BioWare did not have the best 2021. It lost Casey Hudson and Mark Darrah at the end of 2020, followed by Jonathan Warner in 2021; it gave up on Anthem and Anthem Next; and it even gave up on Mass Effect multiplayer. By the end of 2021, it had heavily delayed Star Wars The Old Republic’s first expansion in ages, Legacy of the Sith. So what is the company up to?
Hudson’s replacement, Gary McKay, has penned a letter to the public today addressing just that. McKay acknowledges the tribulations of the pandemic and specifically notes BioWare’s shift to hiring remote workers “anywhere in North America.”
“Going forward, we’ll have new challenges with a hybrid approach to work and are focused on new tech that will help maximize collaboration and communication between onsite and remote people. Another subtle but important change we’ve made is in our hiring practices: Previously, we were only looking for people willing to relocate to Austin and Edmonton; now we’re looking for new talent from anywhere in North America and we’ll meet them where they live.”
While McKay’s enthusiasm for BioWare’s games focuses on Mass Effect and Dragon Age, he does herald SWTOR’s Legacy of the Sith, though he omits the fact that it was delayed two months when he says it’s arriving on February 15th. “We’re on the doorstep of a new expansion that will see the players with more combat style choices, a new storyline that returns you to the underwater depths of Manaan and the ruined Sith fortress on the planet Elom, and so much more,” he writes. “It all starts in February, and we’ll have more updates throughout the year. We are extremely proud of having created a game that has been running successfully for ten years now.”
Finally, McKay notes that BioWare is “laser-focused” on rebuilding the studio’s reputation and trust of the gaming community and says he believes the team has sufficient support from EA to “deliver.”
