Culture news and discussion on TalkFuse.
BioWare’s Former Dragon Age Boss Says a Mass Effect-Style Remaster Trilogy Is Pretty Much Impossible
Former BioWare producer Mark Darrah has said a remastered Dragon Age trilogy in the style of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition is essentially impossible, because virtually no one left at or outside BioWare understands the Aurora Engine that the original games were built on. Speaking to FRVR, Darrah explained that this loss of institutional knowledge rules out outsourcing the work, unlike Mass Effect, which was built on the widely supported Unreal Engine, meaning fans hoping for a compilation of the first three games are likely to be disappointed.
Darrah, who previously floated the idea of a unifying "Champion's Trilogy" covering Dragon Age: Origins (2009), Dragon Age 2 (2011) and Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014), said the only realistic path would be EA building a dedicated team solely for the project, something the publisher is unlikely to prioritise over new releases. He noted EA has generally shown little enthusiasm for remasters, with the Mass Effect trilogy and the Dead Space remake standing as rare exceptions, and suggested the commercial failure of Dragon Age: The Veilguard may have further dampened any appetite to revisit the franchise.
In short
- Ex-BioWare boss Mark Darrah says Dragon Age trilogy remaster is nearly impossible
- Reason: almost no one understands the old Aurora Engine anymore
- Veilguard's poor performance may discourage EA from investing further
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
A remastered trilogy could introduce the early Dragon Age games to new players and preserve them for modern hardware, while giving longtime fans a convenient way to revisit the series. A dedicated team might overcome the Aurora Engine expertise gap, and a successful release could offer EA a commercial return as well as renewed interest in the franchise.
The case against
The technical risks appear unusually high: scarce Aurora Engine expertise could make development slow, costly and difficult to outsource, while a trilogy would need to reconcile three distinct games. EA may reasonably prefer to direct limited resources towards new releases, especially if demand is uncertain and recent sales have weakened confidence in the franchise.
Explained simply
Dragon Age is a fantasy role-playing game series developed by BioWare, with three main instalments released between 2009 and 2014. Fans have long hoped for a remastered version, which is when older games are updated with improved graphics and features for modern systems, similar to how the Mass Effect trilogy was updated and re-released.
The original Dragon Age games were built on the Aurora Engine, a tool developed internally by BioWare that has since been discontinued. Knowledge of how this engine works has largely been lost both at BioWare and elsewhere in the gaming industry, making it extremely difficult to update or modernise the games.
EA, the publisher that owns BioWare, would need to invest heavily in building a dedicated team to work with the outdated technology in order to create a remaster. Given the company's other priorities and the recent commercial struggles of the Dragon Age franchise, such an investment seems unlikely.
Culture Entertainment Fashion Gaming