I'm doing my part. Unlike its older siblings Skyrim and Fallout 4, Starfield is no longer in the top 100 most played on Steam. It's soon dropping out of top 200 as well. Biggest waste of money I've ever spent.
This is a good quote & true in alot of scenarios. However, I would beg to differ. The arguable case in point: Revan. ;) He did not have to die as he went on to see himself become a hero again & even a better one at that.
You know what's funny? In inquisition I found myself fighting FOR Dorian and his rights to "enjoy the company of other men" as he put it, because the character was so charming, interesting, and his story/background was well written. I played Veilguard and I honestly wish I could just kill all my companions to make them shut the hell up. This game is literally doing the opposite of what they want to achieve.
Yes! I went back and found all the remarks I could online about Dorian, going back years. Everyone (including me) loved him! The only time his sexuality was mentioned was if someone had romanced him. Dorian was a great magician and a loyal friend and that was what was important about him. Varric happened to be a dwarf, but he was a giant of a man and that was what was important about him.
I was 17 when Mass effect hit stores. I remember being so exited to play it after being a huge fan of knights of the old republic. I saved up all my baby-sitting pocket money to buy it and loved every second of it. As a young gay girl it really did help a lot when I was younger. Now I am in my thirties and I hate what dares to stand where perfection once stood. Veilguard is not a Dragon age game. It’s a fever dream for the mentally ill. I can not put into words how deeply I loathe that game. Growing up I struggled, hating myself, wondering if I should have been a boy or not born at all. Now to see a game actively trying to tell me, ‘no, all that progress you made, all the effort you put in getting to know and being comfortable with yourself is wrong. You’re not a tomboy. You didn’t struggle with penis envy. You must trans! Or non-binary,' feels so reductive. The second I saw the cc I felt physically ill. The body proportions are practically alien! There is no option to have breasts. They are too far down. They are pecks with breast tissue stacked on top. As an art student I just… I could not get past it! There is weird shadows on the face that looks like six-o’clock shadow that you can’t get rid of. The legs are to short and thin and the models are so top heavy. It felt like I was learning to draw perspectives again. Just… so bad! I could not stand Taash. I hated that all my choices over three games meant nothing! I played a guy in one just to romance Morrigan. Where the hell was our son? I was with Isobel on my Hawke, yet no mention of that. I dated Sera on my Inquisitor. Where was she? Just… ugh, screw this game. And screw you Bioware. Sincerely, from an actual female, that has actual tits and does not need to shave, and yes, enjoys pretty girls! I hope your ip is sold off to the lowest bidder and dies, forgotten and unloved. Edit: Sorry for the rant.
It would be nice if Dragon Age was sold to Larian Studios or something. But I think Dragon Age is over. It's just so depressing. I'm also a gay woman and had issues with my gender identity years ago, also hated myself, wished I were a boy, then wished I was neither, etc. As an artist myself I agree with a lot of what you're saying. Tbh I feel like even back in Inquisition, the boobs were kind of down low- specifically Sera's. Anyway, it just fucking sucks that all the stories we went through in previous games were not honoured AT ALL. All the controversy inspired me to play DA:O again after over 10 years, and man.. I got sucked right into it. The writing is so damn good. The character interactions made them feel alive. The environment is gritty, dark, very dark fantasy. Bioware could never do that again. Not with those weirdos in charge that, while being a TINY minority group, clearly want to make self inserts in a game. Not saying that people can't make self inserts but for a franchise like DA, fans have expectations. They love the game for a reason and it's definitely not because DA pushes an agenda. DA:V will never be a Dragon Age game in my eyes -_-
Don't apologize, rant away. Bioware's goal is not inclusion. We may finally have amazing hair in the CC, but for the first time I can't make a character that represents me. Because.... the graphics and character design are so...wonky/bizarre. IMO its these choices that fulfilled the needs and desires of trans and non binary developers. Results... A game only it's designers can love..
No EA drove away writers becouse history was something they didn't see valuable, content hidden behind choice was wasted money. And so EA changed BioWare to match what they wanted for the gdr game of their dream, a fifa game, good graphic very basic story, and something they can dump year after year with low effort. Corporate killed bioware, old bioware was woke, it talked about those problems but integrated in the whole story, this bioware added them vecouse they were in a check list to assure maximum market and profit.
This has happened to nearly every development company in the industry. It's the managerial take over of the corporation removing founding members of the company in favor of diversity hiring quotas.
Bioware was already a ship in dead waters after Mass Effect 3. It has been a steep decline since then. Once EA buys you up. you are destined for the EA graveyard.
Some of these talents have re-formed as Archetype Enternainment. And I hope that their newly developed 'Exodus' will be the true Mass Effect successor in spirit, rather than the organic garbage that BioWare is currently creating. What could possibly go wrong when the team of Veilguard is now working on that project, too? *cough*
The game looks promising, but I can't deny I dislike the character design, specifically the faces, it's right there in uncanny valley to me, something is off.
As a tool of the Culturally Marxist Wizards of the Coast, this game is going to push their agenda as hard as veilguard. Hopefully it will be that ham-handed, because games like 'Baldur's Gate 3', are THE most dangerous cultural manipulation tools out there. BG3 is just as 'woke' as Veilguard, but because it's well-written and entertaining, most people either don't care, don't think it matters, or actively deny that propaganda exists. Yet that's how we _got_ here in the first place. Especially in Hollywood, they've been Culturally Marxist/Communist almost since their inception. Yet, they followed a profitable model of 'Entertainment First->Propaganda Second'. Products like BG3 show that that model still works extremely well.
@@torikazuki8701 Bioware games always have been diverse and inclusive. But not woke, till Veilguard. In Dragon Age Origins they told a story about oppression via the elven people. It was the best and most gripping origin. BG3 also is diverse. But it is not woke. Cyberpunk 2077 is diverse as hell, but not woke. You will not get far with black/white manipulation conspiracy theories. Fun fact: In Space Marine 2s campaign you run a diverse fireteam. They just do it, but do not preach about it and respect the IP.
Before, fault was by EA. The pressure from above Current problem is the creative director, lets be honest we all know this I fear for Mass Effect future, we all know what needs to be done first if they want to recover
and now the ME5 writer is having a election meltdown so you know where the story there will go?? these people can't help themselves not to insert their BS into their games! FFS Bioware is Canadian mostly what do they care about who's in the silly office? shut up and do your jobs!!! this crap never stopped you before! that's what kills any sliver of hope i may have had....
It’s a bit hateful for you to enjoy another person failed in their job and bussiness, I understand if you were disappointed but to wish someone ill for what? Making a bad game? A bit too extreme.
@@zhilongIt kind of became personal when they started insulting the customers. If they just made bad games it would have been a footnote in history, people would have forgotten about their flops and their studio entirely. But they had to make a show, drama, attacks, etc. If they couldn't spread something positive they went out on social media and called everyone names for their failures. And for what, for giving feedback? Yes negative feedback is still feedback and you should take it and improve. Feedback is a gift.
There is honestly no better time for a video like this to come out. It's one thing to see them fail doing something outside of their bread and butter, but when they can't even deliver on what they're known for, it's toast. I've been looking forward to ME 5 for a long time, but at this point its almost impossible to believe there's a redemption arc at the end of all of this.
I realized this after MEA and Anthem....since the 2 were so close in release and by different teams okay, let's see what the other team does...release day and OMFG what have you done? Anthem made Destiny 1 day one look like a frakking masterpiece!
Looking back, im glad i grew up when i did, having played mass effect and origins during my late teens/early 20s. ALl those other classics like Crysis, Fear, Deadspace and Metro, even before this with Warcraft 3 and Starcraft. What a time it was to be a gamer. Nowadays i dont have as much time as back in the day, but i cant find anything to play anymore.... Gaming is just dead in my eyes, its never gonna be the same as during that era. To you younger people, im sorry my generation destroyed gaming....
Same it hard for me to find something i enjoy playing, most of the time i buy indie games now! And maybe 2 to 3 big titles a year! It is sad. Bioware had such great writing and branching choices! They had everything right! While most rpg felt cold, Bioware games felt warm cause of the friendships and romances. Giving us a lot more than any other studios! They spoiled us BIG!
There are a ton of great games to play, dude. Had a blast with, Inscryption, Sea of Stars, Lies of P, ... Also a lot of loved games: Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Black Myth Wukong, ... And those are just games that came up into my mind in a second.
You missed one of the biggest reasons - the actual people who worked on the earlier games, and their exits, leading to what we have now. The people who made the great games left a while back.
Rise of any studio is it's talent, the moment it leaves and is replaced by people who shouldn't even work in anything adjacent to the industry, but they do because they're cheap and easy to control, is when you see the downfall.
I think I saw the best era of games. That being 2004-2011. So many classics, Morrowind, Bioshock, FNV, Halo 3. Hell, the 360 PS3 era gave us the classics. It went to hell when chasing the dollar became the motivation. Excellent video, BTW. Subbed.
100% agreed. For me Skyrim is the last game of the golden era, and kinda marked the shift to the new one. Everything after Skyrim has been a decline, and gradually so. There have been a few good games since but it's absurd how few and far in between they are now.
@@Skumtomten1 Talking about Bethesda specifically, the true decline started with Oblivion. Every single game they made after that was a downgrade to the previous entry. Less roleplay options, less story autonomy, and less of a reason to play. We only look back fondly on Skyrim because most of us were too young to realize how shallow that game really was. Especially when compared to the writing and worldbuilding of Morrowind. Skyrim honestly only persists because there's enough mods out there now that you can mod it into a far better game.
@@Seoul_Soldier I agree. Skyrim is still a good game though, it's a classic rpg without microtransaction s and it's a complete game with tons of content etc. Mods have made the game alot better for sure, but no one can deny that it's a great game though regardless. I liked Oblivion more though, I was alot younger and it was actually my first open world rpg and I was blown away by it. The guilds are far superior in Oblivion for sure, but I do think Skyrim improved in many other aspects. I was too young to play Morrowind but I know it's considered the best Bethesda game. My favorite game ever is Dragon Age Origins, it dethroned Oblivion quite significantly. It was my first Bioware game and was when I got to experience great writing and fantastic characters in game, which Bethesda really isn't very good at in comparison. But yea there are so many amazing games from the mid 2000s to yea around 2011. Its just never been the same since, and probably never will be
Mass Effect 2's DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker showcased just how incredible Bioware was at the time. In the Shadow Broker's database, you could find a little inside info on the characters in your team. It was text. Just text. And everyone loved it. By the way thanks so much for this. The Dragon Age: Origins campfire hymn still gives me goosebumps.
I mourn for what Bioware used to be. Dragon Age Origins taught me how to play RPGs, and I loved the autonomy the gameplay gave us. It's truly sad that they've fallen so far, letting narcissistic people who want to be rewarded for existing infiltrate and destroy the studio from within. They turned beloved games into their personal soapboxes to force their presence and opinions on their captive audiences. It's a shame, and I'm honestly sad to see this.
The "return to form" wasn't the only or even the most conspicuous example of everyone involved reading from the same script. Scroll through the video reviews from those journalists and count how many of them explicitly go out of their way to specify, in the thumbnail if not the title, either that they've played "to 100% completion" or "for 60+ hours"-either way, drawing attention to how unassailable their conclusion is going to be since they can claim the authority of experience with the game that other journalists, who wouldn't have had time enough with the game for that kind of thoroughness, would be simply unable to duplicate. There was definitely a list of review suggestions being passed around among those involved.
And even then, the extra mass effect 3 ending felt like vengeance and not repair. spoiler for an old game: the extra ending is you FAIL to stop the reapers and the next cycle's people succeed. You are the backstory for the real heroes who win offscreen.
The ending of the Mass Effect Trilogy was not half baked because the indoctrination ending is the canon of a large portion of players and the only way to resist the indoctrination was to destroy the Reapers. I don't think anyone was really bothered by Shepard's ultimate fate. It seemed like surviving the galactic level extinction threat of the Reapers would require the sacrifice of the Galaxy's biggest hero and most people are okay with that because it is the best way to tie up the narrative. What felt like a betrayal was that anyone would consider an ending that seemed to suggest capitulation to the Reapers. The very really possibility that Synthetic intelligence would always rise up and destroy organic life and supplant it was a core of the story from the outset but to have the Quarian and Geth reunification as the big story beat right before it kind of dispels any gravitas the choice might have carried when reflecting on the story as a whole. It is the hardest possible accomplishment in the story choices of the game, but it is possible which means that synthesis is unnecessary.
It’s so unbelievable how many choices it accounts for and the characters are so vibrant with their own failures and triumphs, pain, needs and wants. We won’t get another game like it for years will we😢 warhammer 40k rogue trader is great for now though
Mass effect was the first game I played from Bioware and I loved it with all my heart to the point I thanked my mother for a few years after playing it and I still consider it one of the best birthday gifts to this day along side getting 007 golden eye for the N64 and it leaves me utterly heart broken seeing how much they have fallen.
I remember being on the BioWare forums back when ME 3 released with a lot of problems, as if it was rushed, and ignoring that, I and many others were complaining that EA had got their tentacles into a once great studio, forcing them to dumb the game down, remove RPG elements, add more fast paced action and multiplayer etc. Mass Effect 2 had mostly been developed without EA’s involvement but with ME 3 you could see what they’d do to a dev team I remember a BioWare dev arguing with me and being very rude about these comments I knew back then BioWare was done And just look at them now Mass Effect 2 was the last BioWare game
Well, as I've said elsewhere, the changes that ME2 instituted, almost ensured that ME3 would be what it was. From an intricate, narrative-focused, Lore-Based RPG (with at least an effective _illusion_ of choice, in ME1), to an action-based Dudebro Cover Shooter, ME3's 'Roleplaying' had gotten so shallow that you could turn it off in the game options. That's a staggering admission of how dramatically the series had changed, that few people talk about. You couldn't have done that in ME1, the game would have crumbled, but by 3, it was so neutered, it could be turned off... and the response was minimal.
I said it countless times already, except extremely small group, nobody is against representation and diverse set of characters. That is literally why we felt in love with Mass Effect and Dragon Age, or now Baldur´s Gate 3. We are against pandering, preaching, awful writing and bad story telling, against taking options away from us in order to satisfy someone´s personal ego. That is the problem, not that someone is gay. Mass Effect is (along with Expanse) my favorite universe ever and I can´t put into words how sad I am that this universe is almost definitely dead as well. I just really hope that Exodus game from OG BioWare writers and designers and writer Peter F. Hamilton, will be the true successor to this phenomenal trilogy (and one slightly above average spinoff).
i got into the animation industry because of bg1-2 and NWN. it was really sad to see them go down thanks to EA. great video btw. it was nice to go down a bioware memory lane :)
I have a tiny drop of confidence for ME because of Mike Gamble. The director is extemely important and it's evident in Veilguard what the effects are. Maybe it's foolish to have hope but I'm just as heartbroken as you! I grew up on Bioware's games and learned to love storytelling through them. This betrayal after 10 years of silence has been extremely hurtful. 💔
Haha! although, why tremble the ME series was dead since 3. I'd say anyone with any sense is long gone. The only people who support ME these day are the same people who still write Naruto fanfiction.
@billyhwang4124 Not ashamed to say that I am both disgusted and outraged that the next Mass Effect game we have been waiting so long for could end up like Veilguard or Halo: Infinite.
Damn this was a great video. Echoed how many BioWare fans feel about the whole situation and future of our favorite franchises. I was surprised how small your channel is because your quality was great. Hope to see more
4:13 if larian ever did something like this for their own IP and made their own tabletop rpg, it’ll be over for wizards of the coast/ Dungeon n dragons
I still remember singing Bioware's praises for so many years as I too grew up playing their games, cRPGs being my absolute favorite genre. Thankfully, there's still Obsidian and Owlcat to carry the torch.
You have a bright future in gaming commentary and analysis. I'll be recommending your channel to everyone I know looking for honest reviews and takes on gaming.
Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition suffered from EA pushing for unrealistic or downright insane timetables. Veilguard, however, is an unholy alliance of narcissistic, talentless "creatives" and greedy EA corpos who kept chasing trends. If the people in charge of DA2/Inquisition made Veilguard without corporate pressure to do this or that, we would have had a masterpiece. I can not put into words how much I hate what has become of the DA franchise and BioWare in general. I remember being SO exited for DA4 after Trespasser back in 2015... RIP BioWare. It was good while it lasted.
Its funny how the devs said Veilgaurd was dark amd gritty and the reveal trailer wasnt accurate to the final game and launched more dark trailers. Then at release as ot turns out that reveal yrailer was very accurate to the tone of the game. Game has political propaganda in it yes but the even the non political dialogue is so terrible. Skill Up was right, its like having HR in the room everytime you speak.
Idk howthis channel doesnt have more subscribers. What passion behind your take, your love for bioware shows, great mic and editing. Wish the channel the best
Well, I’ve been excited for MASS EFFECT 5 ever since it was teased. Now that I know the team from VEILGAURD is working on it, I probably won’t be wasting my time or money and just play ME 1,2,&3 again for the 20th time. Great video!
You have to remember: Veilguard was going to be a live service multiplayer. For 6 years it was developed as such until Anthem flopped and the team shit themselves and ‘retooled’ the game to being a single player again. You can see it in the DNA of the game.
'Staying True to the Mass Effect Franchise?" While ME2 is widely regarded as 'The Best' of the 3, from its very beginning it murd3r$ the original game and it's NOT subtle about that. Your PC gets whacked immediately, to be replaced with a fascimile that no longer has agency, but is the Illusive Man's Lackey, from start to finish. It pummels the lore into paste, turning a rogue special ops group into another major galactic power, one who can make an even better ship than the bleeding-edge design of two major governments. The entire main plot of ME2 guaranteed that ME3 was going to be wildly uneven at best. ME1 logically set up what the 2nd game should have been- Find a way to beat (or trap) the Reapers. But because it Faffed about with the 'go nowhere' collector plot, forced ME3 to do double-duty. ME2 has great companions & companion-quests & a slicker action-game interface. But in all other important ways, it turned away from the detail-oriented, meticulous, well-plotted 1st game and started the series on the way to the shallow rpg-lite cover-shooter it became.
I preferred ME1 to ME2. ME1 had the intrigue, it allowed you to be "good" or "bad" while still achieving the end goal. Shepard had agency in ME1 and also ME3, ME2 really felt like you are Illusive mans servant. I always feel like the bad guy in ME2, even if i choose paragon, i still know im working for an evil organisation. All that being said, the character development of Shepard and companions is massive in ME2.
@@martinbernath while the case _might_ be made that you had more agency in ME3 than ME2, the game was easily made worse because the Roleplaying had gotten so shallow & pointless that you could turn it off in the game options. Aside from the insanity of being able to turn off Roleplaying in an RPG (like turning off Driving in a Driving game), that just shows how little impact it had by then. Turning it off in ME1, would have nearly broken the structure of the game.
Tash is a stereotype that only makes people in the LGBT like myself ashamed. The writing is so bad that they are using people like me as human shields against criticism. I’m tired of being pandered to by corpo morons.
EA is the death of creativity. They should stick to their loot boxes and garbage FIFA games. They ruined a long list of the greatest IPs ever made and have still not sold off the rights to a lot of them. They are the worst.
It probably won't be a next time. I am unsure they will survive this especially with the current world economic state. It's not a good time for spectacular flops.
Claiming Mass Effect 3 was the beginning of the end just cause the majority doesn't like the final 10 minutes of the game is very unfair and disingenuous. Almost everyone thought ME3 was peak Mass Effect and peak BioWare from the very start to right before the Star Child, painting the whole game as a catalyst of the downfall that came almost a decade later because the final MINUTES didn't stick the landing is very extreme. And the Extended Ending was free, so no, you weren't expected to pay for a new ending, that's just wrong.
Excellent video. Personally, I’d go a bit further back than you: While Mass Effect 2 undoubtedly did many things better than its predecessor, for me it was the point where BW decided to step away from traditional RPGs towards a more commercially successful approach of making action-focussed games. And sadly, over the years, they sacrificed writing quality, culminating in the infamous red-blue-green choice that ended the trilogy. I’ve considered myself a huge BW fan ever since I first played Baldur’s Gate 2, but the company isn’t what it once was. I wouldn’t be surprised if EA shuts it down after this. Hopefully, TPTB have enough sense to entrust BW’s brands to a dedicated studio, like WotC did when they handed BG3 over to Larian; but I doubt it.
Dude, I just stumbled across your channel while surfing through an endlessly disappointing youtube tangent regarding the state of current media, and how it's all headed towards one creatively-suicidal, greedy, and bankrupt direction, and I stayed for the whole video. Your presentation is warming and totally relatable, despite the sad reality of the content. I have no hopes for the new ME game, as someone who is very sentimental about the original trilogy, I have seen enough to realise now that what we loved has become a mere skin disguising a vacuum and I have resigned myself to the fact that it'll be a good few years until the ship rights itself, if it's allowed to. I keep thinking to myself: surely money speaks louder than most, these companies cannot sustain this way, look at Disney! they've lost billions and billions since they became the champions of DEI. It's inevitable that they will eventually fall apart due to loss in revenue, and be forced to acknowledge that pandering to 3% of the population at the extreme expense of the rest just ain't possible, reasonable, or normal. Thanks for your efforts :-)
@@Jedilord882 You gave them more credit than I did then. ME3 sucked in SO many ways and I despise the game - except for MultiPlayer, which I still play to this day. I hate ME3 because it could have been so much more if the writers were worth their salt.
Thats why I always laugh when people get hyped when ever Bioware's bloated corpse shows up with a new game, look at their last 6 games in the past 14 years Dragon age 2 considered a mediocre sequel Mass effect 3 the game ruined the trilogy with its terrible endings and tried too hard to be like Gears of War Dragon age Inquisition is divisive to say the least and feels more like an mmo than a dragon age game Andromeda, the game floped both with critics and fans Anthem floped with critics and fans too Veilguard is looking like a wet turd and it might the final straw for EA and they might pull the plug on Bioware. Bioware has been living on their reputation for far too long even when most of the people that made Kotor, Origins and Mass Effect have already left the company.
Nah, DAO. You could already smell the stench on ME2. The atmosphere and attitude shift of the game was palpable to say nothing of the changes to combat and loot.
@WholesomeDough wtf? No it wasnt. ME2 was a masterpiece. Dont get delusional seeing woke shit like our woke friends do because it certainly didnt exist in me2.
They decided to join DEI culture and that was only part of their downfall. EA is also to blame for forcing deadlines and sacrificing creativity as well employeeing people based on identity.
I have already felt that way about BioWare since Dragon Age 2. I didn't like DA2 at all. Where did BioWare go wrong? I guess the part where the OGs left. At that time BioWare needed the EA acquisition. They couldn't find a publisher for DA:O. After their divorce with WOTC, they were struggling to get a publisher because it was an unproven new IP.
BioWare is long gone. They might as well rename themselves, because they are NOT BioWare. As far as the next Mass Effect is concerned, I’m not expecting anything more than the last 4 games BioWare has released. Mass effect is going to be the typical idealism injected detritus that we’ve been seeing from them.
Both BioWare and Blizzard met their fates when they were acquired by the big corporations. They died years ago as most of the key members long left the respective studios. It's truly sad to see.
Augustine yip is my family doctor, when I found out I was floored because BioWare games are some of my favorites and one of their founders is the guy who looks after my health lol
The problem with BioWare is “the ship of theseus” question. If you replace all the parts of a ship is it the same ship? Very few of the people that made the games we love are still at BioWare.
BG3 is an excellent example of how dumb that phrase is. Bad writing is the cause of “woke” things failing, just as it is the cause of any poorly written but non-“woke” story based media.
The acquisition from EA definitely didn't help. But Bioware deciding to follow DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity) and hire people based on their appearance, ethnicity or sexuality rather than skill or merit has also contributed to their downfall. It also appears that DEI doesn't include white people unless their sexuality aligns with it.
I'd argue the biggest reason for their fall was their own internal work practices, specifically the _Bioware magic_ Bioware has always over-scoped all their projects, Mass Effect 1 for instance was supposed to feature open world maps for every single explorable planet and most of the development time is spent in trying to implement those unrealistic features rather than focusing on the reasonable systems of the Game Design. That's when the _Bioware magic_ comes in, which is their slang for _crunch time._ Basically when they have a year or less time of development they ditch all the unimplementable features they've worked for years and they focus on completing the game, for most of their games the _magic_ worked at a cost: gradually developers quit Bioware due extreme burnout and work being redundant, meaning most of the features they worked for years never were in the final build of the games. Mass Effect Andromeda is when all changed. By then most veteran developers had left he studio and it also when DEI hiring was established and when they tried to _use the magic_ they couldn't and the result was a boring, broken game that flopped so bad to the point the series had to be put on hold indefinitely. The reason the _magic_ left was simple: not only was at the end a very unpleasant experience to endure but in order to even pull it off you needed *competent* developers that could do tremendous amount of work in very little time and if even they hated it, why do they think it would work when they started hiring based on arbitrary “political” _check-marks?_ Veilguard is the culmination of their _magic:_ A game that was stuck in development for ten years only for the final product to be rushed in the last three, lead by incompetent developers that were more interested in pandering politics rather than designing a fun game, which flopped even harder than Andromeda. If anything Mass Effect 5 is not going to be different, they have proven that even in their _prime_ they don't learn for their mistakes.
Aside from all the technical issues, ME-A created Structural Problems with the Game world on such a massive scale that they literally were too big for many players to see. The Tightly-Woven, Intricately-designed world that was created in ME1 & Damaged in ME2-3, was obliterated in ME-A. Giving Cerberus the power of a major Nation-State was bad enough. But the entire _concept_ of the 'Ark Project' made it clear BioWare didn't care about world consistency in the slightest. Creating these ships was Cerberus 10x. It would require the entire resources of all the major Galactic Powers to make them, if consistency were still adhered to. Even worse, it gave the project an ability even the REAPERS didn't possess- The ability to travel between Galaxies. This may seem like 'Nerd-techy-lore-nonsense' to many, forgetting that that concept was what ME was originally FOUNDED on. It wasn't designed as a Leetbro-cover-shooter (though it became that). Originally Non-Relay FTL accumulated Static Charges that HAD to be discharged on a planet. Without this discharge process, the ships would eventually become lethal & kill all aboard. Yet _somehow_ the ability to travel tens of thousands of times farther, with no need to discharge, was discovered. Again, something even the Reapers had not been able to achieve, in Billions of Years. This utter disdain for logical consistency, combined with all the technical issues, combined with the midwit Millennial writing, makes ME-A an utter disgrace to ME's legacy. But make no mistake- the changes made with ME2, ensured this was the path they chose to go down.
Back then Baldur's Gate 1 set the standard for what an RPG should be. Many years later Baldur's Gate 3 does it again and a HUGE part of the gaming industry went berserk and begged gamers not to consider BG3 as the new standard.
BioWare stopped being BioWare when EA bought them. EA has been using the BioWare name to keep the money coming in, all while destroying BioWare's name in the process. EA does that to every studio they touch. The reason BioWare has lasted so long is because of the BioWare name and the consumer desire for BioWare to keep producing the games that made BioWare popular in the first place. EA ruins everything they touch; everyone knows this, but people keep buying games from them anyway.
Not surprised with their decline. A game development company IS their staff and the real Bioware staff is ancient history, as is this studio's reputation for excellence.
What people should remember is, that the Bioware from the mid-2000s isn't the the Bioware from now. I'm sure none of the former staff works still there, at least from the senior and team-leading positions. The Bioware now is just a husk of it's former self, only kept alive by it's name and it's IPs names. But hey, we got Larian, CDP Red and (maybe) Obsidian, and a ton of other indie CRPG-studios. Old things die off, new things grow.
I've been a gamer since the early '90s and have seen the industry's highs and lows. Back then, games like Lands of Lore, Command & Conquer, The Settlers, Baldur's Gate, Ultima Online, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, StarCraft, and Diablo II were milestones, pushing boundaries with immersive worlds and innovative gameplay. These games focused on bringing exceptional, creative worlds to life, inviting players into deep, engaging experiences. Today, though, so many games feel like "canned content"-repackaged old ideas with updated graphics, lacking the soul and originality we once saw. Monetization seems to have taken over, with microtransactions, loot boxes, and "Games as a Service" structures dominating the landscape. Games have become repetitive, often appearing to prioritize fast revenue over delivering a truly captivating experience. Even MMORPGs, once envisioned as expansive second worlds, have lost their magic due to these trends. For example, Conan started with an innovative vision, only to dilute it to cater to the mass market-ultimately driving away its original fanbase. If things keep heading this way, I’m nearly ready to hang up my controller for good at almost 59 years old. Or maybe I’ll need to create a game myself to find that spark again. The industry could use a revival of that genuine passion and creative ambition, freeing itself from the confines of pure profit motives and ideological trends that limit free thought and the creative risks that made games truly great.
13:44 trying to draw more players by making the mechanics more mainstream, naturally alienates the fans, it's currently what's happening in development in Star Citizen.
*To be fair, development studios are not static organisations. The staff are always in flux. That being said if your bread and butter is RPGs, your number one priority as management should be to protect and retain your proven high quality writers.
One of the biggest moments in gaming was in mass effect 1. The moment we found out saren was just a pawn. You just don't get that kind of storytelling anymore. Now we'd just find out saren was Sarah.
![[MV] A leap of faith...ความเชื่อใจครั้งสุดท้าย (From "Petrichor the series")](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U1piZH2CNXA/mqdefault.jpg)
Veilguard has replaced Starfield as the "I will watch any video sh***ing on this" game. 😂
Nailed it!
Me right now lmao
My face is tired of all these Emotions !
Preach brother
I'm doing my part. Unlike its older siblings Skyrim and Fallout 4, Starfield is no longer in the top 100 most played on Steam. It's soon dropping out of top 200 as well. Biggest waste of money I've ever spent.
You Either Die a Hero or Live Long Enough to See Yourself Become the Villain
i agree i feel old when i talk to friends about the old ways of bioware
This is a good quote & true in alot of scenarios. However, I would beg to differ. The arguable case in point: Revan. ;) He did not have to die as he went on to see himself become a hero again &
even a better one at that.
I would say it’s more accurate to call them a zombie company. Once they were bought by EA, BioWare ceased to exist
You Don't Have to Capitalize Every Word. Why Would You Even Do This?
lefties took over gmaing and killed it. is more like it
You know what's funny? In inquisition I found myself fighting FOR Dorian and his rights to "enjoy the company of other men" as he put it, because the character was so charming, interesting, and his story/background was well written. I played Veilguard and I honestly wish I could just kill all my companions to make them shut the hell up. This game is literally doing the opposite of what they want to achieve.
While Inquisition was flawed, Veilguard makes it look like a masterpiece
I was explaining this exact thing to my husband last night 😂
Yea Dorian was super charming.
Yes! I went back and found all the remarks I could online about Dorian, going back years. Everyone (including me) loved him! The only time his sexuality was mentioned was if someone had romanced him. Dorian was a great magician and a loyal friend and that was what was important about him. Varric happened to be a dwarf, but he was a giant of a man and that was what was important about him.
Exactly.
I was 17 when Mass effect hit stores. I remember being so exited to play it after being a huge fan of knights of the old republic. I saved up all my baby-sitting pocket money to buy it and loved every second of it. As a young gay girl it really did help a lot when I was younger. Now I am in my thirties and I hate what dares to stand where perfection once stood. Veilguard is not a Dragon age game. It’s a fever dream for the mentally ill. I can not put into words how deeply I loathe that game. Growing up I struggled, hating myself, wondering if I should have been a boy or not born at all. Now to see a game actively trying to tell me, ‘no, all that progress you made, all the effort you put in getting to know and being comfortable with yourself is wrong. You’re not a tomboy. You didn’t struggle with penis envy. You must trans! Or non-binary,' feels so reductive. The second I saw the cc I felt physically ill. The body proportions are practically alien! There is no option to have breasts. They are too far down. They are pecks with breast tissue stacked on top. As an art student I just… I could not get past it! There is weird shadows on the face that looks like six-o’clock shadow that you can’t get rid of. The legs are to short and thin and the models are so top heavy. It felt like I was learning to draw perspectives again. Just… so bad! I could not stand Taash. I hated that all my choices over three games meant nothing! I played a guy in one just to romance Morrigan. Where the hell was our son? I was with Isobel on my Hawke, yet no mention of that. I dated Sera on my Inquisitor. Where was she? Just… ugh, screw this game. And screw you Bioware. Sincerely, from an actual female, that has actual tits and does not need to shave, and yes, enjoys pretty girls! I hope your ip is sold off to the lowest bidder and dies, forgotten and unloved.
Edit: Sorry for the rant.
Thank you for this awesome comment
No no, let's hope someone can make it better.
It would be nice if Dragon Age was sold to Larian Studios or something. But I think Dragon Age is over. It's just so depressing. I'm also a gay woman and had issues with my gender identity years ago, also hated myself, wished I were a boy, then wished I was neither, etc. As an artist myself I agree with a lot of what you're saying. Tbh I feel like even back in Inquisition, the boobs were kind of down low- specifically Sera's. Anyway, it just fucking sucks that all the stories we went through in previous games were not honoured AT ALL.
All the controversy inspired me to play DA:O again after over 10 years, and man.. I got sucked right into it. The writing is so damn good. The character interactions made them feel alive. The environment is gritty, dark, very dark fantasy. Bioware could never do that again. Not with those weirdos in charge that, while being a TINY minority group, clearly want to make self inserts in a game. Not saying that people can't make self inserts but for a franchise like DA, fans have expectations. They love the game for a reason and it's definitely not because DA pushes an agenda.
DA:V will never be a Dragon Age game in my eyes -_-
This, Bioware. This.
Don't apologize, rant away. Bioware's goal is not inclusion. We may finally have amazing hair in the CC, but for the first time I can't make a character that represents me. Because.... the graphics and character design are so...wonky/bizarre. IMO its these choices that fulfilled the needs and desires of trans and non binary developers. Results... A game only it's designers can love..
Bioware got on that DEI-wagon and hired people based on their identity instead of their ability and the games that followed showed this.
100%
This shyt hurts !
No EA drove away writers becouse history was something they didn't see valuable, content hidden behind choice was wasted money. And so EA changed BioWare to match what they wanted for the gdr game of their dream, a fifa game, good graphic very basic story, and something they can dump year after year with low effort.
Corporate killed bioware, old bioware was woke, it talked about those problems but integrated in the whole story, this bioware added them vecouse they were in a check list to assure maximum market and profit.
This has happened to nearly every development company in the industry. It's the managerial take over of the corporation removing founding members of the company in favor of diversity hiring quotas.
Bioware was already a ship in dead waters after Mass Effect 3. It has been a steep decline since then. Once EA buys you up. you are destined for the EA graveyard.
Bioware fan: "What is this place?"
Star Wars fan: "Welcome to the refugee camp. Was your franchise overtaken by skinwalkers as well?"
One and the same. RIP Kotor
Like Star Wars was in a great place before Disney 😂
@@masterknife8423 be quiet tourist.
@masterknife8423 If it wasn't, Disney wouldn't have paid billions of dollars for it.
Whatever that Masterknife clown y'all replied to had already delete his comment and went back to being a shjts stain in the family bed drapes
It's obvious that the true talent has left BioWare, it's dead.. said ending of one of the greatest.. rip.
its ovious thats there no talented steamers left on youtube, sad state to a once great platform
fortunately they all left to larian studios which is making some great games
Some of these talents have re-formed as Archetype Enternainment. And I hope that their newly developed 'Exodus' will be the true Mass Effect successor in spirit, rather than the organic garbage that BioWare is currently creating.
What could possibly go wrong when the team of Veilguard is now working on that project, too? *cough*
@@Blurksel yeah I just learned that. And their teasers look promising ;)
Left? More like was chased off.
Competent game devs:
Bioware: Shift all those DEI hires to Mass Effect.
Old Guard BioWare developers are now at Archetype Entertainment and making Exodus.
The game looks promising, but I can't deny I dislike the character design, specifically the faces, it's right there in uncanny valley to me, something is off.
Exodus is full of promise. But only an epic delivery will be able to keep that. And the design we know is leagues above DA VG.
As a tool of the Culturally Marxist Wizards of the Coast, this game is going to push their agenda as hard as veilguard. Hopefully it will be that ham-handed, because games like 'Baldur's Gate 3', are THE most dangerous cultural manipulation tools out there. BG3 is just as 'woke' as Veilguard, but because it's well-written and entertaining, most people either don't care, don't think it matters, or actively deny that propaganda exists.
Yet that's how we _got_ here in the first place. Especially in Hollywood, they've been Culturally Marxist/Communist almost since their inception. Yet, they followed a profitable model of 'Entertainment First->Propaganda Second'. Products like BG3 show that that model still works extremely well.
@@torikazuki8701nah there's no woke dialogues in BG3 no pronounces no genders
@@torikazuki8701 Bioware games always have been diverse and inclusive. But not woke, till Veilguard. In Dragon Age Origins they told a story about oppression via the elven people. It was the best and most gripping origin.
BG3 also is diverse. But it is not woke. Cyberpunk 2077 is diverse as hell, but not woke. You will not get far with black/white manipulation conspiracy theories. Fun fact: In Space Marine 2s campaign you run a diverse fireteam. They just do it, but do not preach about it and respect the IP.
Bioware name only. everyone who worked on the previous tittles are long gone.
BioWare transitioned to "Identifies as BioWare"
their pronouns are ME & DA
Before, fault was by EA. The pressure from above
Current problem is the creative director, lets be honest we all know this
I fear for Mass Effect future, we all know what needs to be done first if they want to recover
There are Wokes all up in both BioWare AND EA.
Yes, more gender fluids.
and now the ME5 writer is having a election meltdown so you know where the story there will go?? these people can't help themselves not to insert their BS into their games! FFS Bioware is Canadian mostly what do they care about who's in the silly office? shut up and do your jobs!!! this crap never stopped you before! that's what kills any sliver of hope i may have had....
I trust Mike Gamble and Mary DeMarle with the next mass effect game. Gamble has been there since trilogy and DeMarle has a good track record as well.
Biowoke became Biobroke and it is a pleasure to watch.
Get BioWoke
Go BioBroke
I can't say it's a pleasure to watch, personally. More like a "it didn't have to be this way" situation, but they set themselves up for this
It’s a bit hateful for you to enjoy another person failed in their job and bussiness, I understand if you were disappointed but to wish someone ill for what? Making a bad game? A bit too extreme.
@@zhilongIt kind of became personal when they started insulting the customers. If they just made bad games it would have been a footnote in history, people would have forgotten about their flops and their studio entirely. But they had to make a show, drama, attacks, etc. If they couldn't spread something positive they went out on social media and called everyone names for their failures. And for what, for giving feedback? Yes negative feedback is still feedback and you should take it and improve. Feedback is a gift.
@@zhilong When you know who developed the game, you know you should have hatred and not pity for them.
There is honestly no better time for a video like this to come out. It's one thing to see them fail doing something outside of their bread and butter, but when they can't even deliver on what they're known for, it's toast. I've been looking forward to ME 5 for a long time, but at this point its almost impossible to believe there's a redemption arc at the end of all of this.
There isn't. There's only a "they/them" Liara and boss babe Krogans.
@@BooDamnHoo Can't wait to see Sheploo doing pushups for misgendering a Krogan
@@mjohnsen8606 Liara is just going to scream how non-binary she is despite the fact that her entire species is explicitly female.
I realized this after MEA and Anthem....since the 2 were so close in release and by different teams okay, let's see what the other team does...release day and OMFG what have you done?
Anthem made Destiny 1 day one look like a frakking masterpiece!
The Bioware you grew up with no longer exists. The people that made those classic games no longer work at the company.
Looking back, im glad i grew up when i did, having played mass effect and origins during my late teens/early 20s. ALl those other classics like Crysis, Fear, Deadspace and Metro, even before this with Warcraft 3 and Starcraft. What a time it was to be a gamer. Nowadays i dont have as much time as back in the day, but i cant find anything to play anymore....
Gaming is just dead in my eyes, its never gonna be the same as during that era.
To you younger people, im sorry my generation destroyed gaming....
Same it hard for me to find something i enjoy playing, most of the time i buy indie games now! And maybe 2 to 3 big titles a year! It is sad. Bioware had such great writing and branching choices! They had everything right! While most rpg felt cold, Bioware games felt warm cause of the friendships and romances. Giving us a lot more than any other studios! They spoiled us BIG!
It wasn't our generation, it was this new safety blanket-dont hurt my feelings generation
@@caseysmith8655 you do realize that most of those people are millenials right?
@@eestiny9734 yeah, theres also so many titles that i forgot to mention like Resistance, bioshock and so on...
There are a ton of great games to play, dude.
Had a blast with, Inscryption, Sea of Stars, Lies of P, ...
Also a lot of loved games: Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, Black Myth Wukong, ...
And those are just games that came up into my mind in a second.
You missed one of the biggest reasons - the actual people who worked on the earlier games, and their exits, leading to what we have now. The people who made the great games left a while back.
Veilguard's dinner table scene was the hardest I have laughed in a long time.
Very sad, you are 100% right. I'm So disappointed in Bioware
Rise of any studio is it's talent, the moment it leaves and is replaced by people who shouldn't even work in anything adjacent to the industry, but they do because they're cheap and easy to control, is when you see the downfall.
This exactly. As soon as the core bioware staff who worked on previous games left the company and subsequent games were dead and buried 😢
+1 I hope they check Exodus, new game from new company made by the previous guys who designed the OG Mass Effect.
Blizzard is the same way. All the passionately talented people moved on
Woke agenda, DEI and ESG points are a bigger part than you may think.
And this, ladies and gentleman, is what happens when you hire people for DEI instead of actual skill or passion for the work
I think I saw the best era of games. That being 2004-2011. So many classics, Morrowind, Bioshock, FNV, Halo 3. Hell, the 360 PS3 era gave us the classics. It went to hell when chasing the dollar became the motivation. Excellent video, BTW. Subbed.
100% agreed. For me Skyrim is the last game of the golden era, and kinda marked the shift to the new one. Everything after Skyrim has been a decline, and gradually so. There have been a few good games since but it's absurd how few and far in between they are now.
@@Skumtomten1 Talking about Bethesda specifically, the true decline started with Oblivion. Every single game they made after that was a downgrade to the previous entry. Less roleplay options, less story autonomy, and less of a reason to play. We only look back fondly on Skyrim because most of us were too young to realize how shallow that game really was. Especially when compared to the writing and worldbuilding of Morrowind.
Skyrim honestly only persists because there's enough mods out there now that you can mod it into a far better game.
@@Seoul_Soldiersadly true
@@Seoul_Soldier I agree. Skyrim is still a good game though, it's a classic rpg without microtransaction s and it's a complete game with tons of content etc. Mods have made the game alot better for sure, but no one can deny that it's a great game though regardless.
I liked Oblivion more though, I was alot younger and it was actually my first open world rpg and I was blown away by it. The guilds are far superior in Oblivion for sure, but I do think Skyrim improved in many other aspects. I was too young to play Morrowind but I know it's considered the best Bethesda game.
My favorite game ever is Dragon Age Origins, it dethroned Oblivion quite significantly. It was my first Bioware game and was when I got to experience great writing and fantastic characters in game, which Bethesda really isn't very good at in comparison. But yea there are so many amazing games from the mid 2000s to yea around 2011. Its just never been the same since, and probably never will be
Mass Effect 2's DLC Lair of the Shadow Broker showcased just how incredible Bioware was at the time. In the Shadow Broker's database, you could find a little inside info on the characters in your team. It was text. Just text. And everyone loved it.
By the way thanks so much for this. The Dragon Age: Origins campfire hymn still gives me goosebumps.
The best dissertation on Bioware's fall from grace on TH-cam. Well done sir.
I mourn for what Bioware used to be. Dragon Age Origins taught me how to play RPGs, and I loved the autonomy the gameplay gave us. It's truly sad that they've fallen so far, letting narcissistic people who want to be rewarded for existing infiltrate and destroy the studio from within. They turned beloved games into their personal soapboxes to force their presence and opinions on their captive audiences. It's a shame, and I'm honestly sad to see this.
I will never touch anything made by bioware again. Mass effect 5 is already dead to me
The "return to form" wasn't the only or even the most conspicuous example of everyone involved reading from the same script. Scroll through the video reviews from those journalists and count how many of them explicitly go out of their way to specify, in the thumbnail if not the title, either that they've played "to 100% completion" or "for 60+ hours"-either way, drawing attention to how unassailable their conclusion is going to be since they can claim the authority of experience with the game that other journalists, who wouldn't have had time enough with the game for that kind of thoroughness, would be simply unable to duplicate. There was definitely a list of review suggestions being passed around among those involved.
At this point I am not convinced that DA 4 wasn’t a legit intentional move to tank the franchise and studio
And even then, the extra mass effect 3 ending felt like vengeance and not repair. spoiler for an old game: the extra ending is you FAIL to stop the reapers and the next cycle's people succeed. You are the backstory for the real heroes who win offscreen.
You mean the refusal ending?
The ending of the Mass Effect Trilogy was not half baked because the indoctrination ending is the canon of a large portion of players and the only way to resist the indoctrination was to destroy the Reapers. I don't think anyone was really bothered by Shepard's ultimate fate. It seemed like surviving the galactic level extinction threat of the Reapers would require the sacrifice of the Galaxy's biggest hero and most people are okay with that because it is the best way to tie up the narrative. What felt like a betrayal was that anyone would consider an ending that seemed to suggest capitulation to the Reapers. The very really possibility that Synthetic intelligence would always rise up and destroy organic life and supplant it was a core of the story from the outset but to have the Quarian and Geth reunification as the big story beat right before it kind of dispels any gravitas the choice might have carried when reflecting on the story as a whole. It is the hardest possible accomplishment in the story choices of the game, but it is possible which means that synthesis is unnecessary.
it's ironic that Baldur Gate's 3 has more player choice and stronger narrative story script than Bioware itself.
It’s so unbelievable how many choices it accounts for and the characters are so vibrant with their own failures and triumphs, pain, needs and wants. We won’t get another game like it for years will we😢 warhammer 40k rogue trader is great for now though
@@thetrashcanman7537 BG3 is a once in a generation type of game. We will never get another one, lightning in a bottle I'm afraid.
@@Seoul_Soldier yeah….excited to see what larian does next though!!!
It is sad that a blessed studio that used to inspire everyone around, now is just copy/pasting what other devs are doing!
Mass effect was the first game I played from Bioware and I loved it with all my heart to the point I thanked my mother for a few years after playing it and I still consider it one of the best birthday gifts to this day along side getting 007 golden eye for the N64 and it leaves me utterly heart broken seeing how much they have fallen.
No one who was involved in making the classic games are left. It's Bioware in name only.
I remember being on the BioWare forums back when ME 3 released with a lot of problems, as if it was rushed, and ignoring that, I and many others were complaining that EA had got their tentacles into a once great studio, forcing them to dumb the game down, remove RPG elements, add more fast paced action and multiplayer etc.
Mass Effect 2 had mostly been developed without EA’s involvement but with ME 3 you could see what they’d do to a dev team
I remember a BioWare dev arguing with me and being very rude about these comments
I knew back then BioWare was done
And just look at them now
Mass Effect 2 was the last BioWare game
Well, as I've said elsewhere, the changes that ME2 instituted, almost ensured that ME3 would be what it was. From an intricate, narrative-focused, Lore-Based RPG (with at least an effective _illusion_ of choice, in ME1), to an action-based Dudebro Cover Shooter, ME3's 'Roleplaying' had gotten so shallow that you could turn it off in the game options.
That's a staggering admission of how dramatically the series had changed, that few people talk about. You couldn't have done that in ME1, the game would have crumbled, but by 3, it was so neutered, it could be turned off... and the response was minimal.
@ I agree
me2 abd da origins
@@torikazuki8701mass effect 3 still masterpiece
@@ТАДАМ-ю4ж Any 'Roleplaying Game' where you can TURN OFF roleplaying, is a terrible RPG.
Veilguard made me respect Dave Chappelle allot. I mean really really REALLY appreciate his jokes.
SW:ToR was fantastic but it has been turned into a platform to sell shitty armors from failed TV series
Agree I loved that game for YEARS. I wish there'd be a SP game with the mechanics of the Imperial Agent. The gameplay was so fun, the story fantastic!
I hated ToR since launch day. So much wasted potential. Nothing like the videos and trailers made it out to be.
I said it countless times already, except extremely small group, nobody is against representation and diverse set of characters. That is literally why we felt in love with Mass Effect and Dragon Age, or now Baldur´s Gate 3. We are against pandering, preaching, awful writing and bad story telling, against taking options away from us in order to satisfy someone´s personal ego. That is the problem, not that someone is gay. Mass Effect is (along with Expanse) my favorite universe ever and I can´t put into words how sad I am that this universe is almost definitely dead as well. I just really hope that Exodus game from OG BioWare writers and designers and writer Peter F. Hamilton, will be the true successor to this phenomenal trilogy (and one slightly above average spinoff).
i got into the animation industry because of bg1-2 and NWN. it was really sad to see them go down thanks to EA. great video btw. it was nice to go down a bioware memory lane :)
same with Westwood Studios :(
I have a tiny drop of confidence for ME because of Mike Gamble. The director is extemely important and it's evident in Veilguard what the effects are. Maybe it's foolish to have hope but I'm just as heartbroken as you! I grew up on Bioware's games and learned to love storytelling through them. This betrayal after 10 years of silence has been extremely hurtful. 💔
"The developer's full attention has now shifted entirely to the next Mass Effect", Tremble, Mass Effect fans!!
Haha! although, why tremble the ME series was dead since 3. I'd say anyone with any sense is long gone. The only people who support ME these day are the same people who still write Naruto fanfiction.
@billyhwang4124
Not ashamed to say that I am both disgusted and outraged that the next Mass Effect game we have been waiting so long for could end up like Veilguard or Halo: Infinite.
Damn this was a great video. Echoed how many BioWare fans feel about the whole situation and future of our favorite franchises. I was surprised how small your channel is because your quality was great. Hope to see more
4:13 if larian ever did something like this for their own IP and made their own tabletop rpg, it’ll be over for wizards of the coast/ Dungeon n dragons
I still remember singing Bioware's praises for so many years as I too grew up playing their games, cRPGs being my absolute favorite genre.
Thankfully, there's still Obsidian and Owlcat to carry the torch.
Great vid. I would have appreciated some detail around which devs left the studio, and when, and how that correlated to certain game releases
You have a bright future in gaming commentary and analysis. I'll be recommending your channel to everyone I know looking for honest reviews and takes on gaming.
Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition suffered from EA pushing for unrealistic or downright insane timetables.
Veilguard, however, is an unholy alliance of narcissistic, talentless "creatives" and greedy EA corpos who kept chasing trends.
If the people in charge of DA2/Inquisition made Veilguard without corporate pressure to do this or that, we would have had a masterpiece.
I can not put into words how much I hate what has become of the DA franchise and BioWare in general.
I remember being SO exited for DA4 after Trespasser back in 2015...
RIP BioWare. It was good while it lasted.
Its funny how the devs said Veilgaurd was dark amd gritty and the reveal trailer wasnt accurate to the final game and launched more dark trailers. Then at release as ot turns out that reveal yrailer was very accurate to the tone of the game. Game has political propaganda in it yes but the even the non political dialogue is so terrible. Skill Up was right, its like having HR in the room everytime you speak.
You could start making a similar movie about Bethesda, they are already on the road to the abyss too.
Funny enough that video is in the planning stages of development.
ME 1 2 and 3 were an unreal experience, specially ME 1 and 2 were just peak.
Idk howthis channel doesnt have more subscribers. What passion behind your take, your love for bioware shows, great mic and editing. Wish the channel the best
Well, I’ve been excited for MASS EFFECT 5 ever since it was teased. Now that I know the team from VEILGAURD is working on it, I probably won’t be wasting my time or money and just play ME 1,2,&3 again for the 20th time.
Great video!
*and now they're digging up Mass Effect so they can kill it again* 😂
You have to remember: Veilguard was going to be a live service multiplayer. For 6 years it was developed as such until Anthem flopped and the team shit themselves and ‘retooled’ the game to being a single player again. You can see it in the DNA of the game.
'Staying True to the Mass Effect Franchise?" While ME2 is widely regarded as 'The Best' of the 3, from its very beginning it murd3r$ the original game and it's NOT subtle about that. Your PC gets whacked immediately, to be replaced with a fascimile that no longer has agency, but is the Illusive Man's Lackey, from start to finish. It pummels the lore into paste, turning a rogue special ops group into another major galactic power, one who can make an even better ship than the bleeding-edge design of two major governments.
The entire main plot of ME2 guaranteed that ME3 was going to be wildly uneven at best. ME1 logically set up what the 2nd game should have been- Find a way to beat (or trap) the Reapers. But because it Faffed about with the 'go nowhere' collector plot, forced ME3 to do double-duty.
ME2 has great companions & companion-quests & a slicker action-game interface. But in all other important ways, it turned away from the detail-oriented, meticulous, well-plotted 1st game and started the series on the way to the shallow rpg-lite cover-shooter it became.
I preferred ME1 to ME2. ME1 had the intrigue, it allowed you to be "good" or "bad" while still achieving the end goal. Shepard had agency in ME1 and also ME3, ME2 really felt like you are Illusive mans servant. I always feel like the bad guy in ME2, even if i choose paragon, i still know im working for an evil organisation. All that being said, the character development of Shepard and companions is massive in ME2.
@@martinbernath while the case _might_ be made that you had more agency in ME3 than ME2, the game was easily made worse because the Roleplaying had gotten so shallow & pointless that you could turn it off in the game options.
Aside from the insanity of being able to turn off Roleplaying in an RPG (like turning off Driving in a Driving game), that just shows how little impact it had by then. Turning it off in ME1, would have nearly broken the structure of the game.
Tash is a stereotype that only makes people in the LGBT like myself ashamed. The writing is so bad that they are using people like me as human shields against criticism. I’m tired of being pandered to by corpo morons.
Casey Hudson left in 2014, thats what happened
and the 2 bosses, without them bioware wasnt bioware anymore. i mean Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk
EA ruined ME3 that is for sure but anything after that is biowares own doing with their own games.
EA is the death of creativity. They should stick to their loot boxes and garbage FIFA games. They ruined a long list of the greatest IPs ever made and have still not sold off the rights to a lot of them. They are the worst.
This is a great piece of content. Good luck with your channel. Look forward to seeing what you come up with!
Guess payed reviews and journalists won't bring you profit. Damn, that sucks Bioware, maybe next time.
It probably won't be a next time. I am unsure they will survive this especially with the current world economic state. It's not a good time for spectacular flops.
Why do videos like this always skip over Jade Empire?
I just wrote about it too !
You clearly put a lot of thought and effort into your content. Good job mate, it's really good.
Claiming Mass Effect 3 was the beginning of the end just cause the majority doesn't like the final 10 minutes of the game is very unfair and disingenuous. Almost everyone thought ME3 was peak Mass Effect and peak BioWare from the very start to right before the Star Child, painting the whole game as a catalyst of the downfall that came almost a decade later because the final MINUTES didn't stick the landing is very extreme. And the Extended Ending was free, so no, you weren't expected to pay for a new ending, that's just wrong.
Greed and mismanagement
Excellent video.
Personally, I’d go a bit further back than you: While Mass Effect 2 undoubtedly did many things better than its predecessor, for me it was the point where BW decided to step away from traditional RPGs towards a more commercially successful approach of making action-focussed games. And sadly, over the years, they sacrificed writing quality, culminating in the infamous red-blue-green choice that ended the trilogy.
I’ve considered myself a huge BW fan ever since I first played Baldur’s Gate 2, but the company isn’t what it once was. I wouldn’t be surprised if EA shuts it down after this. Hopefully, TPTB have enough sense to entrust BW’s brands to a dedicated studio, like WotC did when they handed BG3 over to Larian; but I doubt it.
Dude, I just stumbled across your channel while surfing through an endlessly disappointing youtube tangent regarding the state of current media, and how it's all headed towards one creatively-suicidal, greedy, and bankrupt direction, and I stayed for the whole video. Your presentation is warming and totally relatable, despite the sad reality of the content.
I have no hopes for the new ME game, as someone who is very sentimental about the original trilogy, I have seen enough to realise now that what we loved has become a mere skin disguising a vacuum and I have resigned myself to the fact that it'll be a good few years until the ship rights itself, if it's allowed to. I keep thinking to myself: surely money speaks louder than most, these companies cannot sustain this way, look at Disney! they've lost billions and billions since they became the champions of DEI. It's inevitable that they will eventually fall apart due to loss in revenue, and be forced to acknowledge that pandering to 3% of the population at the extreme expense of the rest just ain't possible, reasonable, or normal.
Thanks for your efforts :-)
Yo, this is the best vid ive seen on the subject. Thanks for taking the time to teach the history of Biowoke. I miss the OG
I'm glad you speak the truth about how BioWare is despicable in cheating the metrics. BuyerBeware! BioWare died the day ME3 released.
For me it was the day Andromeda released.
@@Jedilord882 You gave them more credit than I did then. ME3 sucked in SO many ways and I despise the game - except for MultiPlayer, which I still play to this day. I hate ME3 because it could have been so much more if the writers were worth their salt.
The last Bioware game was Mass Effect 2
Ouch
Thats why I always laugh when people get hyped when ever Bioware's bloated corpse shows up with a new game, look at their last 6 games in the past 14 years
Dragon age 2 considered a mediocre sequel
Mass effect 3 the game ruined the trilogy with its terrible endings and tried too hard to be like Gears of War
Dragon age Inquisition is divisive to say the least and feels more like an mmo than a dragon age game
Andromeda, the game floped both with critics and fans
Anthem floped with critics and fans too
Veilguard is looking like a wet turd and it might the final straw for EA and they might pull the plug on Bioware.
Bioware has been living on their reputation for far too long even when most of the people that made Kotor, Origins and Mass Effect have already left the company.
Nah, DAO.
You could already smell the stench on ME2. The atmosphere and attitude shift of the game was palpable to say nothing of the changes to combat and loot.
True. Rpg elements were dumb down compared to ME1.
@WholesomeDough wtf? No it wasnt. ME2 was a masterpiece. Dont get delusional seeing woke shit like our woke friends do because it certainly didnt exist in me2.
I still hear that DA music in my dreams. God, this is sad!
They decided to join DEI culture and that was only part of their downfall. EA is also to blame for forcing deadlines and sacrificing creativity as well employeeing people based on identity.
I have already felt that way about BioWare since Dragon Age 2. I didn't like DA2 at all.
Where did BioWare go wrong? I guess the part where the OGs left.
At that time BioWare needed the EA acquisition. They couldn't find a publisher for DA:O. After their divorce with WOTC, they were struggling to get a publisher because it was an unproven new IP.
this feel so sad...
i grew up with 90% of my games developed by Bioware..
heartbreaking 💔
Companies aren't living entities, they change, alongside leadership and personnel. Nice work!
Sad times we living... it was year ogo that we watch Blizzards fall history and now Biowere. Thanks god we still have Larian and Paradox.
Very well put together full of facts that can’t be denied. Thanks, man 👍🏻
BioWare is long gone. They might as well rename themselves, because they are NOT BioWare.
As far as the next Mass Effect is concerned, I’m not expecting anything more than the last 4 games BioWare has released.
Mass effect is going to be the typical idealism injected detritus that we’ve been seeing from them.
Both BioWare and Blizzard met their fates when they were acquired by the big corporations. They died years ago as most of the key members long left the respective studios. It's truly sad to see.
very good summary, i played all the titles back in the days.
Outstanding and accurate AF. Great job! Subbed.
Augustine yip is my family doctor, when I found out I was floored because BioWare games are some of my favorites and one of their founders is the guy who looks after my health lol
The problem with BioWare is “the ship of theseus” question. If you replace all the parts of a ship is it the same ship? Very few of the people that made the games we love are still at BioWare.
Go woke go broke !
Yeah, it just takes 10 years because people can't read the writing on the wall through their lenses of denial.
You mean "top of the charts!"
BG3 is an excellent example of how dumb that phrase is. Bad writing is the cause of “woke” things failing, just as it is the cause of any poorly written but non-“woke” story based media.
The acquisition from EA definitely didn't help. But Bioware deciding to follow DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity) and hire people based on their appearance, ethnicity or sexuality rather than skill or merit has also contributed to their downfall. It also appears that DEI doesn't include white people unless their sexuality aligns with it.
yeah and on the other side you have nvidia, they only take the best of the best engineers they can get, pay them well.
DEI= Didn't Earn It
I'd argue the biggest reason for their fall was their own internal work practices, specifically the _Bioware magic_
Bioware has always over-scoped all their projects, Mass Effect 1 for instance was supposed to feature open world maps for every single explorable planet and most of the development time is spent in trying to implement those unrealistic features rather than focusing on the reasonable systems of the Game Design.
That's when the _Bioware magic_ comes in, which is their slang for _crunch time._ Basically when they have a year or less time of development they ditch all the unimplementable features they've worked for years and they focus on completing the game, for most of their games the _magic_ worked at a cost: gradually developers quit Bioware due extreme burnout and work being redundant, meaning most of the features they worked for years never were in the final build of the games.
Mass Effect Andromeda is when all changed. By then most veteran developers had left he studio and it also when DEI hiring was established and when they tried to _use the magic_ they couldn't and the result was a boring, broken game that flopped so bad to the point the series had to be put on hold indefinitely.
The reason the _magic_ left was simple: not only was at the end a very unpleasant experience to endure but in order to even pull it off you needed *competent* developers that could do tremendous amount of work in very little time and if even they hated it, why do they think it would work when they started hiring based on arbitrary “political” _check-marks?_
Veilguard is the culmination of their _magic:_ A game that was stuck in development for ten years only for the final product to be rushed in the last three, lead by incompetent developers that were more interested in pandering politics rather than designing a fun game, which flopped even harder than Andromeda.
If anything Mass Effect 5 is not going to be different, they have proven that even in their _prime_ they don't learn for their mistakes.
Fantastic video and essay
Awesome content here. Keep this up and you'll be over 100K in no time. Like your trajectory is the exact opposite of Bioware. Lol.
Don't see anyone commenting on the quality of this video, so let me be the first to do. Dude, excellent job.
Aside from all the technical issues, ME-A created Structural Problems with the Game world on such a massive scale that they literally were too big for many players to see. The Tightly-Woven, Intricately-designed world that was created in ME1 & Damaged in ME2-3, was obliterated in ME-A.
Giving Cerberus the power of a major Nation-State was bad enough. But the entire _concept_ of the 'Ark Project' made it clear BioWare didn't care about world consistency in the slightest. Creating these ships was Cerberus 10x. It would require the entire resources of all the major Galactic Powers to make them, if consistency were still adhered to. Even worse, it gave the project an ability even the REAPERS didn't possess- The ability to travel between Galaxies.
This may seem like 'Nerd-techy-lore-nonsense' to many, forgetting that that concept was what ME was originally FOUNDED on. It wasn't designed as a Leetbro-cover-shooter (though it became that). Originally Non-Relay FTL accumulated Static Charges that HAD to be discharged on a planet. Without this discharge process, the ships would eventually become lethal & kill all aboard. Yet _somehow_ the ability to travel tens of thousands of times farther, with no need to discharge, was discovered. Again, something even the Reapers had not been able to achieve, in Billions of Years.
This utter disdain for logical consistency, combined with all the technical issues, combined with the midwit Millennial writing, makes ME-A an utter disgrace to ME's legacy. But make no mistake- the changes made with ME2, ensured this was the path they chose to go down.
really enjoying your storytelling. Very compelling. Keep up the great work!
No king rules forever. Thanks for the memories Bioware.
Back then Baldur's Gate 1 set the standard for what an RPG should be.
Many years later Baldur's Gate 3 does it again and a HUGE part of the gaming industry went berserk and begged gamers not to consider BG3 as the new standard.
Bro you forgot Jade Empire!!
It gets a little nod
@@TheComebackKidsTVlol nah you not feeling that jade empire like that! I like it but I don’t blame you
BioWare stopped being BioWare when EA bought them. EA has been using the BioWare name to keep the money coming in, all while destroying BioWare's name in the process. EA does that to every studio they touch. The reason BioWare has lasted so long is because of the BioWare name and the consumer desire for BioWare to keep producing the games that made BioWare popular in the first place. EA ruins everything they touch; everyone knows this, but people keep buying games from them anyway.
Not surprised with their decline. A game development company IS their staff and the real Bioware staff is ancient history, as is this studio's reputation for excellence.
What people should remember is, that the Bioware from the mid-2000s isn't the the Bioware from now. I'm sure none of the former staff works still there, at least from the senior and team-leading positions. The Bioware now is just a husk of it's former self, only kept alive by it's name and it's IPs names. But hey, we got Larian, CDP Red and (maybe) Obsidian, and a ton of other indie CRPG-studios. Old things die off, new things grow.
I've been a gamer since the early '90s and have seen the industry's highs and lows. Back then, games like Lands of Lore, Command & Conquer, The Settlers, Baldur's Gate, Ultima Online, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, StarCraft, and Diablo II were milestones, pushing boundaries with immersive worlds and innovative gameplay. These games focused on bringing exceptional, creative worlds to life, inviting players into deep, engaging experiences.
Today, though, so many games feel like "canned content"-repackaged old ideas with updated graphics, lacking the soul and originality we once saw. Monetization seems to have taken over, with microtransactions, loot boxes, and "Games as a Service" structures dominating the landscape. Games have become repetitive, often appearing to prioritize fast revenue over delivering a truly captivating experience.
Even MMORPGs, once envisioned as expansive second worlds, have lost their magic due to these trends. For example, Conan started with an innovative vision, only to dilute it to cater to the mass market-ultimately driving away its original fanbase.
If things keep heading this way, I’m nearly ready to hang up my controller for good at almost 59 years old. Or maybe I’ll need to create a game myself to find that spark again. The industry could use a revival of that genuine passion and creative ambition, freeing itself from the confines of pure profit motives and ideological trends that limit free thought and the creative risks that made games truly great.
13:44 trying to draw more players by making the mechanics more mainstream, naturally alienates the fans, it's currently what's happening in development in Star Citizen.
*To be fair, development studios are not static organisations. The staff are always in flux. That being said if your bread and butter is RPGs, your number one priority as management should be to protect and retain your proven high quality writers.
One of the biggest moments in gaming was in mass effect 1. The moment we found out saren was just a pawn. You just don't get that kind of storytelling anymore.
Now we'd just find out saren was Sarah.