Mark Darrah is a name that carries weight in the world of video games, he spent many years at BioWarenotably producing the games Dragon Age, designed by Mike Laidlaw. The latter left to found Yellow Brick Games (Eternal Strands), while Mark Darrah had also left BioWarebefore criticizing the company’s policy and… returning to help design Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
The designer doesn’t mince his words, as he regularly shows through videos published on his channel. YouTube Mark Darrah on Games. The last video is called “Why does it take so long to make a AAA game”, Mark Darrah looks back at the design of big video games and tries to explain why some titles are announced many years before their release :
There may be reasons why it is important for the studio or publisher to get this game out to the public.
Maybe it’s because the publisher’s list is a bit weak and they want the public to remember that they still have some important games up their sleeve. Maybe it’s because the development studio wants the game announced because they’re afraid the publisher will kill it otherwise.
A strategy that can work most of the time, within reason, but in other cases, This gives the impression that the studio is dragging its feet in developing a gamewhile only a handful of people are actively working on the title. Mark Darrah takes the example of Bethesda :
Studios can be misleading about this, as they will say things like “we have started work on Elder Scrolls VI”, or they might even release a trailer for the game, even if the current team size is less than 10 people.
So they make it seem like this is a side development, that the team is working on this game, when in fact it’s just a few people getting together and there’s not much to do.
The Elder Scolls VI was announced in 2018, at the same time as Starfieldbut it is indeed the RPG in the space that had priority at Bethesdauntil its release last year. The Elder Scrolls VI still remains very mysterious today, it should not come out for a few more years. Interestingly enough, Bethesda had opted for a strategy completely opposite to theE3 2017revealing Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, The Evil Within 2 And Dishonored: Death of the Outsiderall released during 2017.
At the house of Electronic Artsit’s a bit the same story as for TES 6. The existence of Dragon Age: The Veilguard had been made official during the Game Awards 2018 (even before the release ofAnthem), while Mass Effect Next was confirmed in 2020. So, was it to remind thatEA Games has upcoming games, or to reassure BioWare ?
You can find Mass Effect: Legendary Edition from €28.86 on Amazon, Cdiscount And Fnac.
| Clint008 Editor – Tester |