BioWare Interview

Ripten has published a transcript of an informative interview they recently conducted with BioWare’s Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk. One would presume this was done during GDC:

Jonathan Zungre: So yeah, what are you guys excited for in the future of BioWare?

RM: I think our best work is still ahead of us. I really believe that. Like, I think all our games are very different. I’m really happy with our portfolio because it’s quite diverse. Like, you look at Dragon Age it’s a different kind of fantasy; it’s dark heroic fantasy. It’s going to be very differentiated from all the other kinds of fantasy that you’ve seen before, especially from us. It’s a more mature, gritty kind of world, choices with consequences, and we’re not pulling any punches, basically.

And then Mass Effect. Mass Effect 2, it’s a refinement of everything we did in the past on Mass Effect, but we’re really taking on all the challenges that we wanted to solve based on feedback after the original game. So we’re really addressing the shooter aspects of the game and amping the intensity moment to moment in terms of the action. Also tightening the exploration and making that a much more important part of the game; even though it’s optional still, it’ll actually enhance your main story experience and we’re making it feel very intense. You can grab control of the action more, even in conversations, things like that. I think people are going to see Mass Effect 2 as a real revolution compared to the first one, which got a lot of acclaim, but the second one I think is that much better again.

The Old Republic is something again very different it’s an MMO in the Star Wars universe, and we’re very excited about that. And then beyond that we have a couple things that a couple few things actually that aren’t announced yet that we’re excited about too that are actually different from any of these products, different in the setting, target audience, business model, the genre, the gameplay, some are more of those different aspects. So I’m just very excited about all those things because I think they’re all cool in different ways. I love playing them all. They’re all unified by the story, by the vision of emotional engagement, but beyond that they’re all quite diverse and different.

…

JZ: Why do you guys do so many RPGs? What is it about an RPG that’s really compelling for you guys? IS it that progression?

GZ: It’s because you can mix all the ingredients in. It’s not limited. It’s funny because when you get a whole bunch of game developers together, they’ll often naturally fall into like when they say, (Oh, I’d love to make this game,) they almost always describe an RPG. When it’s sports: (Oh, I’d love to make a football game where you’re a high school football player, where you have to live at the school, interact with people there, progress your career,) well, you just described an RPG. We’re not trying to say, (Well, they’re the absolute best,) but it’s just when you really want to create one of those experiences that just grabs you and never let’s you go, it seems like.

RM: I think they’re the broadest in terms of potentiality or possibility space.