BioWare veteran Mark Darrah: new Dragon Age is unlikely given EA's attitude to games

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A new Dragon Age game would have a very difficult time getting off the ground, according to the series former producer and long-time BioWare veteran Mark Darrah.

BioWare's epic fantasy series hasn't had a smooth ride as of late, which is odd considering Dragon Age Inquisition was a critical and commercial smash. After a decade-long gap between games and multiple internal reboots , Dragon Age: The Veilguard tripped past the finish line when it came out in 2024 to mild sales .

Speaking to FRVR , Darrah says the Dragon Age: The Veilguard and the series' wider troubles were perhaps "happening because of EA's complicated relationship to shipping games at all." He then recalls how "someone once described to me EA as a hedge fund with a video game hobby that it wished it didn't spend so much money on, and I think that remains true."

The BioWare veteran of over 20 years doesn't see things changing anytime soon, either. "I have no concept of who could, would, possibly pitch that at EA," he says, partly because "EA owns a frightening number of IPs that are dormant." You can perhaps find Dragon Age laying in a damp cell alongside Titanfall and Mirror's Edge, then.

As for the reasons why a new Dragon Age project could hit a proverbial wall, well, there's quite a few. "The problem is I don't know who at BioWare would pitch a Dragon Age," he continues. "So the other option is somebody else within the EA organization decides they're gonna pitch a Dragon Age and, what I expect would happen if they try to do that, is somebody at BioWare would essentially become one of those people jumping under the vents to rip that person apart. I suspect that it wouldn't happen for a variety of reasons."

For context, BioWare's been hit hard by mass layoffs at EA multiple times over the last few years, meaning the storied developer might not even have the bandwidth to make a Dragon Age game alongside its next Mass Effect.

Complicating things further is the impending proposed buyout of EA by a group of investment firms led by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Group. Darrah questions whether the publisher's new ownership would even be interested in the series or the studio at all: "I could argue yes and no… do you want BioWare at all in this world?"

"It's a really compelling place to be left in": Dragon Age fans aren't giving up on the RPG – they're expanding it.