According to BioWare veteran David Gaider, Dragon Age and Mass Effect publisher EA had a preference for the latter series right from the get-go.
Gaider, who worked as the lead Dragon Age writer and setting creator on every game in the RPG series aside from The Veilguard, reveals as much in a recent post online, replying to a follower as part of a thread in which he shares why he left BioWare in 2016 after nearly two decades at the company. "While I was at BioWare, EA *always* preferred Mass Effect, straight up Their Marketing team liked it more," claims Gaider.
"It was modern," continues the developer, explaining why the studio might have preferred the sci-fi series over Dragon Age. "It had action. They never quite knew what to do with DA, and whenever DA outperformed ME, ME got the excuses. If you ask me, it was always just shy of the axe since DA Origins." As someone who's been playing since Origins myself, it's a bit of a shock to hear – but other fans speculate that's why Dragon Age games vary so much.
One asks Gaider, "Is them not knowing what to do with DA the reason why every DA game was different?" The series veteran answers that it might be, but there's more to it. "Maybe in part," admits Gaider. "I'd say the biggest reason was that, while I was there, the BioWare teams were bad at overreaction. They'd take the feedback/criticism to heart – both our own and the fans' –and generally fixed that but also overcorrected."
He adds, however, that EA's preference still played a part in this variation: "And then there was EA's influence on top of that, yes." It's disappointing to learn, if true, but it lines up with Gaider's past criticisms of EA. In February, he advised the company to "follow Larian's lead and double down on that," referencing Baldur's Gate 3's own Larian Studios, after EA said The Veilguard "did not resonate with a broad enough audience" following the RPG's reported market underperformance.
