One of the hallmarks of any BioWare game is its fantastic story thanks largely to the team’s excellent staff of writers. Unfortunately, the developer will be losing one of its all-stars, as Drew Karpyshyn is moving on to pursue avenues outside of the gaming industry.
Karpyshyn was the lead writer on the first two Mass Effect games as well as the recently release MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic and the fan-favorite classic Knights of the Old Republic. While this is a huge loss for the studio, Karpyshyn expressed his faith in the abilities of the current writing staff at BioWare on his blog.
During my time at BioWare I worked on a number of beloved and award winning titles. I’m proud of everything we accomplished, and I know going forward that BioWare will continue to live up to its well deserved reputation for making the best story driven games in the industry. The story and dialog in any BioWare game is the result of an entire team of writers working together, and I often felt I received an excessive amount of the credit for the games we created. The Dragon Age games and the continued success of the Mass Effect series after my departure make it pretty clear that BioWare can get along just fine without me, and I’m looking forward to experiencing the games as a fan rather than from the other side of the fence.
So what is next for Karpyshyn? While he may be moving on from video games, it doesn’t look like he’s straying too far from his roots, as he plans to stay connected with the team and is even working on a novel set in the Star Wars: Old Republic universe.
I’m leaving to focus more time and energy on my novels and other non-video game related projects. But even though I’ll no longer be working on games for BioWare, I’m not going to be severing all ties with them. Many of my closest friends still work at the company, and I’m also in the process of writing the next Star Wars: The Old Republic novel, though I can’t say too much about it yet.
All of us here at PlayStation LifeStyle want to wish Karpyshyn the best of luck in his future endeavors. It will be interesting to see how the epic story Mass Effect 3 concludes knowing that the series’ lead writer was hands-off the project. Look for it in stores March 6th.
