Ila Goodrich

Contributing Writer

As per usual for the gaming company, Electronic Arts (EA), has screwed up again. On Oct. 21, EA shut down BioWare, a Canadian based RPG videogame producer.

This comes after massive layoffs and job cuts as well as EA being sold to the Kushner family and the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund. This included the shut down of the development of a highly anticipated game, Mass Effect 5.

BioWare has been one of the leading models on how to create a good RPG for a long time. They produced the original two Baldur’s Gate games, the Mass Effect franchise, the Dragon Age franchise and Star Wars: The Knights of the Old Republic. They were the company that indie RPG companies looked up to when trying to create a good story based RPG, as many of their games revolutionized the choices made which had effects on the games outcome.

BioWare has grown a massive fanbase who were outraged when they heard that the company was shutting down by EA, as many have come to love the games produced from early ‘90s to early 2010’s.

Myself and many others despise EA for shutting down the company. Mass Effect fans and Dragon Age fans have been justly outraged. EA caused a lot of the problems within the company, such as attempting to push out the games before they were completed or forcing developers to try to do ridiculous commands.

There have been some complaints about the new games released by BioWare. Anthem, Mass Effect: Andromeda, and Dragon Age: Veilguard are games that are receiving many negative reviews and having horrible releases as said by many fans. I disagree with them.

Anthem was a great sci-fi co-op game in which you piloted suits of armor almost like an Ironman suit, and fought many types of enemies from bugs to wyverns to outlaws under the flag of the Dominion. The release was very glitchy, and the story wasn’t nearly the same level as their past games.

When the developers fixed the issues, it was probably some of the most fun I had when playing a game. The ability to fly around a beautiful landscape, using different powers and the looting aspect of the game was pretty fun. It was especially fun playing with my dad since I enjoy
co-op and the eventual synergy we had created in that game.

However, most fans will back the games from Dragon Age: Inquisition to further back. Mass Effect franchise has been a huge success, with over 800,000 copies sold in the first 24 hours for the third game in the franchise.

Mass Effect 3 has also been my favorite of the games BioWare has produced. Between the characters that were built throughout the franchise, the climatic battles, the traumatizing deaths of my favorite characters, the score of the game and the overall story tied together, it became my favorite game of all time. I even met one of the voice actors for one of my favorite characters in the franchise, Steve Blum.

I am not alone in the love for the series. Cosplayers, gamers, voice actors all expressed deep love for the series when the shut down of its 5th installment was announced. In response to this shut down, a petition to save the Mass Effect series has been announced in order to get the rights to the franchise bought by another company who will continue the story. The petition has hit nearly 300,000 signatures as the community bands together to attempt to bring it back.

Mass Effect had some of the most brilliant and emotional story writing I have seen in a game. Many fans got emotional as scenes produced tragic losses, had recounts to past games and said goodbye to characters they loved deeply.

Saying goodbye to Garrus, and saying goodbye to Mordin were two of the deepest hitting moments in the series. Hearing a character who portrayed an almost father figure say to your character, “I’m proud of you” had me in tears. So many scenes had people crying and one of my personal favorite videos shows a streamer’s reaction to every time she cried in the game.

I badly want BioWare to be saved, it doesn’t deserve the hate that it gets. The interference by EA caused the downfall of the company. I want it to be saved, but I have little hope.

The views expressed in the Opinion section do not reflect the views of the Stroud Courier, its editorial board or East Stroudsburg University, but are solely the views of the author.