The Dragon Age Conspiracy

Before this starts off, I'd just like to say that this: I'm not trying to badmouth BioWare or try to slander their good name (but what kinda name is BioWare anyway?); this is just me blabbering on about something I noticed, and given EA's track record, it might be true. Just wanted to get it all down for my sake, and for the lulz.

The Dragon Age Conspiracy:

What I will be theorizing here is that Dragon Age was a game that was ultimately put on the back burner by BioWare, but was resurrected for cash moneys, regardless of the condition it was in. Sound crazy? It probably is. Let's begin!

Fact #1: DA was announced in 2004:

BioWare was riding high in 2004, fresh off the success of Knights of the Old Republic and would soon release their next game, Jade Empire, next year. But during E3 2004, they announced that they were also hard at work on another ip called Dragon Age for PC and (possibly) the original X-Box. If you take a look at the IGN article HERE, you can see that what it looked like back then was a farcry from what it would eventually become, but at the same time...you can see similarities. Based on the article, the game had already been in production for 18 months. So, we're talking late 2002, early 2003 as the time this game got going. The backstory had already been constructed and so on.

But it's my opinion that production ultimately grounded to a halt, given the coming of the brand new X-Box 360 and graphically superior games on the PC, like Half Life 2. Lots of games were canceled like this, so it's not completely weird. In any case, we never hear about Dragon Age again after that, not for many years. It was always that game that was going to come out "when it's done."

Fact #2: DA is one of the ugliest games on the 360:

So, Dragon Age finally comes out on consoles. Maybe it was never supposed to be ported in such a manner...I dunno, but the PC version doesn't look much better. The visuals are cleaner, but that's about it. The reason it reminded so many people of KotOR is because it was practically the same game redressed in a fantasy setting. Very archaic zones, lots of similar-looking bad guys, and practically the same engine. But in a world were every other RPG looks more than acceptable, DA couldn't even meet BioWare's own graphical standards for RPGs, considering Mass Effect 2 is one of the best looking games ever.

Soooo, here we have a game that's been in production for AT LEAST six years, seven years at the most. And what do we get? Well...it's a good game! Can't argue that. But it wasn't the gameplay and environments that made the game for me. As always, it was the characters and the writing. What does that say? That BioWare aren't perfect? Maybe.

But like I said, DA went largely into the dark after its initial announcement, and it only really resurfaced in 2008, when details about the game and a name change to Dragon Age: Origins was announced. It was sort of an odd event, but not when you consider that in the previous year: BioWare had just been bought out by Electronic Arts. And if you are a BioWare fan, you'd know that that's when everything started getting weird.

Suddenly, we weren't waiting years for new games to be released; they were all coming out tomorrow. =O

Fact #3: BioWare are dicks when it comes to DLC:

So, let's imagine that Dragon Age has been in development for six to seven years, and it was just a long, arduous process fraught with miscalculations, numerous setbacks, etc. And that BioWare just wanted the thing out the door after so long, imperfections and all (PS3 owners will know what I'm talking about). They get the game out and, conceivably, get right to work on a sequel, seeing how anything they sell these days will make money. That's what any normal development company does.

But that's not what happened.

Dragon Age: Origins was released in North America on November 3rd, 2009 after six to seven years in development. The full-fledged expansion pack, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening was announced on January 5th, 2010; a little over two months later.

This means one of two things: 1) The graphical drawbacks allowed BioWare to create this thing lightning-fast. 2) BioWare pretty much had it already made. The former would constitute supermen working at BioWare, the latter would mean that development for DA wasn't as arduous as we thought, since they were able to simultaneously work on the main game, its expansion pack, and its DLC.

What does this all mean? Well, it might mean that BioWare pretty much had everything ready to go well before that release date. But if they had all that time to work on all that content, why did they still produce a game that doesn't even live up to the company's own standards?

Not only that, let's not forget about Fact #4.

Fact #4: Dragon Age 2 will be released less than 8 months from now:

We get DA: O in November, and Awakening is announced two months later in January. We get Awakening in March, and Dragon Age 2 is teased via a little card that came in the case with Awakening. Not only that, but EA also announced that the next DA title will be released in that timeframe. Now, we could all be wrong, and this could be just another expansion...but I doubt it.

My overall point here is to suggest that BioWare had worked on Dragon Age for a long time, but, possibly, ultimately abandoned it. But when EA came along, they forced BioWare to resurrect it, throw a layer of gloss over the whole thing, and release it for profit. This would explain the sub-par production values (this game would be at home in the last generation of consoles), the numerous game-breaking glitches, the dated engine, and the KotOR-like level design. And it would also explain how they were able to put out all of that content within months of each other. It's sorta like when you're taking an English course, and you have to turn in a book report on a novel you've already read and wrote about for another class; ten minutes of fine-tuning and you've got yourself another A+ paper without all the effort.

I really don't think BioWare did this so maliciously, but I do think that EA showed them the money, and it made it all worth it. After all, the game wasn't bad. BioWare has some of the best writers in the business employed there. But I think Dragon Age showed me that BioWare can make the most lame-ass console experience ever and I'll still enjoy it if there's good character writing to back it up. Because let's get one thing straight, the game is just not fun at times, and those times are between the moments of character interaction.

Now, this theory of mine does not have a lot of facts behind it. I've never spoken one word to a BioWare employee, and I can only go on what I know of the company and what's listed on Wikipedia. So, it's probably not true. But I'll tell you what will make it true.

Eight months from now, when/if Dragon Age 2 gets released, reaching stores in 1/12th the time it took its predecessor to get there, if that game proves to be the Mass Effect of the fantasy genre, with production values that rival Shepard's adventures or even Fable II, then everything I've ranted about here will probably be correct. Because you don't make games like that within a year's time, especially when you've just released the first game and it's expansion. You make games like that after a few years' time, when the first game is already out the door. And maybe DA:O already was.

Meh.