Dragon Age creator begs EA to “follow Larian’s lead” from Baldur’s Gate 3 as Mass Effect 5 enters full development – Video Gamer

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You can trust VideoGamer. Our team of gaming experts spend hours testing and reviewing the latest games, to ensure you’re reading the most comprehensive guide possible. Rest assured, all imagery and advice is unique and original. Check out how we test and review games hereLarian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 released to massive acclaim as not only one of the best RPGs ever made, but also as a game that didn’t attempt to nickel and dime players with paid DLC and swathes of microtransactions. Following the release of EA’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard, series creator David Gaider has asked the publisher to follow the example led by Larian for its future RPG releases.In a recent financial call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson discussed the failure of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, blaming the game’s lack of “shared-world features” that would offer “deeper engagement” for players.When the title was in early development, the latest Dragon Age game was supposed to be a live-service multiplayer game instead of the follow-up to Inquisition that fans ended up playing. In the end, this waste of development time led to a product that needed quite a bit more time in the oven.
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Speaking to fans on Blue Sky, Gaider responded to the CEO’s claims, explaining that it’s easy for a CEO that doesn’t “actually know much about games” to point at the lack of a popular trend as the cause of failure.“You’re in a big office with a bunch of other execs who also don’t know much about games. What are they all saying? ‘Live games do big numbers!’ ‘Action games are hot!’,” the veteran game dev said.“Your natural response? ‘We should make more action games, and all our games should have live service!’ Cha-ching, right?” he continued. “Then some uppity devs spoil your buzz by saying ‘that doesn’t apply equally to all games’ or ‘we have an established IP with an audience that has certain expectations’. You frown.”In the end, Gaider explained that EA needs to “follow Larian’s lead”, the example the studio left with Baldur’s Gate 3. A single-player game based on a beloved franchise that stuck to its guns and created an amazing experience for both fans and newcomers alike, BG3 broke all industry trends and became the biggest, most successful game of the year.“My advice to EA (not that they care): you have an IP that a lot of people love,” Gaider said. “Deeply. At its height, it sold well enough to make you happy, right? Look at what it did best at the point where it sold the most. Follow Larian’s lead and double down on that. The audience is still there. And waiting.”With Mass Effect 5 now in full development at BioWare, there is worry that EA will pull something and ruin the long-awaited follow-up to the sci-fi series. As Gaider explains, fans are waiting for a game that is a proper sequel to the titles they already loved—and there’s an expectation that should be met.For more coverage, read about the upcoming Baldur’s Gate 3 custom campaign bringing “six to eight” entirely new custom companions to the game.Lewis White is a veteran games journalist with a decade of experience writing news, reviews, features and investigative pieces about game development with a focus on Halo and Xbox.
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Source: https://www.videogamer.com/news/dragon-age-creator-begs-ea-to-follow-larians-lead/