Dragon Age 4 Executive Producer Leaves Bioware

Hot on the heels of an update from Bioware on the state of Dragon Age 4, the game’s executive producer Christian Dailey has announced his departure from the company. Dailey’s departure was briefly mentioned in the aforementioned blog post from Bioware. Dailey previously worked on other Bioware games like Anthem and served as the Studio Director of Bioware Austin.

Dragon Age executive producer’s departure is not the first

Bioware has been losing top talent left and right over the past few years. In 2020, it was the General Manager of Bioware and Mass Effect lead Casey Hudson as well as the previous Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah, whom Christian Dailey later replaced. In November 2021, it was Senior Creative Director of Dragon Age Matthew Goldman. Each of these creatives boasted several decades of experience working at Bioware and in the games industry as a whole. Each of them stated that Dragon Age would be “in good hands”. Notably, most of the departures also seem to share the same reasoning: an interest in trying something different.

In a tweet addressed to fans, Dailey stated,

Hi friends. I wanted to pass on the news that I am leaving BioWare. The next Dragon Age is in great hands. Looking forward to cheering on the team and playing as a fan. Please follow my friends on the latest and greatest moving forward. Much love #DragonAge #Anthem family.

In the Dragon Age blog post, Bioware also had this to say about Dailey’s departure:

As we continue our journey, we wanted to wish Christian Dailey a heartfelt farewell from BioWare. Christian started with us back in 2018 and has been a big influence on our games and leadership team, most recently as Executive Producer over Dragon Age’s development. The games industry is ever-changing though and sometimes folks want to go and try new things – we understand, but we will miss him as a friend and as a colleague.

Opinion: Bioware has big shoes to fill

Andrew writes… It goes without saying that there’s a certain amount of risk involved when a company loses senior developers and managers. In some cases, departures mid-development can lead to inconsistency in a game’s design and vision. In the case of another popular EA franchise Battlefield, fans have speculated that the departure of several veteran DICE developers was one of the main factors for Battlefield 2042’s failure. If that truly is the case, then Bioware has some pretty big shoes to fill.