Now that I’m done mo…
BioWare fans can never agree on which era of the studio was its peak—classic Baldur’s Gate 2, the original Mass Effect, or (correctly) Dragon Age: Origins—but there’s no debating that it was the frontrunner in a golden era for RPGs that influenced at least a decade of other games.
If that sounds like the beginning of a eulogy…yeah. It isn’t technically dead, and there’s a universe where BioWare makes some incredible comeback with Mass Effect 4, but I don’t think it’s this one. After Andromeda, Anthem, and Veilguard, it seems that no matter the talent still left in the studio, EA just isn’t going to give BioWare the time or trust to make the kind of RPGs it originally spearheaded anymore. I’m finally ready to let go.
If you too are mourning the studio’s effective downfall, rest assured that the BioWare-style RPG lives on elsewhere. My colleague Fraser Brown insisted back in 2023 that the BioWare-style RPG was dead and just didn’t know it yet. At the time I almost even agreed, but two years later it feels like we’ve finally arrived breathless at a tough summit to look down into a valley of plenty in the big-budget, story-forward party RPG scene.
Larian Studios
- Working on: two unannounced things
I know better than to assume anything goes without saying, so I’m saying it: Larian is the number one RPG developer to watch right now for mourning BioWare fans. Its incredible triumph with Baldur’s Gate 3 (our 2023 Game of the Year and current number one in the Top 100 PC games) is a masterclass character-forward RPG sandbox jam-packed with deep strategy and roleplay opportunities that BioWare itself should have been making these 15 years since Dragon Age: Origins.
Despite some rough early years, Larian’s recent backlist is well worth dumping a couple hundred hours into. Divinity: Original Sin and D:OS2 are both excellent, though I wouldn’t say it was doing the full course BioWare RPG until Baldur’s Gate 3. Larian is worth staying excited for in the wake of BG3 because it’s got two new projects on the go now.
Neither are Baldur’s Gate 4, and instead it’s going to “develop our own IPs,” studio head Swen Vincke said. That may mean Divinity: Original Sin 3, which I would not complain about, but likely also means something completely new and original. I only hope they stick to their sword and sorcery chops and don’t fly off into sci-fi territory. Larian scaled up massively to pull off BG3, and not being beholden to a publisher or IP-holding partner means it can take full creative control in bringing that expertise to bear.
Obsidian Entertainment
- Working on: The Outer Worlds 2
Obsidian is living the life I wish BioWare could have had: trucking along as the subsidiary of a major publisher, being trusted to make the singleplayer RPGs that made it popular in the first place, valiantly juggling two original series—one fantasy and one sci-fi—and being the belle of the yearly company showcase. Seriously, this year’s summer Xbox event was very Obsidian-focused.
With Avowed getting compared so often to Skyrim and Obsidian itself loving a trailer gag reminding us that they made Fallout: New Vegas, it’s easy to have missed that their latest RPGs are actually more BioWare than Bethesda. Avowed was a great, party-focused RPG with genuinely impactful narrative choices and roleplaying moments around the campfire that will warm any Origins fan’s heart, and The Outer Worlds 2 is looking promising with its imminent launch too.
Of note is that Avowed’s game director Carrie Patel left Obsidian after over a decade. A bummer, but the fact that Patel came up from a writer on Pillars of Eternity to a narrative lead and then game director suggests that Obsidian’s been able to affirm the importance of storytelling in its RPGs. Here’s hoping it continues to do so wherever it heads after Outer Worlds 2.
Owlcat Games
- Working on: The Expanse: Osiris Reborn
Standing at the precipice where BioWare itself once stood is Owlcat Games. The developer of top-down, party-based RPGs is coming off two Pathfinder games and a Warhammer 40k game and making a big jump into a cinematic sci-fi RPG, The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. We’ve consistently praised Owlcat for nailing a setting and The Expanse, with its very popular political space opera book series and also popular TV adaptation, is a hell of a setting to be starting from.
“Your companions are more than just mission assets—they are people with their own scars and loyalties,” Owlcat says. “Over time, your relationships will flourish or deteriorate depending on the choices you make and how you choose to lead.” Between that, your customizable character, and the third-person sci-fi shooter action, Osiris Reborn may not outrun the Mass Effect comparisons. Maybe it shouldn’t try to.
Harebrained
When it was owned by Paradox, the studio formerly known as Harebrained Schemes gave us a couple of RPGs that were basically “what if classic BioWare had gone turn-based and also cyberpunk” in Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong. Both had strong parties of companions to butt heads and then bond with, and Dragonfall even borrowed the plot structure of Baldur’s Gate 2.
Unfortunately Paradox pushed the studio out of its comfort zone and the result was the less-impressive Lamplighters League, after which Paradox cut it free. Now independent and just called Harebrained, it’s working on an isometric body-horror RPG set on a space station. It’s called Graft, because it’s about stitching together a new body for yourself by scavenging from others as they fall, which I’m sure is totally not a metaphor for anything. “Form fragile alliances and build them into deeper relationships” says the Steam description, which sounds very BioWare to me.
See also
Games and studios you may have heard of that I’m not hanging my BioWare successor hopes on for one reason or another:
- CD Projekt Red: I’m jazzed for The Witcher 4, but I’ve always considered CDPR’s RPGs a different beast from BioWare’s.
- Warhorse Studios: Ditto the above, though we did quite like Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.
- Spiders: Its Greedfall series is actually BioWare-style, but the first was middling and the second is still in early access.
- Tactical Adventures: Another studio doing D&D RPGs, but we praised Solasta’s combat while finding its storytelling a bit amateurish, so I’m not holding my breath on Solasta 2 as a BioWare-like.
- InXile: We praised the writing in Wasteland 3 but its upcoming Clockwork Revolution looks like it will play more like Dishonored than anything.
