Don't Expect Dragon Age Remasters: BioWare Lost Old Engine Knowledge

Dragon Age has tons of haters, many of whom never even played the games, but most of the time you'll hear players lamenting the good old days of Origins, the first title in the series. While it had its own issues, the general consensus is that the story was great, and it's the best part of the franchise.

After the flop that was Veilguard (although I would argue that it wasn't that bad. Seriously, I have a whole speech), many people wished for a remaster of Origins, and BioWare even had plans for the Champion’s Edition of the first three games.

However, there's a reason it hasn't happened: Mark Darrah, the former executive producer of the series, thinks that BioWare doesn't have the knowledge to recreate it anymore.

Origins and Dragon Age 2 were powered by the upgraded versions of the Aurora engine – a tech created by the studio.

“There is basically no one at BioWare anymore that understands the Aurora Engine,” Darrah told FRVR. “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.”

Darrah thinks that to remaster the trilogy (although Inquisition still looks quite nice), BioWare would need “a brand new team,” but “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”. 

Still, Darrah believes that a remaster of Dragon Age: Origins would be a success.

“Could a Dragon Age remaster sell really well? Yeah. I think it sells super well because even at the time, Dragon Age: Origins wasn’t the most attractive game. There’s a lot you could do there to make it a lot better looking.”

Hopefully, one day EA will hire those veteran developers who worked on the original games, and we'll get a modern player-friendly experience.