Dragon Age fans hoping for remasters of the original trilogy may have had those hopes dashed by Bioware veteran and Dragon Age series producer Mark Darrah.
Darrah was at BioWare for 23 years and was executive producer on the Dragon Age series, before leaving the studio in 2020 during the development of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
In an interview with FRVR, Darrah was asked if he thought the first three games in the series – 2009’s Dragon Age: Origins, 2011’s Dragon Age 2 and 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition – would ever get the same sort of remaster treatment BioWare’s Mass Effect trilogy got with the release of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition in 2021.
Darrah explained that a trilogy of remasters, which he proposed would be called the Champion’s Edition, was originally part of the plan while he was at BioWare.
“I think what you want is a Champion’s Edition,” he said. “That was always my plan: ‘We’re going to do a Champion’s Trilogy, we’re going to retroactively turn this into, like, these are three games with three different important figures. And we’re going to group them in, collect them together, we’re going to retroactively turn it into a trilogy.’”
The problem with this, however, is that while all three Mass Effect games ran on Unreal Engine 3, making remasters relatively manageable, the first two Dragon Age games ran on versions of BioWare’s bespoke Aurora Engine.
Dragon their heels
Dragon Age: Origins ran on the Eclipse Engine, which was an enhanced version of Aurora, while Dragon Age 2 ran on its successor, the Lycium Engine. While Dragon Age Inquisition ran on EA‘s Frostbite engine, the fact the first two games ran on variations of Aurora mean remasters would be unlikely now.
“There is basically no one at BioWare anymore that understands the Aurora Engine,” Darrah explained. “There’s basically no one outside of BioWare anymore that understands the Aurora Engine. So unlike Mass Effect, which is Unreal… there are basically no companies that could help you.”
Because of this, a remaster trilogy would require far more work, likely needing a “brand new team”, but Darrah noted: “EA doesn’t like having employees so, if you’re going to do that, you’re going to do that within the umbrella of BioWare, which means those people are not working on something else.”
Darrah already suggested to FRVR that an entirely new Dragon Age game would be unlikely because EA’s greenlighting process means it would likely only be handled by BioWare, which is too busy working on the new Mass Effect game. This therefore makes a remaster trilogy unlikely too.
