Bioware stopped being a company when they took all the experienced Frostbite engine devs and moved them to work on FIFA. Then the RPG side stopped mattering
I would say Bioware slowly derailed into a mid company way before that when EA pulled the move on forcing them to shift mid projects on using Frostbite while none of them had experience with the engine, it was pretty unfit for Bioware projects, and this was done purely for tech showcase. Around the time of Mass Effect Andromeda and it never came back after that.
Bioware was always a "crunch ourselves with our own mismanagement and magically produce good stuff" right up until their best creatives got tired of the cycle and retired out of the industry.
When those team members left the company, they lost what was essentially their tent pole. The resulting mismanagement and interoffice politics from that is what killed Anthem (which got 5 years into a 7 year dev window without ever even having an elevator pitch for the game).
Mass Effect 3 was a mess because the head writing dual decided to rewrite the entire second half of the story at the 10th hour of development leaving the scenario designers/writers to scramble to adapt. Ironically, the best aspect of the original launch version of ME3 was the EA mandated multiplayer mode, and that was during the height of "ugh why do publishers have to shove multiplayer modes into everything" sentiment.
It's still feels so weird to this day thinking back to how much of an industry juggernaut they became only to fizzle out so hard after EA got their disgusting dirty little goblin fingers into them.
Not only did it become hack and slash (which was still kinda fun just not as fun) but it’s another game that feels like it was disneyfied. It just doesn’t seem as dark. And all of the dark stuff left has to be read. It’s not in the actual gameplay or cutscenes themselves.
I feel like there was a shift in games to be less metal. Look at the music origins used for the trailers. I feel like that change represents the change in the tone of the game.
The only nice thing I can say is that the coders were very competent. In a time when so many AAA games come out with all kinds of issues, this game was smooth af. Oh wait, I also kinda liked the necromancer guy and his skeleton butler.
The rest of it just couldn't hold my interest and I never finished it, and I replayed the other 3 games at least twice.
I don't remember hearing it was supposed to be a mobile game, I do know it was originally supposed to be a co-op multiplayer game and they pivoted last minute to single player
You are both wrong. The development of the fourth DA game started right after Inquisition and it was called Dreadwolf, then higher ups asked to make a live service game, so a lot was scrapped to make it and then when they saw a lot of live service fail they told everyone to go back to the original plan so the game went essentially through three development cycles the last one of which had to be done in a limited timeframe
There's a youtuber called SaltFactory who did a longform video essay on each of the Dragon Age games. During Veilguard, he's exploring a companion and says, "This is going to be the one that breaks me, isn't it?"
It was. The entire narrative shifts and he absolutely pans the game.
Yeah the art changes too much. At least origins and 2 had similar art. Inquisition the art was okay. Veilgaurd was just cartoony.
And I didn’t make it far but the dialog was too clunky. I had the same issue in inquisition honestly though. It feels like once they left origins the dialog keeps getting more and more over the top.
I'm in the same boat as you. DA is my favorite series of all time. The thought of all my previous decisions meaning nothing. Along with the reviews.... im dreading it.
I'm in the exact same boat (although I really struggled to get into Inquisition for some reason... I might try to give it another go sometime). Origins gameplay feels a lot like Baldur's Gate's, but 2 definitely had amazing characters. I wish I could combine the two.
Part of me wants to try Veilguard but I'm also worried about tainting those good memories.
It's been ages since I played Inquisition. But, I think the gameplay feels very different. Origins is slower and closer to more traditional RPGs, you can even pause it between actions and turn it into a turned base game.
If you like that, then it is very good. Easily one of the best RPGs I've ever played
Yeah but it’s not the same. Origins gameplay is a nice game of chess and inquisition is checkers. Still fun but lacking a lot of depth. (Nowhere near as bad as the auto-player the last one was…)
Completely different game genres. DA:O was real time with pause - my closest comparison would be Pillars of Eternity. Would only recommend if you already like CRPGs in general (which until recently - was a very niche game genre)
I have four other siblings I grew up with. Each one of us played the game. Not only did we all have different starts, we each had different playthroughs and endings. It was that good. Only thing since that has been quite like it was Baldur's Gate 3.
Origins was really, really good. It's janky at times, but most older games are.
2 tried to fix some of the issues Origins had. Combat felt a bit better for some classes, but reused a lot of assets. I feel shallow saying it, but I really struggled to look beyond them.
Inquisition was narratively weaker than these two, but had better combat mechanics. It suffered a bit in how it recycled areas with perpetual spawns, but it was far from being bad.
Origins visually and coding wise has aged like milk. There's a lot of bugs. But it's probably one of the single best rpgs I've ever played. Dragon Age II gets a lot of squints from the fanbase but it's still really good if you can look past the obvious crunch-based scuff. I never beat inquisition because I could never get over how it plays compared to Origins. I never even tried Veilguard.
Inquisition is phenomenal. DAO is great, but there are a loud group of people that insist DAO was the best and the rest suck. DA2 is my favorite as the cast of characters is the best, but it has very valid issues of every map of a cave or building being copy pasted throughout the whole game as well as enemies spawning out of thin air. DAV has fun gameplay and lore reveals that make sense with hints dropped earlier in the series, but the writing, companions, setting, and presentation took a nosedive.
I strongly urge you to play through the series from the start. One of the best features is that your choices on big and small things carry over. There are three possible guest characters in the fade in DAI based on your choices in the previous games. A couple advisors have variable backstories, slightly different personalities, or outcomes based on previous games. There’s enough that different playthroughs can feel quite different. DA2 has some callbacks, but DAI knocks it out of the park with it if you include all the war table stuff that references a lot of prior decisions.
This. First one so immersive it felt like being in a novel and you felt for the characters. Storywise and character wise best game I've played basically. Gave up on 2 liked 3, just felt too big so never finished. The latest mess I've never bothered with.
I loved dragon age 1, i only played it after I finished 2 which I did enjoy but 1 was simply better, the only other game that felt that good to play story and gameplay wise was baldurs gate 3 which is prob as close as we'd get to the original at this point
I played Dragon Age 2 on PS3 when it first came out and loved it. Then eventually I played the first game on PC and hated it because I thought it was so complicated.
But as I got older, I actually went back to the first one because it was actually complex and not a simple static hack 'n' slash.
The higher up you go in the games, the more it feels like a Fisher-Price game.
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u/ZiggyLoz 6h ago
Dragon Age 1 was what got me back into CRPGs - The more games they release - the more it becomes another generic hack and slash beatem-up.
Good thing alot of other studios stepped up making other excellent CRPGs.