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Aaryn Flynn leaving BioWare/EA, Casey Hudson returning to assume role of GM

M

Maledict

Member
JMY86 said:
This is great news. I think this reaffirms EA's commitment to Mass Effect. I would not be surprised to see the main Bioware team jump back into Mass Effect after Anthem launches. I personally enjoyed Andromeda but it certainly was not the quality of the other three games.
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Um, Anthem is not a game you are ever done with. It's a game as a service - the team will remain mostly in place around it to continue delivering paid for content. Like how Bungie is only ever working on Destiny stuff.

There's going to be another Dragon Age game, and we *may* see a return to mass effect after that if it's successful. But that won't be until 2022 realistically at the earliest.
 
CharmingCharlie

CharmingCharlie

Member
So the Creator and Destroyer of Mass Effect returns. I have to be honest I never saw this coming. After Mass Effect 3 I got the impression Casey didn't want anything more to do with Bioware or the Mass Effect franchise.

Not gonna say any ill of Aaryn Flynn from what I have seen of him on Twitter and posting in GAF he seemed like a cool guy and hope he lands on his feet. He made a good game with Andromeda it was just a bad Mass Effect game.

Either way I don't think this means much for the Mass Effect franchise it is deader than the dodo at this point. I can't see any situation in which EA would be prepared to greenlight another Mass Effect project ever again. I think we can safely say Mass Effect will be resting right next to the Wing Commander IP in the ole IP graveyard.
 
M

Mr. Phellps

Member
Aw, man, I liked Flynn. Hopefully this isn't a side effect of Andromeda.

But if he had to leave, then it's good that Casey is the one replacing him. Anthem is his baby, so it's a proper role for him.
 
Garnox

Garnox

Member
Flynn was great IMO, saw DA:I through (which I enjoyed immensely) and ME:A was good (but not great) so I think he did a good job.

Glad to see Casey back honestly, even after the poor decision making concerning some aspects of the OT, but I feel since his time away he has learned a thing or two and will come back all the better for it.
 
R

RedlineRonin

Member
Phamit said:
Reducing Casey Hudsons Work to ME3's Ending is insane and laughable.
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I didn't wanna derail the thread, but I've been watching it thinking the exact same thing.

Guy should be forever punished for a shitty ending for one game he worked on i guess? And simply discredit everything else he's done?

Also, logic follows that he probably took that one pretty hard and took it as a very important professional lesson learned. Thinking he'd make the same mistake again seems illogical.
 
J

JMY86

Member
Maledict said:
Um, Anthem is not a game you are ever done with. It's a game as a service - the team will remain mostly in place around it to continue delivering paid for content. Like how Bungie is only ever working on Destiny stuff.

There's going to be another Dragon Age game, and we *may* see a return to mass effect after that if it's successful. But that won't be until 2022 realistically at the earliest.
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I understand that but the entire team is not going to be working on post launch support. Bungie did not begin working on Destiny 2 after the last Destiny expansion launched.
 
R

RedlineRonin

Member
MAX PAYMENT said:
This is good mass effect news?
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Eh, I mean for us on this forum who care about this inside baseball stuff, sure.

But if a game is going to sell millions of copies, what Joe consumer knows right now is I just played a Mass Effect game that wasn't very good and I probably don't want to play one of those again for awhile.

"Featuring new General Manager of Bioware, Casey Hudson, who previously worked on the original Mass Effect trilogy" isn't something that would necessarily be compelling on a box for an ME:A sequel for most people (even if it would be for me, or others).

Mr. Phellps said:
It's no Mass Effect news.
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Yeah kinda this.
 
S

Son Of Sparda

Member
DevilDog said:
Pros of having him: 3 of the best games of all time.

Cons of having him: They are flawed.
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Making flawed games is different than outright lying to your fan base about what/how your game will be but I digress.

At any rate, like I said in my earlier reply, judging by his desire to make a MMO game and his ideas for Anthem, I think he is done with ME franchise and the kind of RPG games that I wanna see form Bioware. So I don't think his return would mean anything for ME series.
 
Jibbajabbawockky

Jibbajabbawockky

Member
michaelius said:
He has some nice games in his resume but they are older titles and his latest ones were ME2&3 so it's way too early to celebrate.
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That seems par for the course with BioWare in general- most of their best games are their oldest ones and as you get to pretty much everything post 2011, they all have some major issues. Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, DA:Inquisition and ME: Andromeda- even the most critically acclaimed of those (Inquisition) has some major design issues going on.

As for Hudson coming back... I don't know if this is a good thing or not? Personally, my love of BioWare is rooted in their earlier work like Baldur's Gate 2, KOTOR and Dragon Age:Origins. And from the outside looking in, it seems like Casey Hudson has kind of been one of the big proponents moving BioWare further and further away from those kinds of RPGs and more towards just cinematic action games with things like the dialogue wheel in ME and Anthem looking more like a loot shooter with maybe some light dialogue/RPG bits on the periphery. My remaining interest in BioWare at this point comes down to Dragon Age and I have a hard time seeing Casey Hudson having much of a good influence in steering that franchise back towards more of an Origins approach, but I feel like that ship has sailed a while ago anyway.
 
R

Ralemont

not me
Jibbajabbawockky said:
That seems par for the course with BioWare in general- most of their best games are their oldest ones and as you get to pretty much everything post 2011, they all have some major issues. Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3, DA:Inquisition and ME: Andromeda- even the most critically acclaimed of those (Inquisition) has some major design issues going on.

As for Hudson coming back... I don't know if this is a good thing or not? Personally, my love of BioWare is rooted in their earlier work like Baldur's Gate 2, KOTOR and Dragon Age:Origins. And from the outside looking in, it seems like Casey Hudson has kind of been one of the big proponents moving BioWare further and further away from those kinds of RPGs and more towards just cinematic action games with things like the dialogue wheel in ME and Anthem looking more like a loot shooter with maybe some light dialogue/RPG bits on the periphery. My remaining interest in BioWare at this point comes down to Dragon Age and I have a hard time seeing Casey Hudson having much of a good influence in steering that franchise back towards more of an Origins approach, but I feel like that ship has sailed a while ago anyway.
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I think the last part of what you said is important. They aren't going back to old school RPGs regardless of who is in charge. So with that being a given, I'd rather have someone who has proven he can provide a solid vision for cinematic action RPGs, which it seems is the niche in which BW now sees itself permanently.

If anything, maybe he can convince the other leads to drop this open world shit and go back to hubs and smaller zones, which was the template when BW was most successful with said niche.
 
M

Mr. Phellps

Member
Jumeira said:
Erm yes it is, notice the massive drop in quality with ME:A? He wasn't leading the design like he did with the trilogy. This is huge news for ME fans. ME is his baby.
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I mean he is coming back as General Manager and not exactly assigned to a particular project like before, so this doesn't mean there's any plan to make Mass Effect anytime soon.

All this means is now Casey Hudson is the head of BioWare.
 
R

Ralemont

not me
Jumeira said:
Erm yes it is, notice the massive drop in quality with ME:A? He wasn't leading the design like he did with the trilogy. This is huge news for ME fans. ME is his baby.
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Casey Hudson didn't want to make another ME game in the first place, which is why he did Anthem.
 
J

jayu26

Member
Now is you chance to redeem both yourself (for that awful ending) and Mass Effect series altogether, Casey Hudson. I only hope EA gives you and Mass Effect a chance.
 
A

Alpha Phoenix

Member
jayu26 said:
Now is you chance to redeem both yourself (for that awful ending) and Mass Effect series altogether, Casey Hudson. I only hope EA gives you and Mass Effect a chance.
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Obligatory:

SnXz1S7.jpg
 
I

I H8 Memes

Member
Phamit said:
Reducing Casey Hudsons Work to ME3's Ending is insane and laughable.
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This is important. Mass Effect 3 was a great game and nearly as good as ME2.

I hated ME:A. Felt like it came off of an assembly line. I would absolutely give a Hudson ME game a chance though.
 
S

SavoyPrime

Member
Aaryn was awesome. Glad to see Casey coming back to get the GM spot and not some corporate shill from EA that would probably just finish Bioware off and bury them in the backyard along with the other studios they've killed.
 
M

m_dorian

Member
I wish that he ll make better decisions than his predecessors and he really have learned from his big mistakes of the past.
His actions considering the ME franchise will tell.
Just do not ever let the dynamic duo alone behind closed doors deciding endings again.
 
W

Wulfram

Member
May I point out that this means that all the people credited with "Core Game Design" on KotOR are currently working at Bioware.

Maybe we could give the meme about all the old Bioware people having left a rest?
 
Zambayoshi

Zambayoshi

Member
AlStrong said:
After destroying the reapers, Shepard gets wind of the Andromeda mission and sets out after them.

While in control of the reapers, Shepard decides to enlarge the scope of the Reaper mission to the rest of the universe, starting with Andromeda.

After achieving synthesis, Shepard decides to chase after Andromeda and to save them from themselves by forcing synthesis on all.

j/k

:p
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Except the only effect the ME3 ending has on this game will be the colour of the ship you start out in.

Never forget: Casey Hudson was almost single-handedly responsible for the ME3 ending.
 
R

Revas

Member
Casey was apart of some of my favorite games, Mass Effect is his baby, it's only right that he be at BioWare. Maybe there's hope for the future.
 
adversarial

adversarial

Member
Nirolak said:
The three games they explicitly hire for these days are "Anthem", "Star Wars The Old Republic", and "Dragon Age Franchise" on this note, and there's a lot of Dragon Age jobs, so presumably it's ramping into full production.
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They're still devoting resources to that? I thought it died like... 5 years ago?
 
J

jtb

Banned
Stop bitching about the ending. The ending is a symptom of the larger problem - which is that the plot to Mass Effect has always been terrible.

CharmingCharlie said:
So the Creator and Destroyer of Mass Effect returns. I have to be honest I never saw this coming. After Mass Effect 3 I got the impression Casey didn't want anything more to do with Bioware or the Mass Effect franchise.

Not gonna say any ill of Aaryn Flynn from what I have seen of him on Twitter and posting in GAF he seemed like a cool guy and hope he lands on his feet. He made a good game with Andromeda it was just a bad Mass Effect game.

Either way I don't think this means much for the Mass Effect franchise it is deader than the dodo at this point. I can't see any situation in which EA would be prepared to greenlight another Mass Effect project ever again. I think we can safely say Mass Effect will be resting right next to the Wing Commander IP in the ole IP graveyard.
Click to expand...

That's a bit much. Dragon Age didn't die with Dragon Age 2. We even got a Mirror's Edge sequel.

EA doesn't seem to be very good at brute-forcing new IPs into the mainstream in a way that, say, Ubisoft is. They'll take anything they can get.
 
E

Erevador

Member
Casey Hudson is the man behind KOTOR. The man behind the original Mass Effect.

He was a massive part of what Bioware work.

They are very lucky to have him back.
 
T

Taggen86

Member
Glad that Casey is back, the mass effect trilogy (and KOTOR) were his babies after all since he served as creative director and led the development (unlike andromeda), and I rank the first three games among my favorite games ever =) Now we just need Drew K who wrote the awesome script in ME1 back and everything is looking good for the future of BW (and hopefully (maybe) for mass effect if it returns one day)
 
T

Triggerhappytel

Member
digoutyoursoul said:
Says a lot about Microsoft in my opinion
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It's crazy they had him working on Hololens. Getting someone like Hudson on board would have been a perfect opportunity to set up a new studio under him. Although like Nirolak said, it could be that he wanted an ordinary 9-5 job after helming the ME series for nearly a decade.
 
P

Pepboy

Member
Phamit said:
Reducing Casey Hudsons Work to ME3's Ending is insane and laughable.
Click to expand...

Reducing it to ME3 may be a bit much. But predicting how future games will go?

If Casey was so off kilter to think ME3 was a respectable ending to the trilogy, it does speak to his lack of awareness. Maybe he was just tired of ME and wanted to wrap it up at any cost? But in any case it is certainly a very large black stain on his output.
 
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