We’ve been digging back through the archives at PCG, and one particular hands-on experience and Q&A reached its icy hand out of the mists of time and grabbed me by the throat: Now-Strategic Director Evan Lahti’s preview of Dragon Age: Origins, and an accompanying interview with BioWare cofounders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk in 2009.
Neither of those men have been part of the beloved RPG studio for more than a decade: Zeschuk appears to be something of a restaurateur these days, while Muzyka is quite the poker player. Reading coverage of the studio only partway through its golden age bummed me the hell out.
From the archives
This interview was originally published in PC Gamer #198 (UK, March 2009).
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After a legendary hot streak beginning with the OG Mass Effect in 2007 (or, arguably, the OG Baldur’s Gate in 1998), BioWare struggled to find its footing in the 2010s: Longtime staff left or were forced out, it released three disappointments in seven years vs. nearly a dozen bangers in the previous decade. A new Mass Effect is supposedly still coming, but by all accounts the studio is a fraction of its former size following Anthem, The Veilguard, and multiple rounds of layoffs.
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But nobody knew all that was coming down the pike in March 2009. Evan sat down for a hands-on of the Dwarf Noble origin sequence, a world’s first look at a slice of RPG that many players could reenact from memory at this point. (Not me—I’m a City Elf man.)
In a Q&A with Zeschuk and Muzyka, the founders were optimistic about the series’ and company’s future, with Dragon Age sequels already in the planning phases.
“It is a franchise,” Muzyka said of Dragon Age. “You can be sure that means more than one game and a whole bunch of other cool stuff on the side. It would make sense that players will get to continue to experience or feel like they’ve been progressing in some way between products in the franchise, too.”
He seems to have already been alluding to the save transfer feature Dragon Age would crib from its sister series, Mass Effect, then ultimately pursue to more ambitious ends.
On assignment
Evan Lahti, Strategic Director: I was a 24-year-old kid flying to remote Edmonton, Alberta for my first-ever PC Gamer cover story on the heels of this legendary-but-boutique RPG studio having been acquired by EA. Honestly I couldn’t have asked for a better first assignment: hands-on, a big game, and time with two high-profile developers (who we didn’t know would be retiring only three years later).
Dragon Age: Inquisition had to keep track of dozens of setting-spanning variables impacting the politics of the world and which characters would even be alive for you to see in the game, with its rarest world states still the stuff of RPG legend.
It was also a funny man-out-of-time moment to remember the different flavor of controversy and backlash BioWare faced at this time. “It’s an artform,” Muzyka asserted in response to a question about RPG romance and media pressure. “We’re not changing how we make our games based on, well…”
“On Fox News?” Zeschuk cheekily interjected. Before there was Mass Effect 3 ending angst or anti-woke rage against gay companions, there was the whole news cycle about the PG-13 implied sex and nudity in Mass Effect 1. If only someone could go back and warn them about Baldur’s Gate 3 penis physics.
Here’s the full Q&A with the BioWare docs, whose absence is still felt all these years after their exit from making RPGs.
Dragon Age: Origins interview – PC Gamer #198 (UK, March 2009)
