BioWare – Casey Hudson and Mark Darrah Leave the Studio

With Mass Effect Legendary Edition and a new entry in the Dragon Age series in the works at BioWare, this message from EA’s chief studios officer Laura Miele announcing the departure of Casey Hudson and Mark Darrah comes as a bit of a surprise, considering they spent the last two decades developing these IPs.

Right now, it looks like Gary McKay will be taking over as the interim general manager, while Christian Dailey of Blizzard and Might and Magic fame will become the new executive producer for the upcoming Dragon Age game.

If you’d like to learn more about this new development, you may want to check out this blog post from Casey Hudson and this one from Mark Darrah. And here’s the initial announcement:

We strive for all of our studios to be places where talented creative people come to do career-defining work. A dimension of this ambition is that sometimes those people want to try something different. Casey Hudson, GM, BioWare and Mark Darrah, Executive Producer, Dragon Age are two of those people and they have decided to move on from BioWare. I want to personally thank Casey and Mark for everything they have done for the BioWare community, and particularly for our players. They will always be an essential part of the studio’s history, we appreciate their many contributions, and we look forward to seeing what they’ll each do next. More from Casey here and Mark here.

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.

Samantha Ryan, who came to Electronic Arts after leading Warner Brothers Games, is one of the strongest leaders in the industry. She will continue to oversee the studio. I’m also excited to announce Christian Dailey, who joined BioWare from Blizzard, will be leading our Dragon Age project currently in development. Christian is a fantastic creative leader and I look forward to you all getting to know him in the coming days. We recently announced Mass Effect: The Legendary Edition and Mike Gamble is leading a team hard at work on that franchise’s future.

The search for a new GM is underway and we are already talking to some great people. We will find the right leader who has a deep love and respect for this studio’s heritage, who embodies the values of this team and who will help carry on the incredible legacy of BioWare