potentially great stories in the Mass Effect universe, but I don’t think EA/Bioware were realistically ever going to tell them. Almost all the comics and novels are about humans and Cerberus for some reason, and the only time they made an actual sequel to the Trilogy it was a kinda hollow feeling spinoff in a new galaxy that might as well have been a completely new series.
I’m actually more sad about Dragon Age, and after seeing Veilguard I’m kind of glad they didn’t take another shot at Mass Effect.
It's entirely likely that they'll sell mass effect to someone else provided that they take some of the debt that was included in the leveraged buyout. There's still an Amazon TV show of mass effect being made and if someone at Amazon was told that they could own their next fallout style property, they might just jump at it.
I know how you feel, but I guess in the positive side this is how we get more games and more creativity in the space. Plus exodus has a squid party member…
Or at least that’s what I’m going to tell myself while I cry over the corpse of BioWare.
Mass Effect is Mass Effect because of the people who made this games. The setting was no particularly innovative. They can do the same in a new similar setting
They're not action RPGs, but if you're looking for a developer who's carrying that same spirirt forward check out Owlcat Game's Pathfinder and 40k games.
What? lol they didn't just "give" the license to Larian. Larian paid for it and has to pay royalties to Wizards of the Coast. That's how licensing works
Because EA doesn't sell their IPs. They would rather sit on it and prevent other people from profiting off of their IPs. It's how they have always worked.
Mass Effect is owned by EA. They may task some other internal studio with developing a followup sometime in the future, but I honestly doubt it. They almost certainly will never sell or even license it.
featuring a complete lack of bi or hetero sexuality and a huge emphasis on High-T Shepard
I dont have much hope for the new Expanse game, and i say that as an absolute expanse fanatic. i reaally want to love it, but the gameplay looks very generic, and they're missing a lot of notes that would really sell the belters to me.
The expanse game was developed with Space operation mind specifically the commander Shepard and his band of misfits feel from what I’ve read. So we have that at least.
My feel on the matter is if BioWare was actively working on a mass effect game then EA likely has no intention of further developing that. Streamlining and selling off IPs actually makes sense for them, and its probably the best hope a lot of the franchises have for actually having sequels that don't suck shit.
$20bil in debt that didn't exist a year ago is gonna necessitate A LOT of revenue to offset. That's why I'm rather confident they will be selling off certain things at this time.
In addition, Wizards went to BioWare / EA first, and they turned it down as they didn't have an engine that would do the IP justice, they suggested Wizards go to Larian since their Divinity: Original Sin engine was perfect and if they made the game themselves they'd have to just license the engine to use, which I don't think was on the table.
Unfortunately from how I saw it, Exodus looks to be more on the Dragon Age: The Veilguard side of things when looking at the character dialog. Campy and whimsical. I am afraid it will share the same fate as that game. So I am not optimistic on it being an ME replacement.
Larian worked with Wizards of the Coast to make Baldurs Gate 3. They didn’t like working with them which is why they didn’t make BG3 dlc and their next project is Divinity which is their IP.
If EA sells their IP it is totally possible for a different studio to make the game. However selling IP like that isn’t very common.
Yes, more likely they'll have another subsidiary studio use it or with with an outside studio like Larian did with WotC, but that's if they ever decide to make another ME game at all.
Swen has had only positive things to say about working with WOTC. I’m sure it wasn’t always great, but the idea that they hated working with them is headcanon made up by fans who needed a “bad guy” to blame for us not getting more BG content from Larian. In reality they simply wanted to move on and make their own stuff that they 100% own, which is completely understandable.
Wizards of the Coast owns IP for Baldur's Gate. Developers like BioWare and Larian Studios created individual titles under license. WotC retain full rights to the setting, characters, and future games.
EA would rather send their IPs to a digital graveyard instead of selling them, they don't want competitors turning their IPs into a hit. It will never happen.
Respawn has been given every chance to make titanfall 3 or even other titanfall spinoffs. Hell EA WANTS more titanfall content. The recent star wars zero company game was originally pitched to be a titanfall game before respawn changed it to Star Wars (definitely the better decision but the point still stands)
If they don't make a game with it then it's just leaving money on the table. The $5 a pop they get from the Legendary edition every time it sells can't last forever.
It doesn’t need to. EA is gonna divert the money they were spending on ME5 back to Madden and College Football. Because the idiots gambling all their money on Ultimate Team just for a tiny dopamine hit are worth more money than any Mass Effect game could be and it takes such little effort to get money from morons who have no life, whereas it’s harder to get money from dedicated fans.
Larian was a well established studio and BG3 was built entirely on the back of their Divinity: Original Sin games. Larian was successful already plus they did a huge Kickstart and got money from selling a portion of their company.
The rights to Baldur’s Gate rest with Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro who own D&D as a brand. BioWare was allowed to create the original Baldur’s Gate based off of the AD&D rules just like Larian was allowed to make BG3 based on the D&D 5e rules.
Who cares? It’s over. Mass effect was a response to losing the rights to Star Wars showing they could make an interesting original game. Why don’t we just want a repeat of that? Something new and original?
yeah Hasbro approached Larian and ultimately the studio licenses the IP that Hasbro/WotC owns. With BioWare gone, I’d have to assume the IP of Mass Effect now lives with EA? so they could in theory have a studio, though likely one under their umbrella pitch a game under the license, I doubt EA would ever do anything that gamers actually want but I can dream
Baldur's Gate is D&D, Bioware never owned it and Larian doesn't either. Same for KOTOR btw with Disney.
For Mass Effect and Dragon Age, it's owned by EA now which I guess could license it to someone else but doubtful (if they were interested in the games, they'd have kept Bioware).
I guess they could also sell it to someone. They are looking for money to refund some of the debt after all.
Realistically, I think the more likely scenario would be ex-BioWare staff creating a 'new' series that's basically just ME/DA with the serial numbers filed off.
Larian made the Divinity Series which is widely acclaimed so they had pedigree behind their name for producing quality over quantity. That’s why they got BG3 and it won game of the year.
>Is there any chance a smaller studio could get rights to Mass Effect to make it?
No way. EA is much much worse than WoTC.
They won't let the license go and they won't allow a game to be produced unless theres an insane amount of money to be made (which there probably isn't, by EAs standards).
Apparently Hasbro got like 90 million from the BG3 earnings when all was said and done. Keeping in mind BG3 took like 6 years to make, its just not very profitable compared to slapping some shitty multiplayer game together in a year and adding microtransactions.
Baldur's Gate is owned by WOTC which is an outsider company that doesn't develop its own games.
So they rent the IP to an interested party.
Similar to the Star Wars games. They're mostly published by EA but the owner of the IP is Disney.
Mass Effect is owned by BioWare which is (was) owned by EA. So in order for another Mass Effect game, EA would have to rent their IP to another studio or have another internal team to develop the game.
But historically EA has been very very very reluctant to do rent or sell their IPs even when they're not doing anything with them.
So the chances of us ever seeing another Mass Effect or another Dragon Age at this point are effectively 0.
Larian is a private company owned primarily by Sven who oversees the development of the games as well. They aren’t beholden to share holders like most game companies.
They also paid to use the Baldur’s gate IP. So if someone was able to pay EA to create a new mass effect, it would be possible but I assume that bill will be far to step if EA would even agree.
Baldur’s Gate is owned by wizards of the coast and was licensed to bioware and then to larian, bioware never owned the IP in any sense. Mass effect is owned by EA, and they sure as shit arent giving it to anyone else
They don’t own the rights to Baldurs gate Wizards of the coast do and they are unbelievably controlling of their ips in the same league as Games Workshop. In addition Larian isn’t even allowed to produce more baldurs titles it did so well wizards took direct control back so they can maximize profits on the next game.
Independency. That's what indie means. They paid for the project. They owe nothing to anyone but themselves.
It's literally the capitalist class who have broken major studios. In order to pay investors they need to cut content, avoid risk, and squeeze money from the users. All the studios who ended up having investors to fund their exponential growth during the ps2-ps4 era cannot take a dump without the shareholder's approval.
Shareholders are the reason behind all enshittification.
Absolutely the IP could be licensed to someone else, the trouble is funding it. Wealthy independent studios with the means to self-fund a AAA rpg aren't super common, so the expectation is EA would need to pick a studio and pay for development.
If they aren't willing to keep paying for BioWare to make it it's hard to see them throwing that money at anyone else.
I think, at the time, the IP was just sitting there and EA just didn't care for it. Sold it off. That or licensing and Larian was deemed of cheap enough studio or small enough that if they did fuck it up, it wouldn't harm the brand.
They didn't fuck it up and got a massive boast. Went from an underrated studio to a very beloved one.
Larian basically made the exact type of game and has been very successful at it in the AA space. BG3 was a no brainer for them. But i cant think of a company that makes games like MassEffect.
To add to what others said, Larian also explicitly said they will never touch anything WotC-related with a foot-long stick again, ever. Their IP management is that bad apparently (which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who knows Hasbro tbh).
But how was Larian able to procure and publish Baldur's Gate 3?
More by luck than judgement.
Larian had been begging WotC to let them doing BG3 or at least "a D&D game" for several years, and WotC had been turning them down. WotC tried to get other companies to do a BG3, but that all fell apart. Then the guy in charge of licencing D&D saw how good Divinity 2 was looking, and how well it was selling, and he got back to Larian to suggest they pitch again. They did, and basically because WotC had no other credible options, they took a risk on what was then a small-but-growing company.
And of course then they behaved so shittily after BG3 released Larian stopped working with them lol.
Think of it like Star Wars. At the end of the day, Disney owns Star Wars and when the EA contract ended and wasn't renewed, other studios like Ubisoft and Fuse(Galactic Racer Devs) who are outside of EA were able to make "Primary" Star Wars games(Primary games are mainstay games. Think the Jedi games and Battlefront. Non-Primary are things like Lego Star Wars and the MMO, things that are either not canon to the Universe or are comfort games like the Skywalker Saga).
Baldur's Gate is set in the Dungeons & Dragons Universe which is owned by Wizards of the Coast, meaning they allow studios like Larian and Invoke to make games set in the Dungeons & Dragons Universe like Baldur's Gate and the upcoming Warlock game is.
EA does own the Mass Effect IP, which means they can give another studio the chance to make another game, but it would also be an EA studio that makes it so don't expect someone outside of EA like Larian coming in and doing so.
Flexibility, it is that simple. If you pose a project to EA, you will make it exactly as you proposed.
I think back to Maxis and Sim City, when then was swept away by Cities Skylines. That Sim CIty still had more depth than cities skylines had on release, but SC was bunged by always online requirements, and a feeling that multiplayer nerfed the games map size. CITIES Skylines had neither.
But developers said, that is what they pitched to EA. An online mixed experience of constant progression of other players around you. And when they figured out they COULDN'T do that without seriously cutting the map size, and forcing always on, EA wouldn't let them budge, even if it meant releasing a bad game.
I doubt EA policy has changed much since then. And it either leads to over cancelling projects, instead of re-working them, or releasing a bad product.
It also forces stifled creativity. Studios dont want to risk a lofty project (Pandemic (RIP my kings) and the batman game) where they realised they just couldnt do it with the scope they wanted to, so got shut down for failing to meet a loft ambition.
So, sometimes a company thats owns an IP but has no interest in making certain kinds of fiction out of it will....Uh, probably easiest to describe it as 'rent it out' to a company that convinces them with a good sales pitch that there is money to be made. Hasbro had no expertise in making a game like BG3 or interest in putting in the work to build up that infrastructure, so they rented the IP out to Larian for one game. Which was fortunate for Larian, in hindsight. Because Hasbro are a bunch of dicks they don't want to work with ever again so its good they didn't sign a contract for making more then one game.
The Baldurs Gate games were listened D&D games. The License used to be with BioWare (which made the original Baldur’s Gate) and then went to Black Isle (which was working on its own BG3 before it went under) but now Larian has it.
Well, one thing is Larian's ownership situation is infinitely better. I hope they don't lose control of their own destiny. That was a big part of what ended up hurting Bioware in the long run.
Basically yes. The approached Wizards of the Coast about making a third Baldurs Gate but were denied as WotC were wary of just letting anyone use the license and found Larian were not established and big enough yet to be given the keys to the IP, Larian went away and cooked with the Divinity Original Sin series which were basically only really even funded because of successsful Kickstarter campaigns.
The success of them is well known especially the second game and thus Wizards relented and gave them the shot at making Baldurs Gate 3. Issue is for all its success both financially and critically it is still someone else's IP and is why they have zero interest in making a fourth one despite Wizards being ok with the idea and instead going back to Divinity for their next game.
Could a smaller studio get access to Mass Effect or Dragon Age for that matter? Entirely up to the new Saudi owners of EA, they could well license it out but it NOT being the third parties IP means they will have to work around sentiments of EA on everything from the lore to the well... less approved things over there (no more blue lesbian sex scenes for you!). With Larian backtracking on doing anyone elses IPs there are not many left with the experience and prestige to pull off a Mass Effect. The likes of OwlCat games certainly could because they have yet to release a flop yet and actively always work with others IPs as seen with Pathfinder, Warhammer 40k and now The Expanse for very deep RPG experiences and characters but yeah their slate is already full (they're doing three games concurrent at the moment whilst also doing a second season of DLC for Rogue Trader) so honestly who can pull it off whilst also being willing to do it vs just making their own shit? Obsidian come to mind as another who could do it justice (like they have with everything from Fallout New Vegas to KOTOR 2 in the past aka making critically loved games using others IPs) but they now infamously are gonna be focusing on the Fallout brand under the Bethesda leadership after a Microsoft reshuffle.
That does not leave many other with the studios with the size, experience and financial backing enough to even make a Mass Effect game never mind a good one.
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u/jkman61494 7h ago edited 7h ago
So I'm not a gamer expert.
But how was Larian able to procure and publish Baldur's Gate 3?
Is there any chance a smaller studio could get rights to Mass Effect to make it?
I'm guessing the answer is no, but I always found it weird BG3 was able to be produced. Was that a special deal with Hasbro?