Xbox |OT|

[shikamaru317]

Dulfite said:

shikamaru317 said:

I've been saying it was that far away for awhile now, it's only common sense. We know that Mass Effect 5 has only been in pre-production this whole time since it was announced in 2020, 3 years ago, Bioware themselves confirmed that it is only pre-production still (they only announced it when they did to assure fans that it wasn't a dead franchise, it had literally just began preproduction when they announced it in 2020, it is the exact same thing Bethesda did when they announced TES 6 in 2018). They lack the staff for it to begin full development before Dragon Age 4 releases (especially after they laid off 50 devs a few months ago), and since Dragon Age 4 is rumored for late 2024-early 2025, Mass Effect 5 won't enter full development until 2025. The average AAA takes 4 years to develop these days, and Mass Effect 5 will surely be a pretty big RPG with at least 50 hours of content (first 3 games had about 50 hours while Andromeda had about 90), so we could even be looking at 5 years of full development imo, 2030 release. And that is if development goes smoothly, if they have issues that cause partial reboots like has happened with Dragon Age 4, we could be looking at more than 5 years of full development, Dragon Age 4 will release with 6 years of full development on the Morrison build of the game, 2018-2024. 

I don't get how teams that have multiple blockbuster AAA games don't make more studios? I guess they don't have enough funding to begin with. I'm shocked EA has made another studio at Bioware that way they could be working on two AAA games at the same time (not including TOR).

I'm also surprised MS hasn't done the same with Bethesda. They should be making two of Elder Scrolls mainline, Fallout, Starfield, or new AAA games at all times. Doing one after another is ridiculous when they take 5-6 years each.

These massively popular studios are becoming one game per generation companies (if that).

Well, middle of last decade, Bioware actually had 3 studios, Bioware Edmonton (the main studio that made games like KOTOR, Mass Effect 1-3, and Dragon Age 1-3), Bioware Montreal (Mass Effect Andromeda), and Bioware Austin (they made the MMO Star Wars The Old Republic, and assisted Bioware Edmonton on Dragon Age Inquisition). After Mass Effect Andromeda flopped, EA shut down Bioware Montreal, leaving them with just 2 studios. Then, over the summer this year, EA made the decision to sell SWTOR to another developer, and many of the developers at Bioware Austin quit to move to the new SWTOR studio, while around 50 Bioware devs were fired back in August (as I recall those 50 fired were mainly Bioware Austin devs who were angry about EA selling SWTOR and being forced to work on Mass Effect and Dragon Age). Those that remained at Bioware Austin instead of quitting or being fired are now assisting on Dragon Age 4 and Mass Effect 5. 

So there are actually two studios currently working on Dragon Age 4 and Mass Effect 5, roughly 140 devs at Bioware Austin and about 320 devs at Bioware Edmonton if I'm not mistaken. However, even with that many devs working on Dragon Age 4 now, it will still take about another year to finish it. Then the majority of devs will move to Mass Effect 5, with a smaller team staying behind to develop DLC for Dragon Age 4 presumably. Then finally, probably sometime in 2026, DLC support for Dragon Age 4 will end and the entire 460~ devs at Bioware will be working on Mass Effect 5 pretty much. 

Agreed about Bethesda, now that they have 3 IP's to work on Xbox really needs to build out separate teams for each of the 3 IP's.

Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 09 November 2023