BioWare’s Dragon Age & Mass Effect Devs “Didn’t Get Along,” Says Former Writer

If you ever thought BioWare’s golden era was a flawless machine behind the scenes, former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider just popped that bubble. In a series of spicy social media posts, Gaider revealed that the studio’s two flagship franchises — Mass Effect and Dragon Age — were basically oil and water. While the games might’ve shared some fans, their dev teams were not exactly besties behind closed doors.

According to Gaider, things were so fractured that the Dragon Age and Mass Effect teams "may as well have been two separate studios.” Different leadership styles, different cultures, and, apparently, a whole lot of passive-aggressive tension. That tension came to a head when Gaider was pulled over to help write for Anthem, the now-infamous live-service flop.

“The team didn’t want me there. At all”

Gaider recalled, explaining how Anthem's devs were cold toward his involvement — despite management specifically assigning him to bring a more narrative-driven, science fantasy vibe to the game.

The Rift That Killed the Magic

Gaider said Anthem was initially pitched as a gritty “hard sci-fi” shooter in the vein of Aliens, and his presence — along with his RPG-heavy writing chops — was met with skepticism. The devs, he said, constantly criticized his work as being “too Dragon Age,” implying that anything resembling his past fantasy work was somehow wrong for the project.

The biggest issue? Gaider claims the Anthem team didn’t want to make a traditional BioWare RPG at all. While executives were still trying to inject story into the mix, the actual team on the ground didn’t seem to share that vision.

“They wanted me to wave my magic writing wand and create a BioWare-quality story without giving me any of the tools I’d need to actually do that,” he said bluntly.

After a frustrating period of iteration and disconnect, Gaider says he asked to lead another project as creative director — a request that was rejected. Shortly after, he left the studio he had worked at for 17 years.

Where Did Everyone End Up?

Gaider has since found his groove again at Summerfall Studios, the indie outfit behind Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical, which dropped in 2023 to decent praise. Their next game, a demonic deckbuilder called Malys, is currently in the works.

As for BioWare, things have been rough. After Anthem crashed and burned despite multiple post-launch efforts to revive it, the studio found mild redemption with Mass Effect: Legendary Edition in 2021. Dragon Age: The Veilguard followed with solid reviews but didn’t light up the charts in terms of sales. Now, the studio is smaller and focused solely on the next Mass Effect, which was first teased back in 2020.

The Franchise Legacy and Studio's Growing Pains

Dragon Age and Mass Effect are arguably two of the most iconic Western RPG franchises of the 2000s and 2010s, both heavily shaped by BioWare’s deep commitment to player choice, rich world-building, and moral ambiguity. But Gaider’s comments peel back the curtain on how even massive successes can be fueled by tension, politics, and mismatched visions.

If anything, it reinforces how much of BioWare’s legacy rests on a precarious balancing act — between writing and design, between fantasy and sci-fi, between RPG traditions and the modern games-as-service model. That balancing act hasn’t always held.

With BioWare now solely focused on the future of Mass Effect, fans can only hope that the studio’s internal alignment is stronger than it was during the Anthem debacle.