The epic saga of Mass Effect has captured the hearts of millions including myself. It taps into everything that we love about SciFi; that it sparks the curiosity most of us have about the existence of life out there in the far reaches of the unknown. The powerful story of Commander Shepard and the masterful execution in gameplay that BioWare provided is truly a thrilling and immersive gaming experience for the history books.
In the wake of recent BioWare news, let’s look at a small bit of chronology.
August 2014, Mass Effect Director Casey Hudson pulled his parachute on his run with BioWare. It was a while back, but well into the development of the upcoming Andromeda. Two months ago, Senior Development Director Chris Wynn said adios:
About a month ago, Lead Writer David Gaider left BioWare after working there for 17 years.
It has now come to public attention that BioWare had acquired veteran writer Chris Schlerf to work on Mass Effect: Andromeda a few months ago, and now he too has left:
I remember back when Lead Writer Drew Karpyshyn had taken off prior to the release of Mass Effect 2, people were starting to question how the series would do without such a key team member. Fans worried that important story elements would get botched. ME2 was generally praised, but we all remember how complicated of a response it was when ME3 finally hit the shelves. I was really bummed, genuinely heartbroken for BioWare at the time because I knew how much this game meant to most of them and their dedicated fan base. Its backlash was sufficient enough to inspire them to channel lots of money into creating new DLC that added more story to the originally released content. It was an admirable move that paid direct tribute to its millions of dedicated fans. It was also an attempt to express they were aware that lots of people were pissed, and they weren’t just going to leave them hanging.
So now what’s going to happen with Andromeda? Is it going to stay the same mind-blowing new Mass Effect despite the fact that so many key contributors have used an escape pod midway through development? Is it so big now that the creative inspiration of the individual matters zilch, and this ship can keep on flying unaffected?
For now, we play the waiting game. A waiting game that isn’t just about how amazing the game is shaping up to be, but also one of watching who the next contributor will be to take off before release. It’s the most divided I’ve ever been in anticipation of an upcoming game, both excited and fearful.
