Developer Bioware had reportedly wanted to do a Dragon Age Remastered collection featuring the first three titles namely Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age: Inquisition, in the same vein as of the acclaimed Mass Effect: Legendary Edition but publisher EA had refused to fund the project. In a recent interview with MrMattyPlays, former BioWare producer Mark Darrah has revealed that the studio had repeatedly pitched the idea of a remastered collection of the first three Dragon Age games to EA, but they were against it completely.
“I honestly think they should do – I don’t think they will – but I think they should do a remaster of the first three. One of the things we pitched at one point, pretty softly, was to retroactively rebrand the first three games as if they were a trilogy and call it the Champion’s Trilogy,” Mark Darrah stated.
“Maybe you do that, and as a first step, you take those three games (and maybe Veilguard), you shine them up, you re-release them, probably remaster, not a remake, see what happens, and then maybe go from there.”
Darrah also said that EA was against making remasters in general, but acknowledged that Dragon Age would be harder than Mass Effect as a remaster project for many different reasons.
“EA has said this publically, they’re kind of against remasters. I don’t really know why, it’s strange for a publically-traded company to seem to be against free money, but they seem to be against it, so that’s part of it.”
“The other problem is that Dragon Age is harder than Mass Effect to do.”
“One of the earliest things was, let’s do Frostbite Tools, and then let’s find a mod house that seems talented and just uplift them and pay them to do a remake of Dragon Age Origins.”
“There were lots of pitches around it, is there a way we can bring Dragon Age Origins forward?”
“The studios ruin their financials within themselves. I think, to some degree, EA’s stance was, ‘Sure, go ahead and do it, but do it with the money you already have.’ We couldn’t do it with the money that we already have, because we’re doing all these other things.”
While fans of Dragon Age would clearly be disheartened with the news that EA refused to do a remaster of the RPG, there are several reasons why it probably wouldn’t have worked. Dragon Age Origins was essentially a game from a different era with traits and characteristics that may not resonate with many gamers of the current generation, unlike Mass Effect which is far more accessible to the wide demographic of gamers. And while the older fans would surely lap it up but if the game wouldn’t impact the current generation of players in any major way, it’s understandable why a company like EA would be against the idea.
