BioWare development veteran Mac Walters announced his departure from the company after 19 years of service.
The production director for the upcoming game Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, Mac Walters, has announced their departure from BioWare today. Walters had been at the game studio for almost 20 years. With the new Dragon Age game still in development, the status of the game has been called into question.
Walters originally made his intentions clear last weekend with a LinkedIn post that stated he was leaving BioWare. He wrote: “At the end of last year I decided to leave BioWare. These past 19 years have been a life-changing experience […] and it made the choice to go very difficult.”
His LinkedIn career now listed him as departing his production director position after exactly one year in the role, from January 2022 to January 2023. This ultimately has left the development of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf up in the air.
In an interview with BioWare last year, Walters explained what the production director’s role was: “you have the vision for a product you’re helping to uphold […] but on the producer side, you are also responsible for figuring out how you’re going to support the team in creating that vision.”
While he talked a lot about helping the team create the game’s vision, it looked like their leader had either left the ship or left the team with a good plan and good hands. If it is the former, the development team could be facing some struggles for the release of the next Dragon Age game.
The hype for Dragon Age has been building, especially with the short Netflix series, Dragon Age: Absolution premiering last year. Walter was not only acclaimed for his recent work but for his continuous, successful work on the Mass Effect video game series.
He first took on a senior role on the original Mass Effect, then served as the lead writer for Mass Effect 2 and 3. He was also credited as the narrative director of the poorly received Anthem game. Walters also served as the creative director for Mass Effect: Andromeda, and was a project director on Mass Effect Legendary Edition—which was a remaster of the beloved original trilogy.
Apart from the games, Walters also wrote many of Mass Effect’s tie-in graphic novels, which expanded on the games’ narratives. In the last few years, numerous BioWare veterans have been leaving the EA branch company. Some of these members included boss Casey Hudson and Dragon Age veteran Mike Darrah. BioWare stated they would be committed to creating a Mass Effect sequel or follow-up to the original trilogy, with Mike Gamble. With Mass Effect in good hands, the same could not be said for the Dragon Age series until BioWare can reassure us.
