A former writer for the Dragon Age franchise has plenty of things to say to EA after the publisher botched Dragon Age: The Veilguard and even blamed the lack of live service features on why it failed. The former BioWare writer and developer in question is none other than David Gaider, and he thinks EA’s greed is mostly to blame for why Dragon Age: The Veilguard flopped.
Gaider posted his thoughts in a rather lengthy Bluesky tirade about EA’s management. Initially, Gaider’s post was a reaction to EA learning the wrong lessons from their Dragon Age: The Veilguard failure. Apparently, one of the executives at EA even implied that The Veilguard might’ve been more successful if it was live-service, further sticking to their preference for making online, live-service, multiplayer games.
However, Gaider had to go on a passionate rant about how EA already had an ideal RPG example right in front of it and should’ve just followed Baldur’s Gate 3 and Larian Studios’ lead. Here’s exactly what Gaider said:
Additionally, EA’s take that Dragon Age: The Veilguard should’ve been live-service might have been something that irked the former Dragon Age writer. Gaider thus said out loud what has been the general sentiment of most gamers about EA:
It’s worth noting that David Gaider left BioWare as Dragon Age‘s lead writer back in 2016 after 17 years of tenure. Gaider actually worked on BioWare back when it was in its prime and has contributed to gaming icons and industry standards such as Baldur’s Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Dragon Age: Origins.
BioWare Has Recently Lost Its RPG Writers
A couple of years after Dragon Age: Inquisition (Dragon Age 3), David Gaider parted ways with BioWare after he felt that the studio and its publisher, EA, started undervaluing their writers. Gaider has since moved on and co-founded his own developer studio called Summerfall Studios.
Speaking of BioWare writers, most of them are no longer working with the RPG maker since they either left the company or have been laid off following Dragon Age: The Veilguard‘s failure. In fact, there are no longer any Dragon Age writers on BioWare right now, whether from the old games or Veilguard.
Such a development (or lack thereof) is worrying for Mass Effect 5 as it’s next in line as BioWare’s big project and a lot is riding on the space opera RPG’s shoulders after Dragon Age didn’t pan out. In a sense, David Gaider might have dodged several bullets in leaving the studio earlier on.
