Departure of Casey Hudson and Mark Darrah leave BioWare fans stunned
BioWare’s general manager Casey Hudson and executive producer of Dragon Age, Mark Darrah, have officially left the company – leaving fans of BioWare wondering what comes next.
The announcement came from both Darrah, Hudson, and the Chief Studios Officer at EA, Laura Miele. All three posted a blog post about the announcement, with Mark Darrah and Casey Hudson, in particular, going into detail about their beginnings at BioWare.
As to be expected of a shake-up like this, with many of those at the top of BioWare leaving, fans have already begun to speculate and swirl into a doomsayers attitude. Some are concerned about what this means for Mass Effect and Dragon Age’s development, whilst others are solely relying on the ‘old guard’ of BioWare to ‘fix’ the problems that Mark Darrah and Casey Hudson’s departure leaves behind. Seemingly a few fans have forgotten that it doesn’t take a handful of people to create a game.
Patrick Weekes, Lead Writer for Dragon Age, has been with BioWare since 2005 and already has had a lot of pressure been mounted onto him from some outspoken fans. They recently posted an image of a Tumblr post that depicted they were the only ones holding up Thedas, the fictional setting of Dragon Age. As to be expected, Weekes responded in a Tweet that this narrative from some BioWare fans only added stress onto them.
It is certainly a sentiment that Mark Darrah doesn’t share, expressing in his blog post that Dragon Age won’t just survive without him, but “it will thrive.”
Casey Hudson also expressed his sadness at his departure, but an exciting future for BioWare as they go into the next generation. “It’s an exciting time, both in terms of projects you’ve heard about, and some things not yet announced.”
While it is easy to become a doomsayer and negatively speculate about BioWare’s future, why don’t we celebrate Darrah and Hudson’s contribution to BioWare instead? Yes? Yes.
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