Bioware's Long-Awaited New IP Will Be Out by the End of March 2018

[ffronw]

Bioware's Long-Awaited New IP Will Be Out by the End of March 2018

EA says that the new IP Bioware announced at E3 2014 will be released early next year.

Way back in the dark days of 2014, Bioware showed off a teaser trailer (embedded below) for Mass Effect: Andromeda, and towards the end, it also featured a brief glimpse of a brand new IP in the works at Bioware Edmonton. Since then, there's been almost no news of that IP, save a possible mention by Dragon Age writer David Gaider, who tweeted [https://twitter.com/davidgaider/status/572890115661418497] that he was moving on from that franchise to "a new, upcoming BioWare project." That's not conclusive that he was going to this project, but it is suggestive.


In EA's financial call earlier this week, CEO Andrew Wilson brought up the title again, calling it an "action-adventure title" and saying that it was "not an RPG." Once that mention was out there, Bioware general manager Aaryn Flynn followed up with an official blog post [http://blog.bioware.com/2017/01/31/a-note-about-our-new-ip/]. Flynn wrote that Bioware is "creating a unique IP that will bring players together in exciting new ways." AS "additional background," he offered the following:

"In 2012, we began crafting a new universe full of new characters, stories, and gameplay. Our ambition is simple: Draw upon 20+ years of development knowledge and lessons to create something fun and new for you to enjoy with your friends."

While there's precious little to go on here, "bring players together" and "enjoy with your friends" certainly make you think that the new game may be multiplayer in focus. Of course, it could also be something more co-op focused, like the 4v1 Shadow Realms that Bioware cancelled back in 2015 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/139773-BioWare-Cancels-New-IP-Shadow-Realms-Development].

Whatever it is, we're sure to see more of it soon, as Wilson said that it would be released by the end of Q1 2018, which means March 31 or earlier.



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[Mike Richards]

Huh, Bioware doing a specifically non-RPG adventure?

Can't wait for all the people complaining it isn't enough of an RPG and Baulder's Gate was better.

 

[Sol_HSA]

Mistake #1: asking fans what they want.

 

[Kahani]

Huh, Bioware doing a specifically non-RPG adventure?

Can't wait for all the people complaining it isn't enough of an RPG and Baulder's Gate was better.

I have little doubt that Baldur's Gate will have been better, since that's true for the majority of games, RPG or otherwise. However, Mass Effect wasn't an RPG (at best it was a shooter with the now ubiquitous "RPG elements", but even gear choices were essentially gone by the end of the trilogy), and Dragon Age 2 and 3 took away a lot of the roleplaying - as with Mass Effect your character development was largely limited to being a sarcastic dick or not while doing the same things. Fun games (except DA2), but Bioware has effectively been making action-adventure games rather than RPGs for quite a while now.

When it comes down it, that seems to be what people largely want these days - they want the "RPG elements" with limited skill and gear progression and some choice of exactly what to say in conversations and what order to approach things in, but none of the stats calculations, piles of gear to sort through, choice on whether to be good or evil, and so on. Mass Effect, Fallout 4, Far Cry 3, every Ubisoft game since Far Cry 3, Dishonoured, Deus Ex, GTA, Saints Row, and the list could go on for pages. There are still RPGs around, Skyrim being an obvious example of a AAA game with far more than just the limited RPG elements of that list, but it's no surprise that Bioware would be moving away from that; it's what everyone else is doing, and it's what they've already been doing for a decade or more.

 

[Mortuorum]

In EA's financial call earlier this week, CEO Andrew Wilson brought up the title again, calling it an "action-adventure title" and saying that it was "not an RPG."

Well, that should make the EA overlords happy. After all, RPGs don't really appeal to their core dudebro demographic. It's also kinda hard to shoehorn multiplayer into them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll just be quietly crying over in the corner.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

This tells me nothin'!

*Grumbles back into cave, knocking over bodyguard badgers on way*

 

[karkashan]

I wonder how many annoying bugs will be in it at launch? It is a Bioware game, after all.

Here's hoping the design team behind ME3 is behind it, they were responsible for the only Bioware game to have actual good gameplay that could stand on its own.

grimabepraised

 

[Mike Richards]

Huh, Bioware doing a specifically non-RPG adventure?

Can't wait for all the people complaining it isn't enough of an RPG and Baulder's Gate was better.

I have little doubt that Baldur's Gate will have been better, since that's true for the majority of games, RPG or otherwise. However, Mass Effect wasn't an RPG (at best it was a shooter with the now ubiquitous "RPG elements", but even gear choices were essentially gone by the end of the trilogy), and Dragon Age 2 and 3 took away a lot of the roleplaying - as with Mass Effect your character development was largely limited to being a sarcastic dick or not while doing the same things. Fun games (except DA2), but Bioware has effectively been making action-adventure games rather than RPGs for quite a while now.

When it comes down it, that seems to be what people largely want these days - they want the "RPG elements" with limited skill and gear progression and some choice of exactly what to say in conversations and what order to approach things in, but none of the stats calculations, piles of gear to sort through, choice on whether to be good or evil, and so on. Mass Effect, Fallout 4, Far Cry 3, every Ubisoft game since Far Cry 3, Dishonoured, Deus Ex, GTA, Saints Row, and the list could go on for pages. There are still RPGs around, Skyrim being an obvious example of a AAA game with far more than just the limited RPG elements of that list, but it's no surprise that Bioware would be moving away from that; it's what everyone else is doing, and it's what they've already been doing for a decade or more.

Yeah, ME was absolutely less of an RPG at the very least, if not something else entirely. Rock Paper Shotgun once called them "Guns and Conversation" and I really like that as a more accurate genre description. And I love that about them, I love the whole trilogy start to finish, even the EC ending. And I'd love to see more shooters with variable storylines, it's a really exciting prospect and one of those RPG elements that hasn't expanded into other genres nearly as much.

My point was even if Bioware specifically goes out of their way to say they're doing something entirely different, people seem intent on judging them by the same measures and then complaining when that doesn't work. And as someone who really, really loves ME, that really frustrates me.

A lot of people seemed to be expecting more proper RPGs just because that's what Bioware made in the past. Maybe that's not unreasonable at first, but it shouldn't take much time to figure out that they're clearly trying to be something different. Even with all of 1's micromanagement it's still pretty obvious that it's a very different type of RPG if nothing else.

But because of the shadow of BG and KOTOR, a lot of people seemed to decide that ME isn't a different genre or hybrid genre, they're just shit RPGs. And that's never made a whole lot of sense to me. You might prefer the classical style but that doesn't mean anything that deviates from that style is doing something wrong. It isn't even like they changed an established franchise, they didn't turn KOTOR into a shooter. They made something that stood on it's own so it could stand on it's own.

But somehow people still complained ME2 wasn't 'enough of an RPG' anymore as though that actually means anything, just because Bioware is locked in a mode and can't escape it, I guess? It's practically like complaining that Halo is a shit RTS because Bungie made Myth first.

Again, you can absolutely like one more than the other, but it doesn't make sense to complain that Mass Effect isn't Baulder's Gate or KOTOR because it's trying to be Mass Effect. It can't fail at something it doesn't try to do. And like I said, that really bothers me.

 

[Hawki]

*Grumbles back into cave, knocking over bodyguard badgers on way*

You're a bear. What the heck do you need bodyguard badgers for? 0_0

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

*Grumbles back into cave, knocking over bodyguard badgers on way*

You're a bear. What the heck do you need bodyguard badgers for? 0_0

They look nice and smart when placed symmetrically. Plus it keeps them in employment and feeling appreciated. And they're hard as nails and a good laugh after a few pitchers of home-made rum.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

*Grumbles back into cave, knocking over bodyguard badgers on way*

You're a bear. What the heck do you need bodyguard badgers for? 0_0

Honey Badgers make bears look like wussies.

 

[Kahani]

You literally can't afford to hide hours worth of content behind different paths and choices.

But you don't need that to make a decent RPG with meaningful choices; neither Baldur's Gate or Skyrim hid content behind different paths, they just did enough to make things feel different while still following the same basic main story. Baldur's Gate, for example, allowed to be an evil person who constantly murdered people and extorted money from little old ladies; that changed how NPCs interacted with you (and even whether they would do so at all), changed which characters would join your party, changed which skills and items were available, and could even result in constantly being attacked by the guards when in civilised areas. But those were all relatively minor changes to the overall game - you still played the same person following the same story through the same quests for the same reasons, you could just change who that character was and how they interacted with people. In other words, you always played the same game with the same story, but you could choose what role to play - hence it's a role-playing game.

Again, you can absolutely like one more than the other, but it doesn't make sense to complain that Mass Effect isn't Baldur's Gate or KOTOR because it's trying to be Mass Effect. It can't fail at something it doesn't try to do. And like I said, that really bothers me.

Yeah, I agree with pretty much everything you say. Unfortunately, it's all too common for people to build up an idea of what a game should be in their head, and then complain when they get something else. Often it simply fails to live up to some unrealistic ideal, but sometimes it's not the kind of game they wanted and they tend to blame the game rather than their unfounded expectations (although of course they can often quite rightly blame misleading marketing as well). That said, it is understandable to an extent - if a studio is known for making good games in genre X but are now making a game in genre Y, people who like genre X will be disappointed that they're not getting a game they're going to enjoy, even if it still ends up being a perfectly good game.