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Bioware has been losing quite a few staff members linked to Mass Effect: Andromeda recently. Over the last couple of months, the game has lost its development director, its lead writer and now, Bioware's senior editor is leaving the studio and exiting the games industry entirely.
While we don't know why the development director left, we do know that Mass Effect's lead writer switched over to Bungie to begin writing for Destiny after wrapping up the story content of Mass Effect: Andromeda.
As for Bioware's Senior Editor, Cameron Harris, who was also working on the new Mass Effect, she is choosing to exit the games industry entirely to pursue other opportunities. Writing on Twitter she said: “I've decided to exit the video-game industry to return to Seattle for new opportunities there. I'll be leaving BioWare in mid-April. I had a great time at BioWare, working with so many talented, passionate folks. I'm grateful for everything you taught me over the years. I wish all the best for my friends and colleagues at BioWare and across the games industry. You are some of the finest people I know.”
Despite these few key departures, according to EA, Bioware still has Mass Effect 4 on track for a Q1 2017 release, which is pushed back slightly from the previously forecast Q4 2016 release date.
KitGuru Says: Bioware has seen quite a few departures recently which leaves me pretty curious as to what is going on behind the scenes over there. Hopefully this doesn't end up spelling trouble for the new Mass Effect trilogy.
So the writer has no effect at all, her job was just finished. Which means only two people in senior positions left before their job was done. In a team that probably consists of a few hundred people, I have no idea why that might spell trouble. People change jobs, it happens. Just because there are now two in a relatively short time-span there is absolutely no reason to assume that something is wrong at the company or with the project.
Except there were tensions at Bioware over the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy as well. You could be perfectly correct, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable for fans to get nervous when looking at this. It’s too familiar.
I stopped being a fan at ME3, but that was because the game sucked, not just the ending 🙂
The game was awesome, stop whining lol
Well, when you put it like that, it must be true.
People change jobs for all sorts of reasons, pay, seniority in role, locale not cutting it anymore, personal crisis that needs attention etc. Pay and a better career growth option are the prime factors to jump. That said anyone jumping before the work is complete is a clear sign that the project is not doing all that well but we don’t know anything about ME:A, honestly nothing more than it is something that happens in Andromeda. They were never open about how far the development has progressed, nothing on casting, nothing on rough number of levels finished, nothing on rough number of characters, nothing officially that is. A few useless art work and some pointless stock footage teasers are not worth talking about.
On one hand they could be doing it on purpose to make a big splash come EA play or GDC or whatever conference they have chosen, in which case these people suddenly leaving are just coincidences and all mostly down to personal reasons. On the other hand they just don’t have anything to show because the recent rash of people leaving really are indications of project health rather than personal reasons, might also explain how that holiday 2016 release is no longer on the cards according to one of EA’s recent investor disclosures.
If we get nothing more than the usual shitty teasers come EA Play then we can safely assume they are in trouble. Got a few more months to wait I guess.
Damn straight.
But it is different with the ME games. The writer should be around until near the end due to the huge storylines and character dialogues that have to be written. If the job was finished, then it means the management was total crap as everyone should be timed to finish at the same time, otherwise you have people with nothing to do and they leave. So now, if they find a plot hole or something, they are screwed.