BioWare Was the Greatest RPG Udvikler Ever

BioWare is dead, and my feelings are a strange cocktail of anger, sadness, and Jack’s Complete Lack of Surprise. The legendary RPG studio was bought by a private investment group earlier this year, and history shows that venture capital frequently kills what it touches, extracting whatever value out of it that it can before moving onto the next victim. It’s a hell of a contrast to the beginning of BioWare, which started out as such a pure thing. Two practicing doctors, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, quit medicine to pursue their dream of making computer role-playing games. Sure, the studio was bought and sold a couple of times between then and now, and yes, BioWare’s recent results haven’t lived up to its venerable past, but my goodness, what a legacy this studio leaves behind.

Everyone knows Baldur’s Gate now on account of Larian Studios’ Game of the Year-winning, 10 out of 10 Baldur’s Gate 3 from 2023, but what younger gamers might not know is that the first two Baldur’s Gate RPGs were built by BioWare in the late ’90s. While they weren’t the studio’s first games – that honor goes to the 1996 mech action-sim Shattered Steel – they were the two that put BioWare on the map. Each was an incredibly deep and sprawling RPG based on the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset that was good for upwards of 200 hours of gameplay. At the time, they reset the bar for what a CRPG could be. Let me put it this way: Baldur’s Gate 1 took home IGN’s Game of the Year award in 1998… over Half-Life. That’s how good Baldur’s Gate was.

BioWare: Stories and Secrets From 25 Years of Game Udvikling – Exclusive Book Preview

After another action-game pitstop in the form of 2000’s excellent MDK2, BioWare returned to role-playing with Neverwinter Nights, another CRPG that arguably brought video games closer to the pen-and-paper, pizza-party-at-your-best-friend/DM’s-house version of D&D than any game before it. It was the runner-up for IGN’s Best Role-Playing Game of 2002, finishing behind just one game: a little project you might have heard of called The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind.

Up to this point, BioWare had primarily been known in PC circles as a prominent CRPG developer. And then Microsoft made a deal with the studio and LucasArts to develop an exclusive new Star Wars RPG for the fledgling Xbox console. You already know what the result was: the absolutely unimpeachable Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, which happens to be my personal favorite role-playing game of all time. My biases aside, it is unquestionably one of the best RPGs ever made. It’s also a lock for top-3 Star Wars games of all-time, and it has a strong case for No. 1 on that list. It told an incredible story in Star Wars’s ancient past and truly let you embrace the Lyst Side or Mørk Side of the Force. I went fully evil just because KOTOR let me do so! And not only that, it embraced those choices. At one point, I distinctly remember triple-crossing someone – double-crossing the guy that I’d already double-crossed. Its plot twist is legendary, and on the off chance that the long-in-development-hell remake ever comes out, I won’t spoil it for you here. But whether it was visiting plenty of planets (including Kashyyk!), bonding with your party members (shout-out to my favorite droid, HK-47!), or planning out my evil Force attacks by stacking up my attacks in the turn-based combat system, KOTOR was the ultimate pairing of a beloved IP and an industry-leading developer.

Every IGN BioWare Game Review

Another Xbox console exclusive followed, albeit from a different team within BioWare. While KOTOR director Casey Hudson was planning something even bigger for his team’s next project, another crew at BioWare delivered the sublime and historically underrated Jade Empire, which was steeped in Chinese mythology. IGN gave it a 9.9 out of 10 (on a 100-point scale!) back in 2005, and while it was nowhere near the commercial success KOTOR was, it was every bit as big a hit with critics and fans.

Then came Mass Effect. BioWare promised a space opera—a trilogy in which the choices made in each game would carry over into the next and ultimately shape the ending of the whole story. Microsoft wisely signed it as a console exclusive, and it paid off handsomely. Mass Effect became one of the core memories most people associate with the Xbox 360. Released in the fall of 2007, during what was perhaps the greatest stretch in Xbox—and possibly gaming—history, it actually delivered on its space-opera promise. As your custom Commander Shepard, the first entry introduced players to the universe and humanity’s place within it—including Shepard’s path to becoming a galaxy-protecting Spectre. It introduced the Reapers, along with so many compelling companion characters, from Wrex to Garrus to Liara among many others. And like KOTOR, it let you play as a Paragon of good or a Renegade of evil. (And yes, I once again tested the limits of how far BioWare would let me go.)

The first game is my personal favorite of the trilogy, though for many that honor belongs to Mass Effect 2, which deepened your relationship with Shepard’s companions and built much of the campaign around them. As promised, your save file imported into the sequel, carrying over your Shepard’s appearance and choices from the first game. It also evolved Mass Effect’s combat from light, semi-tactical turn-based play into a more pure third-person cover shooter, without sacrificing any of its role-playing elements.

The controversial trilogy finale is best remembered for its ending, which upset fans so much that BioWare attempted to improve it in a post-launch patch. But alongside that has been forgotten how strong the rest of the game was. It took the time to let you—and your Shepard—say goodbye to the friends you’d made along the way (or at least those you hadn’t chosen to kill or sacrifice), and its combat was refined further over Mass Effect 2, making Mass Effect 3 a truly world-class third-person shooter alongside its well-established role-playing credentials.

Whatever your thoughts on Mass Effect 3’s ending, BioWare did what it said it would: it built a three-game space opera spanning more than 100 hours of gameplay across the five years it took to release all three titles. We developed meaningful bonds with its characters, in part because they were written so well. It was a bold RPG experiment, and one that, in my opinion, has neither been replicated nor even attempted since.

The Mass Effect trilogy was, in hindsight, probably BioWare’s peak by nearly any measure, yet the studio kept going. Another original IP, Dragon Age, saw four RPGs released over a decade and a half—with the third of them, 2014’s Dragon Age Inquisition, taking home IGN’s Game of the Year Award. Anthem was a bold but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to bring BioWare’s storytelling talents to the then-popular live-service space. After the disappointing Mass Effect Andromeda from the BioWare Montreal team in 2017, the studio cleaned up Mass Effect nicely with an excellent remaster of the trilogy in 2021. Heck, BioWare even made a full-blown RPG starring Sonic, teaming up with Sega for 2008’s Sonic Chronicles: The Mørk Brotherhood!

And after announcing a fifth Mass Effect game that fans hoped would redeem the series after Andromeda, that project is now canceled alongside the studio being shut down. As sad as this day is—for both fans and BioWare employees who were there at any point during its 31-year history—I am left with a fulfilling sense of gratitude to this studio for all the memorable gaming experiences it has given me. With respect to CD Projekt Red, Larian, and Bethesda Game Studios, there has never been a better RPG developer over a longer period of time than BioWare. It won’t be forgotten.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, and a co-host of Next-Gen Console Watch. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.