VentureBeat (opens in new tab) reports that former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Dollar, who left BioWare in December 2020 with general manager Casey Hudson, has returned as a consultant for the upcoming Dragon Age He has returned as a consultant: Dreadwolf. EA also told the site that as work on the next Dragon Age progresses, a large portion of the Mass Effect development team will also be on board to help complete the film. [Our studio is focused on making the best "Dragon Age: Dreadwolf" we can: Gary McKay, BioWare's general manager, told the site. We're continuing to improve Dreadwolf while focusing on what matters most to our fans. To further tie this new experience to the legacy of the series, Mark Darrah, who has many years of experience with Dragon Age, will join the team as a consultant. With strong leadership, we are proud to have this team working with us to bring our vision for the game to life.

Darrah has a long history at BioWare, with credits (open in new tab) dating back to his second BioWare game, Baldur's Gate. He also worked on Neverwinter Nights and Jade Empire before becoming executive producer of Dragon Age: Origins, and project director for the entire Dragon Age series and served in that role until 2020, when he abruptly announced his departure and made a "very difficult decision (open in new tab)."

In his retirement announcement (open in new tab), Darar expressed gratitude for his time spent at BioWare, especially to founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, but it seemed clear that his departure was not a completely happy one. A year after his departure, Darrah posted a video on YouTube in which he very candidly criticized the studio's ability to produce excellent games under difficult circumstances, saying that "BioWare magic is bullshit (opens in new tab)."

"BioWare magic is a bullshit process," Dollar said at the time; "BioWare magic is a bullshit process. But the reality is that 'it works,' and that's where the crunch comes from, and that's where the delay game comes from. Because you can't predict with a field hockey stick. You don't know where the pivot point is, you don't know the angle. There's no predictability there at all, so you have to compensate with delay and crunch time, and BioWare magic is bullshit."

This is rather harsh, but it sheds a slightly different light on Dollar's decision to leave BioWare, and perhaps his decision to return as a consultant rather than in a traditional design or management role. According to the report, his focus is to ensure that Dreadwolf is properly connected "with the legacy of the franchise."

EA also revealed that the Mass Effect team is working with Dragon Age because the next installment of Mass Effect is still in pre-production and is being worked on by a small core team led by Mike Gamble alone.

"BioWare has a long history of making great single-player games with powerful stories that fans can immerse themselves in. With the upcoming Dragon Age, they are taking their time, trying new things, bringing in the right people, and definitely refining the game. This is normal for complex games in this genre. This stage of production takes time and the studio wants to get it right for the fans."

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf doesn't have a release date or anything yet, and frankly, it's a bit exhausting: we found BioWare's latest developer blog (opens in new tab), published in February, to be "more a lesson in game design than a meaningful update" We stated. "We are hopeful that Darrah's return will see a substantial update in the relatively near future.

This is not the first time BioWare has made a point of getting the band back together for future games: in December 2020, Mike Gamble returned to BioWare to work on the studio's first post-Andromeda project Mass Effect" developers of the original trilogy (opens in new tab), talked about.

Darrah confirmed in an email sent to PC Gamer that he is "working with BioWare as an outside consultant on Dreadwolf" and is "definitely interested in helping the success of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf Definitely interested."