Dragon Age: Dreadwolf production director and Mass Effect veteran leaves BioWare
Former lead writer on Mass Effect 2 and 3
Dragon Age: Dreadwolf apparently hit alpha in October last year, suggesting development was advancing as planned. Now production director and BioWare veteran Mac Walters has left the studio - one of several lead developers to depart over the past couple of years.
"As some of you already know, at the end of last year I decided to leave BioWare," wrote Walters in a post announcing the move.
"These past 19 years have been a life-changing experience to say the least, and it made the choice to go very difficult. I’ve worked with so many wonderful people and had the privilege to be a part of the most amazing teams and projects. It’s hard to fathom it all, and I know I’ll be reflecting on it for years to come."
Walters' LinkedIn page also describes his current focus as a "career break" for "personal goal pursuit".
Before moving over to the Dreadwolf team in January 2022, Walters was a senior writer on Mass Effect 1, lead writer on Mass Effect 2 and 3, and a creative director on Mass Effect Andromeda. He was also project director of the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition remasters.
People leave jobs for all kinds of reasons up to and including 'I've been here for 19 years and I want a change', so I wouldn't draw any conclusions from Walters leaving. BioWare has had a lot of turnover in recent years however, with studio manager Casey Hudson and Dreadwolf executive producer Mark Darrah leaving in December 2020, replacement EP Christian Dailey leaving in February 2022, and Dreadwolf creative director Matthew Goldman leaving in November 2021.
The Dragon Age project has also been rebooted several times, as EA scrapped an early narrative-focused concept in favour of a live service proposal, then scrapped the live service project in favour of Dreadwolf after the failure of Anthem. Dreadwolf is singleplayer and will be a direct sequel to Dragon Age: Inquisition, focused on eggboy Solas.