BioWare co-founder and Star Wars KOTOR director say they’re interested in reuniting to try and save BioWare’s IP

BioWare co-founder Trent Oster has said he’s looking into the possibility of bringing back BioWare’s IP, and former creative director James Ohlen has confirmed his interest in joining him.

Electronic Arts announced last month that it was closing historic Dragon Age studio BioWare and cancelling the next Mass Effect game, prompting fans to start a #SaveMassEffect campaign online.

Oster, who left BioWare in 2009 and founded Beamdog, has been airing his views on social media about the campaign to save Mass Effect, and those views have started evolving into a potential business case.

“The #SaveMassEffect movement makes me wonder if there isn’t some other way to build game financing that actually supports a better product instead of undermining it” he wrote last week.

The following day, he wrote: “The scary component of Mass Effect is the audience is going to want the best of ‘AAA’ development. Rough ballpark (based on contemporaries) is $200M+. That is a big number to commit up front. There has to be a bigger plan in place for the IP to make the math work.

“That said, I think it can be done well for less than that amount with a disciplined approach and an experienced team.”

Oster continued his deliberations the next day, asking James Ohlen – who served as creative director on Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age: Origins and Neverwinter Nights among others – if he was interesting in teaming up with him.

“My first recruit would be James Ohlen,” Oster wrote on X. “Gotta go for the design OG. I know he’s cooking hard on his own adventure setting, but I gotta ask. James, you up for a reunion? Hey James, want to #SaveMassEffect?”

“Of course!” Ohlen replied. “A chance to work on Dragon Age again is a dream of mine.”

Since then, Oster has continued discussing the likelihood of such a thing happening in the future, stressing that one of the key parts would involve actually getting the rights to BioWare’s IP, because “one without the other is just making EA money”.

“To me, the best possible outcome would be a BioWare with a directive to make the kind of games we became known for and the community still love,” he added. “No more chasing the business model of the month.”

When Canadian MP Don Davies then posted a statement on X saying BioWare’s staff “should be given the first opportunity – and the federal support – to buy it and run it themselves”, Oster messaged him saying “we should have a chat”.

Then, at the weekend, Oster tweeted: “What are you doing this Saturday? I’m huddled in front of a computer running scenarios in Excel. I just passed rev 30. #SaveMassEffect #SaveDragonAge.”

Whether Oster will actually succeed in getting the rights to BioWare’s IP and getting a team of former developers back together remains to be seen, but fans of the studios’ games will at least be heartened to see that if there really is no future for Mass Effect, Dragon Age and other BioWare franchises, it hasn’t been through a lack of trying.