Dragon Age Senior Creative Director Matthew Goldman will be parting ways with BioWare after working on many of its most successful games, including Jade Empire, Dragon Age: Origins, and Dragon Age: Inquisition.
The news was relayed by Kotaku after the publication got its hands on an internal email sent out by BioWare GM Gary McKay. Here’s the message in its entirety.
Hi everyone,
I hope you are well. I’m writing to inform you all that Matt Goldman is leaving BioWare. We have mutually agreed to part ways, and his last day is today.
We understand that Matt’s departure has an impact on you, as well as the game’s development. Rest assured our commitment to a high-quality Dragon Age game has not waivered, and we will not ship a game that is not up to BioWare’s standards.
We, including EA’s executive team, have absolute confidence in the leadership here at the studio and the people working on this game to carry forward our vision.
Goldman had been posting on Twitter and LinkedIn about BioWare’s job openings up until a couple of weeks ago, describing the Dragon Age project as great for creatives and the studio as a great company for an employee. It’s possible the resignation came strictly for personal reasons.
BioWare is looking for talented developers!
Dragon Age is a great project for creatives. Lots of interesting themes and latitude to play in!
EA BioWare is a great company with flexible work arrangements and benefits!
Look here for a complete listing: https://t.co/eULqTIo5o6 pic.twitter.com/y6GLRPHtkd
— Matthew Goldman (@SerGoldman) November 10, 2021
Still, Dragon Age 4 did have a troubled development phase early on in the project. The development actually began all the way back in 2015, shortly after the release of Inquisition, with Mike Laidlaw leading pre-production on a concept called Joplin, supposedly a smaller, more narrative focused title set in the Tevinter Imperium. Joplin was eventually canceled (and Laidlaw left the company) as EA looked to create a Dragon Age game more akin to Anthem.
Eventually, the success of Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order convinced EA that great single player games do not need live service components, and those were subsequently nixed from Dragon Age 4.
We still don’t know much about the game, other than it’ll be made for PC and next-gen consoles only, and its release window is reportedly on track for 2023. Fans are certainly hoping to get an in-game trailer at The Game Awards 2021 since a teaser trailer debuted there last year.
