Yeah EA is mostly to blame, but so is BioWare. They just weren’t the same studio anymore. Despite the development hell that was Veilguard, it still showed they really didn’t have it anymore for writing which was their whole thing.
It's tricky to place blame because a lot of the newer staff at Bioware genuinely was pretty incompetent, but the only reason they were there was because the people that made the studio great left because they'd had enough of EA's bullshit. I would still say it's ultimately EA's fault but the mistakes of the staff over the last 12 or so years shouldn't be swept under the rug either.
That's not strictly true. Weekes was at Bioware from 2005 on and was very much the lead writer for Veilguard. Weekes was 100% part of the problem with Veilguard.
The reality is that the people that did stay through to this point were not talented or disciplined enough to be in charge, even if they were excellent in more minor roles. Sure you could blame EA for picking studio leadership that then put such people in charge, but at some point that's indicative of cultural issues inside of the studio itself.
Weekes' writing in Veilguard was far below what they did when under scrutiny from others, but I don't think it's fair to sat they're the sole reason the writing was so bad. Many writers worked on Veilguard, and all but a few bits of good writing here and there was abysmal work
I obviously don't think fault can ever be pinned on one person. At the end of the day though, when the writing is a weak point the lead writer at least shares in the blame and is particularly responsible for not cleaning up the lowest points.
That's fair, I'm just not sure I'd consider Weekes one of the people that made old Bioware great. Even if they did do good work with some characters as you said that was only when they had a more minor role and had to answer to higher ups.
Could be a hot take, but I think it's only tricky because it's been normalized that the default take is game devolpers are suffering heroes and the publisher is the real big bad.
Like, this is definitely true In A LOT of cases. The list is so long for publisher killed games.
But at the same time, bad game design is bad game design. Publishers aren't saying "don't put any content in your game" or "I want one gun to dominate them all" of "what if you made it crash constantly?"
I don't want to throw nebulous shade at devolpers that are just getting shit on by publishers, but I'm a Halo fan, so I'm very familiar with just having bad devs.
BioWare had such good writing that I stopped even giving them points for it. Like most games could be held up in terms of overall review score by good writing, but that is literally table stakes for BioWare.
From what I heard, all or most of the people who made BioWare games good in the past have been long gone, so even though the name holds some nostalgia, it’s not like they were putting out bangers this whole time
BioWare at this point is basically The Ship of Theseus.
The people behind the legendary bangers that revolutionized the industry moved on years ago. It didn't happen all at once, so there's no single event people can point at and say "yeah, here's where the studio went to hell."
It's still a sad day for the industry. But BioWare has been gone for a long time.
Personally, I'm kinda happy that EA didn't take one last dump on Mass Effect like they did with Dragon Age.
I'm kinda happy that EA didn't take one last dump on Mass Effect like they did with Dragon Age.
While I personally enjoyed it, I think most people at the time felt that way about Andromeda 😂 it certainly didn’t live up to the original trilogy but it was… serviceable?
Just compare it to Dragon Age 2 which they did in one year. It was an awful sequel in pretty much every respect, but the writing was still stellar. Some of the best in fact. There are faint traces of great original ideas in Veilguard, and EA maybe responsible for scrapping most of them, but not for the quality of the writing that did make it in. And that's just a hot mess.
Of course they didn't have good writing anymore. EA fired all of the lead writers during layoffs.
Idk why so many people in here are saying this is Biowares fault and not EAs as if EA isn't the parent company that decides budget and projects. As if EA hasn't been laying off senior employees and forcing the ones that are left into projects they didn't want to do?
Weekes was literally the lead writer and had been at Bioware since 2005. Sure, there were people laid off. But, the problem was that the people left from the good old days were not capable enough, not that they weren't there.
My bad, I didn't realize that the lead writer was the one that made the decisions that made the gameplay, stability, and forced all the awful live service elements.
Of course they didn't have good writing anymore. EA fired all of the lead writers during layoffs.
Idk why so many people in here are saying this is Biowares fault and not EAs as if EA isn't the parent company that decides budget and projects. As if EA hasn't been laying off senior employees and forcing the ones that are left into projects they didn't want to do?
The only specific component you mentioned was writing. So no shit my comment is going to focus on the writing. If you wanted a broad discussion, you ought not have fussed on writing.
Weekes was literally the lead writer and had been at Bioware since 2005.
Weekes was the lead writer on Veilguard, the most recent game, not the decade only Anthem, which would only be marginally relevant for a discussion about the impact of layoffs on writing that posted dated its release.
This guy made a comment and blocked me to get the last word. Always the sign of a winner.
But to clarify, I did not focus on writing I had multiple points I made. Once again you chose to focus on writing. 2nd EAs constant layoffs and restructurrings of Bioware are heavily documented for all to see. We don't have to go off vibes for this and I fail to understand why we are defending the megacorporation.
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u/CallofDo0bie 8h ago
Wish it could've been different, but EA ruins everything.