Summary
Dragon Age: Inquisitionlead writer and former BioWare veteran David Gaider has spoken on how EA approached RPG design during his time with the company. As lead writer on the originalDragon Age: Origins, its 2011 sequel, andDragon Age: Inquisition, Gaider worked on the franchise for a long time, but didn’t always agree with EA’s approach.
The emergence ofDragon Age: Originsin 2009 was enormous, another critical and commercial hit for BioWare to have under its belt at the time. It’s so good, in fact, thatDragon Age: Originsis still well worth playing in 2025, even if later iterations in the series haven’t quite been as well-received. It’s a testament to the quality of that initial title that interest in the newer titles still remains so high, despite the more mixed reception from fans.
Speaking toGamesRadar+,Dragon Ageseries veteran David Gaider claimed he “was always trying to push it to our traditional mechanics. And that wasn’t very welcome in the EA sphere,” with EA considering those types of mechanics “slow and cumbersome.” He believed his views “were often not very welcome,” despite his status as a veteran who had a big hand in creating one of thebest BioWare seriesto date.
Gaider also claimed that EA felt that those traditional RPG mechanics belonged “in the cave,” which was, in EA’s belief, “where nerds went. The nerds were in the cave. You made an RPG and the nerds in the cave would always show up for an RPG, because it was an RPG… You didn’t have to try and appeal to them. You had to worry about the people who weren’t in the cave, which was the audience we actually wanted, which was much larger.” BioWare would later go on to createAnthem, ahuge commercial flopthat could arguably be a result of the attitude Gaider discusses.
You made an RPG and the nerds in the cave would always show up for an RPG, because it was an RPG.
WithDragon Age: The Veilguardunderperforming, it’s not quite clear what the future holds for the series at the moment. BioWare is currently working on the nextMass Effectgame, so it could be something for the developer to revisit after the next iteration of its premier sci-fi franchise. There’s clearly still a lot of potential in theDragon AgeIP, even ifThe Veilguardfailed to meet EA’s expectations.
