Former BioWare Executive Producer Mark Darrah has revealed that a Dragon Age: Origins remaster was briefly considered at the studio. Unfortunately, it didn't come to pass, and fans are left to wonder what might have been with a potential Dragon Age: Origins remaster.
At one point, a remaster of Dragon Age: Origins and its sequels felt like a natural step for the franchise. BioWare's Mass Effect: Legendary Edition enjoyed big sales success, so remastering the similarly popular Dragon Age games would have made a lot of sense. However, it has been over four years since the release of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, yet no sign of any project to breathe new life into those older Dragon Age titles.
Every Major Game Award Won by the Dragon Age Franchise Since 2009
Since Dragon Age: Origins debuted in 2009, these are all the major gaming awards won by BioWare's fantasy RPG franchise.
BioWare Considered a Dragon Age: Origins Remaster, But Finances May Have Stopped It
Speaking to MrMattyPlays, BioWare legend Mark Darrah confirmed the lack of a Dragon Age: Origins remaster isn't for a lack of trying. According to Darrah, the thought process was, "Let's do Frostbite tools, and then let's find a mod house that seems talented and pay them to do a remake of Dragon Age: Origins. There were lots of pitches around, 'Is there a way we can bring Dragon: Age Origins forward?'" He also said of a remaster rather than a remake, "A remaster you kind of get Dragon Age 2 for free, a remake you don't."
The reason it didn't happen may be down to finances. Darrah said that "to some degree, the studios run their own finances within themselves. EA's stance was probably, 'Sure, go ahead and do it, but do it with the money you already have.' And it's like, 'Well, we can't do it with the money that we already have because we're doing all these other things." That's partially why Mass Effect was chosen to get the remaster treatment ahead of Dragon Age. The entire Mass Effect trilogy was developed on Unreal Engine 3, while each Dragon Age game had its own engine. Darrah claims this made a Dragon Age remaster "to some degree unknowably harder" than Mass Effect.
Darrah claims that EA is "kind of against remasters." He believes that it's "strange for a publicly traded company to basically be against free money," but nowadays, it could be that EA isn't too confident in the Dragon Age IP altogether. After all, last year's Dragon Age: The Veilguard underperformed EA's expectations by a significant margin, so it makes sense that the publisher could look to let gamers miss it before bringing it back again in the future.
Dragon Age: Origins
- Released
- November 3, 2009
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood, Intense Violence, Language, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content
- Developer(s)
- BioWare
- Publisher(s)
- Electronic Arts
- Engine
- Eclipse
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- RPG
