BioWare founders retire; new Mass Effect game, DLC announced

The men who started BioWare leave to pursue business and... beer?

More than 17 years ago, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk founded a video game development studio you may have heard of: BioWare, the studio behind franchises like Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Today, the duo announced their retirement from not just the studio, but also from the game industry.

Muzyka leaves to pursue entrepreneurial desires, saying he'd like to get into something exciting and "downright scary," while Zeschuk will host his own web series about beer, called The Beer Diaries. (I'm totally serious about the last clause in the previous sentence.)

The initial story of the founders' retirement scared me a bit when thinking of BioWare's future, but in a pretty brilliant PR move, the studio has also teased a bit of what's in store for its future. Aaryn Flynn, the developer's general manager, followed the retirement news by announcing Mass Effect 3's next single player downloadable content pack, named Omega, which is due out this fall. He also let ie be known that Casey Hudson and his Mass Effect team are also working on the next full Mass Effect game -- as well as a completely new IP "set in a fictional universe, built from the bottom-up with all new gaming technology." (That sounds like next-gen to me.)

Oh, and how can we forget the recent announcement of Dragon Age III?

So it's somewhat of a bitter day for BioWare fans. Its founders have moved on with their lives; but more exciting stuff is on the way. And I must say I am ecstatic to hear about a new entry in the Mass Effect universe.

Staff article by Jonathan Davila (September 18, 2012) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this news article, you can update your bio from the Settings page.