Bioware GM Casey Hudson and Dragon Age Producer Mark Darrah Resign
/Bioware general manager Casey Hudson (@CaseyDHudson) and Dragon Age Executive producer Mark Darrah (@BioMarkDarrah) are leaving the prolific Edmonton-based game studio.
The abrupt resignations were announced via a blog post by EA chief studios officer Laura Miele, and Hudson and Darrah wrote their own posts as well.
Miele says they’re still looking for a new general manager, but they announced Christian Dailey (@ChristianDailey) will be replacing Darrah as executive producer on the new Dragon Age. Dailey is currently studio director at Bioware Austin working on Anthem.
“When I think about BioWare’s future and the next generation of talent in place, I could not be more confident or optimistic. As we look to the studio’s future and the projects currently under development, the next generation of BioWare talent is leading the studio forward and working on some incredible games that I know you will be excited to experience in the coming years.”
These resignations come just weeks after Hudson announced the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, as well as a new Mass Effect title in development at the studio.
Concept of ‘the next chapter of the Mass Effect universe’ per Bioware’s blog announcement.
Hudson’s first credited game with BioWare was as a technical artist on MDK 2 in 2000. Hudson went on to direct Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003) and the Mass Effect Trilogy, before leaving the company in 2014. He returned to be the general manager of Bioware in July 2017, a few months after the release and critical failure of Mass Effect Andromeda. He was GM during the equally abysmal launch of Anthem in 2019 which was the only game Bioware released while he was general manager of the company.
Darrah is credited as executive producer of Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker and Dragon Age: Inquisition, and as both project director and executive producer of Dragon Age II. He was also the executive producer on the currently unnamed new Dragon Age project revealed at The Game Awards in 2018.
“BioWare has always been about telling emotional stories through characters. We have wandered away from this central guiding pillar at times, but I am confident that the next Dragon Age will show that we remain committed to this kind of game. We will have a lot to show you.”
EA CFO Blake Jorgensen said that Dragon Age 4 won’t be out before April 2022 at the earliest, but will probably release within EA’s 2022 fiscal year and Darrah provided a small update on the struggle of moving development to work from home in July of this year.