Bungie has announced its new collaboration with EA and BioWare to allow Guardians to join the crew of the Normandy with new cosmetics and in-game items, launching February 13, 2024. The Normandy Crew Bundle will be available at the Eververse store in-game and will include a Commander Shepard-inspired N7 armor set for Titans, a Garrus-inspired Vakarian set for Hunters, and a Liara-inspired Shadow Broker set for Warlocks. In celebration of the partnership, all players will be able to claim the Alliance Requisitions Bundle, including the Enhanced Defense Ghost Shell, Alliance Scout Frigate ship, and Alliance Drop Ship Sparrow, which will be available at no cost. Players can also get the Omni Strike finisher and Flux Dance emote for Silver.

Now released in Destiny 2, Riven's Wishes are new weekly quests open to all players from January 30 until March 12. During this period, Guardians will be tasked with completing a pursuit each week to earn a token redeemable for a treasure trove of rewards. Choose from the Wish for Strength to earn Last Wish raid Deepsight weapons, Wish for Protection to armor up with Exotic gear from the Lightfall year, or Wish for Beauty to collect event mementos and essential Ascendant crafting materials.

Gary McKay, General Manager at BioWare, states: "Hello, it's been a little while since I've checked in, and as you might have heard, there's a lot happening here at BioWare. Almost 12 years after launch, Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) remains a fantastic success, continuing to welcome new players to its vast galaxy and entertaining veteran players with its evolving content. It's the longest-running live service Star Wars game ever and we're enormously proud of the work the team has done in creating, expanding, and maintaining this incredible game. We're delighted to have grown such a dedicated and passionate community through all these years. The future of the game and the community continues to be very bright.

I've been working closely with Keith Kanneg, who leads the SWTOR team, to give the game and the team the best opportunity to grow and evolve. And so, while EA will remain SWTOR's publisher, development of the game will move to our partner and friends at Broadsword, a boutique studio with expertise in managing online games. Both the Broadsword studio and SWTOR team members will be joining forces and working tirelessly to support "every player, every day," ensuring that these worlds and these communities continue to thrive and grow. Their Founder and President, Rob Denton, even has direct experience with SWTOR, having helped lead the team during the development and launch of the game during his time at EA.

A BioWare Austin developer is openly discussing the transfer of their long-running "Star Wars: The Old Republic" MMORPG to an external studio—games news sites picked up on insider information earlier this month alleging that the studio and its parent company (EA) were holding meetings with Broadsword Online Games. An EA spokesperson responded to the leak (at the time) and explained: "We're evaluating how we give the game and the team the best opportunity to grow and evolve, which includes conversations with Broadsword, a boutique studio that specializes in delivering online, community-driven experiences. Our goal is to do what is best for the game and its players." It seems that the involved parties have agreed upon terms for "handing off" responsibilities, according to a developer's recent declarations.

Keith Kanneg - the Executive producer for Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) - has this week provided a comprehensive update about future plans on the game's discussion board: "Appreciate your patience with us as we continue to navigate the future shift of SWTOR's development team to a third party studio. We're working through the changes right now so I'll share with you the details I have. With 7.3 now live, our priority is continuing to prepare for Game Updates 7.3.1 and 7.4 along with planning for 2024 and 2025 with a focus on content and continued modernization initiatives." It is interesting that Broadsword is not named or directly referred to.

IGN has been informed by inside sources that Electronic Arts is in negotiations to "offload" ongoing development and support of BioWare's long running MMORPG "Star Wars: The Old Republic" to a third party studio. In a news article published yesterday speculation points to Broadsword Online Games being the prime candidate to takeover a franchise that has been kept alive since December 2011. Broadsword was established about a decade ago by Rob Denton - a former BioWare Vice President and co-founder of Mythic Entertainment - his team currently oversees the running of Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot. The IGN news piece notes that Denton previously worked on Star Wars: The Old Republic during its incubation period.

Electronic Arts has since caught wind of IGN's report and provided the news site with their own statement today: "Almost 12 years after launch, Star Wars: The Old Republic remains a success and continues to grow its dedicated and passionate community. We're so proud of the work the team has done, and the future of the game and the community continues to be very bright. We're evaluating how we give the game and the team the best opportunity to grow and evolve, which includes conversations with Broadsword, a boutique studio that specializes in delivering online, community-driven experiences. Our goal is to do what is best for the game and its players." The spokesperson's wording on the matter does not fully confirm that Broadsword is fully confirmed to takeover, but IGN's inside information posits that Electronic Arts will remain as the franchise publisher, while BioWare will concentrate on the development of its single-player intellectual properties (Dragon Age and Mass Effect).

Electronic Arts has not included Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in its projected release schedule for the ongoing financial year (2023 to 2024) - industry insiders have previously suggested that the fourth entry in the series was marked down for a later-in-2023 launch. EA's day old financial report details a number of already announced games within a rundown that ends in April 2024. The schedule includes the recently released Star Wars Jedi: Survivor game, as well as Immortal of Aveum, a Lord of the Rings mobile title, F1 23, Madden '24, Sports FC (a FIFA successor) and extra content for Apex Legend and Sims 4. A mystery pair of games are due sometime after April 2024 - a mainline EA Sports title and an unnamed racing sim.

An in-progress Skate sequel joins Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in the far off fields of mid-2024 or beyond. Bioware started to hint about a potential fourth game in late 2018 - with vague promotional material popping up during the autumn Game Awards event. The Edmonton, Canada-based development team has been quietly working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf since then, with very little preview material issued in the interim - a non-gameplay teaser trailer was shown off way back in 2020. Gary McKay, general manager at BioWare, revealed last autumn that the game was fully playable from beginning to end, and recent information suggests that the Dreadwolf team has expanded in size to include Mass Effect series staffers. A former franchise and Bioware veteran, Mark Darrah, was added on as an external (expert) consultant on the project.

BioWare is working quietly on new entries in its long running Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises, and not many details have been revealed about either game. Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was announced three years ago via a teaser trailer, but the gaming public knows little about the gameplay, lore or visual presentation. The Dreadwolf team has been expanded according to Gary McKay, general manager at BioWare - one of several details he divulged in a partially published interview conducted by GamesBeat. The game is in a post-production phase of development, and McKay confirmed via a blog update that Dreadwolf had reached an alpha milestone in September of 2022: "Now, for the first time, we can experience the entire game, from the opening scenes of the first mission to the very end. We can see, hear, feel, and play everything as a cohesive experience."

Select members of the Mass Effect team have been shifted over to help with late stage production on the fantasy RPG title: "Our studio is focused on creating the best Dragon Age: Dreadwolf while the core Mass Effect team continues their pre-production work." McKay also confirms that a former BioWare veteran has been re-introduced to the team, albeit in an external capacity: "We continue to iterate and polish Dreadwolf, focusing on the things that matter most to our fans. As we further connect this new experience with the series' legacy Mark Darrah will join the team as a consultant, bringing with him years of experience working on Dragon Age."

In the spirit of transparency and closure we wanted to share that we've made the difficult decision to stop our new development work on Anthem (aka Anthem NEXT). We will, however, continue to keep the Anthem live service running as it exists today. Since Anthem's launch, the team has been working hard to continually improve the game, releasing multiple updates that brought with them a variety of improvements and introduced new content to play. Towards the end of 2019 we expanded on that effort and started working on a more fundamental restructure of the game.

During the development we've provided updates revealing some of the team's work through blog posts and conversations with you on social media and it's been inspiring for us to see the positive reactions and feedback. I've been incredibly proud of the work the team has been doing, and excited to see and play each new build of the experience.

One person is all that stands between humanity and the greatest threat it's ever faced. BioWare, a studio of Electronic Arts Inc. today revealed that the Mass Effect Legendary Edition will launch May 14 worldwide on PC via Origin and Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with forward compatibility on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. The Mass Effect Legendary Edition features the single-player base content and 40+ downloadable content (DLC) story, weapons and armor packs from Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3 and will allow players to relive the legend of Commander Shepard in 4K Ultra HD with HDR.

"It's been an incredible journey revisiting the stories, characters and iconic moments of the Mass Effect trilogy, enhancing the experience for modern platforms while staying true to the spirit of the original," said Mac Walters, Project Director on the Mass Effect Legendary Edition and lead writer of the original trilogy at BioWare. "Remastering a game, let alone three, is a huge undertaking as there's over 100 hours of gameplay included, but we wanted to do this for our fans as well as a new generation of gamers looking to jump into the iconic story of Shepard."

The EA-announced, Bioware-developed love letter to the original Mass Effect trilogy will be seeing a remastered once-over that brings the games' graphics up to today's standards. As much as possible, of course, whilst keeping the "Remaster" tag instead of the "remake" one - it seems that the Legendary Edition of the original Mass Effect will still keep those long treks on scannable planets. The improved versions of the original trilogy of games will feature improved graphics, alongside higher resolution and refresh rate support. The Legendary Edition will further bring together all the pre and post-launch DLC for each release, bringing those together for a cohesive package.

The 12th march release date is derived from release dates online stores Shopitree and GSShop have attached to the game, and has since been confirmed by Eurogamer, whose site editor Tom Phillips added that "...barring any further delays, Eurogamer understands the above date to be currently accurate". It seems we won't have long to wait until we can vault through the stars against the Reapers once more.

BioWare has recently announced that a veteran team is in the early stages of creating the next Mass Effect title. The upcoming game appears to be a successor to the original Mass Effect trilogy. The new teaser trailer was released by BioWare during The Game Awards 2020 live stream and teases that the new title will follow the ending of Mass Effect 3 ignoring the spin-off entry "Andromeda". This new title is unlikely to launch anytime soon as the game is still in the early stages of pre-production however, gamers will be able to look forward to Mass Effect Legendary Edition releasing in 2021 for PC and consoles.

NZXT, a leading designer of computer hardware, software, and services for the PC gaming community, today announces the seventh entrant in NZXT's CRFT line--a series of licensed products that celebrate incredible games and the communities who love them--based on BioWare's landmark series Mass Effect. Designed around NZXT's award-winning H510i, NZXT CRFT 07 takes inspiration from the armor of the N7 to create a limited-run of 500 cases, designed for the Mass Effect community. The carbon fiber colorway and the red and white stripe mimics the iconic N7 armor from the game, so users can keep their build battle-ready. A limited-edition durable charm can be flipped to display either the Paragon or Renegade icon, allowing users to show their true colors.

"Mass Effect has made a profound impact on the imagination of the gaming community," says Johnny Hou, NZXT's founder and CEO. "To this day, we hear people recount the adventures of Commander Shepard and discuss their unique adventures. We are honored to partner with BioWare to bring this passionate fanbase a case that honors the legacy of this iconic franchise.".

EA via its EA play event has teased next-gen graphics and gameplay from upcoming titles on its publishing label. The games showcase work in progress for next-generation games that seem to be set in three well-known franchises, with Motive, who has just recently developed Star Wars Squadron in conjunction with Lucasfilm, seemingly presenting the only new IP.

From Criterion, a new Need for Speed game is teased, with particular emphasis being put on both detail level on cars and reflections, as well as the absence of any loading times granted by next-gen hardware. Bioware's showcase seems like a tease for Dragon Age 4 - there is a distinct fantasy look to the video, and I believe I've seen those red colors in previous entries' red lyrium crystals. DICE, of course, showcased a new Battlefield game, which exceptional fidelity on character models, and what seems like truly epic battles with hundreds of soldiers on-screen at the same time. Lastly, Motive seems to be developing a physics-based game where environment interactivity is key. Models used seem like a mash-up between fantasy, sci-fi and modern-day, so it's difficult to pen exactly what we're looking at. Catch the video teaser after the break.

Players can experience modern day warfare in Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 or the WWI and WWII battles of the past in Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V respectively. Players can also fight for humanity as Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 3 or visit new worlds as Sara or Scott Ryder in Mass Effect Andromeda. In addition, players can play as iconic Star Wars characters and with the incredible Star Wars vehicles in Star Wars Battlefront I and Star Wars Battlefront II.

Last Friday, the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection was the second new EA game to launch on Steam to great success, reaching the top game globally on Steam best-selling charts during its launch weekend. Last weekend, EA games also had five games appear in the top 10 of the Steam best-selling charts with their first wave of titles released on Steam last Thursday, giving players the opportunity to explore the fantastical worlds of the BioWare award-winning Role-Playing Games - Dragon Age : Inquisition and Dragon Age II and experience high-speed, white-knuckle driving action in Need for Speed Heat, Need for Speed: Rivals and Need for Speed (2016). Players can also battle it out in the wacky, fun and over-the-top shooter, Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, or play from a selection of the bold and innovative games from EA's indie development partners like Unravel, Unravel II, Fe and Sea of Solitude.

Today, Electronic Arts Inc. launched the first wave of 25+ EA games on Steam, with more on the way. Starting today, players can explore BioWare 's award-winning Role-Playing Games - Dragon Age : Inquisition and Dragon Age II, experience high-speed, white-knuckle driving action in Need for Speed Heat, Need for Speed: Rivals and Need for Speed (2016) and battle it out in the wacky, fun and over-the-top shooter, Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville. A selection of the bold and innovative games from EA's indie development partners like Unravel, Unravel II, Fe and Sea of Solitude will also become available. Additionally, these games and many others will be available as part of an EA Access subscription on Steam that will launch to players later this summer.

"We want to make it easy to play the games you love, wherever you want to play. Delivering games to the Steam community is an important step in achieving this goal," said Mike Blank, SVP, Strategic Growth. "Not only are we excited to have our games on Steam, but we look forward to bringing them even more value when our subscription becomes available in the Summer."

BioWare, big game development studio which announced last year a highly anticipated game Anthem, is now officially confirming that Anthem is getting a reboot. With many problems hunting the game from day one, BioWare fans were a bit disappointed to see a game with such potential wasted. For example, current weak points were overall game progression and the lack of any meaningful activities in the game. To improve the game, BioWare posted an announcement in their blog where BioWare General Manager Casey Hudson explained what they plan to do in the future.

"We have also heard your feedback that Anthem needs a more satisfying loot experience, better long-term progression, and a more fulfilling end game. So we recognize that there's still more fundamental work to be done to bring out the full potential of the experience, and it will require a more substantial reinvention than an update or expansion", said Casey Hudson in the blog. This confirms BioWare's intention to improve the game and that there is no simple update that could address current issues, so we are inbound for a refresh.

Anthem is out in the wilds, and it seems its reception has been mixed - it's definitely not the blockbuster, review-parading title that any developer - and publisher - would like their games to be. Reports peg Anthem's boxed game sales as half that of Bioware's previous Mass Effect: Andromeda - which was, again, half those of Mass Effect 3. Perhaps it's a tale of gamers taking a step back in trust regarding Bioware's ability to deliver, following Andromeda's reception, perhaps it has been superseded in interest by multiplayer-focused games (as we've seen, the industry trend has gone on towards having competitive multiplayer, instead of cooperative multiplayer designs). Whatever the reason, Anthem seems to have been met will a less-than-expected interest when it comes to sales - the opening weekend sales were lower than both Kingdom Hearts 3 and Resident Evil 2. And the PC version of the game has been ill-received by critics and gamers alike, if Metacritic still holds weight in this review-bombing world.

That said, EA is committing to content drops for the game - until May 2019, that is. This in itself sets a mild alarm ringing - this can't possibly represent publisher's investment in the game - three months is a very unimpressive commitment to the longevity of a game universe in the scale of Anthem. So many plans for the game to usher in the "games as a platform" concept of regular content drops, I'd be dumbstruck to find that EA might consider dropping the money bag like this.

So, this is kind of a strange, time-traveling move on EA (and Bioware's) part: a launch trailer that jumps the gun on the actual game by almost two weeks. So, granted, it isn't really two weeks - it's a ten-day period between today and Anthem's February 22nd launch. That said, there really are some more days left on the calendar - the launch trailer seems slightly premature.

Perhaps this is EA's way of keeping interest in Anthem and recapturing some of that original hype. With the game's demo being plagued by stability and server issues during the initial period, and the game's demo itself receiving a more lukewarm than not response from critics and the (more outspoken) community, it seems that interest in this Destiny killer has waned in recent times. Which really could be bad news, considering EA's history, and Bioware's last title, Mass Effect: Andromeda's, fate. There's also the possibility that the recent launch of EA's own sleeper-hit Apex Legends - which has recently garnered some 10 million unique players in four days since its inception. Perhaps the thunder is being stolen out of Anthem's feet with a series of unfortunate circumstances - not incidents. It remains to be seen. For now, instead of spelling doom left and right, just watch the small but cool Anthem launch trailer. Let's hope the story holds... For a game with no PvP, let's just hope the story holds.

The original Jade Empire was Bioware's first foray into their own imagined IP and universe, and released to wide acclaim as an original Xbox exclusive (and I mean original Xbox, the one that gave us Halo and Azurik and other small and not so small gems). First outed in 2005, the game was later released for PC in 2007 with a Special Edition. Now, EA has filed for a trademark on the game in the "Goods and Services" category, allowing for "Entertainment services, namely, providing an on-line computer game; Provision of information relating to electronic computer games provided via the Internet." The fastest and dirtiest interpretation would be a multiplayer or always-online game, but we have to remember that all games now have a form of digital distribution and/or upkeep via downloadeable updates, so, it could really be as simple as that.

It could also just mean that EA is keeping up with soon-to-be-expiring trademarks so as not to lose their rights to the IP, but still, launch of any game would require the establishment/renewal of such trademarks. We'll have to play the most unavoidable game known to gamers: the waiting one.

Being a Bioware game, and especially a new IP from the same company that has, in recent times, brought us the Mass Effect and Dragon Age IPs, expectations for Anthem are both high and very, very cautious. No matter how cautious we are, though, not being able to play it in our rigs means we won't even be able to create our own opinion on what is one of the most anticipated titles of 2019. Now, Bioware has revealed the official system requirements for Anthem, and we know what sort of hardware the company thinks is needed for a good experience. As an added Bonus, the developers have also announced that they're working with NVIDIA towards implementing DLSS into the game.

Lionel Rainaud, Executive Vice President of Creative for Ubisoft's Canadian studios, shared via a blog post an interesting, albeit not novel idea, for games. The aim is to end the disparaging of resources that is the finite game experience: as in, the game that you experience once or twice, but that once you've seen the campaign's completion and finished all the end content, goes back on the shelf never to see the light of your interest again: all the development time (measured in years) and effort (and dollars) for what amounts to an 8-hour experience (or less). The goal, then, seems to be to take online experiences to a whole new level, where a game's content can be constantly updated so as to keep the credits from rolling.

"(...) the will to not give finite experiences. The idea was that you have this conflict, and the resolution, and then it's finished - you've killed the bad guy, for instance. We build a strong nemesis, and the goal of the game is to kill him or free the country, we've done that a few times in our games. But when you succeed, you have to leave the game, because there is nothing else to do. So the goal was to break this, and say that you will be the hero of a region or population many times, not just once. And if you get rid of a dictator or an oppressor, something else is going to happen in the world, and you will have a new goal.

Anthem, BioWare's upcoming always-on RPG that's being made as a Destiny contender, has been delayed until 2019, according to industry insiders (and as reported by Kotaku). The pressure on BioWare's team to deliver a killer co-op online shooter experience with integrated microtransactions' release is apparently being pushed to allow the team more time to avoid Destiny 2's and Star Wars battlefront 2's shortcomings. The tentative release data that had been previously advanced of Fall 2018 was apparently never a realistic goal, anyway. It remains to be seen whether BioWare can carve itself the halo co-op, single-player driven online game, as it strives to avoid missteps such as those that have already been hit, full stride, by other developers.

BioWare today is reflecting on both the story and history of the Mass Effect franchise, through an event entitled #ten7. Fire-started by the celebration of ten years since release of the original Mass Effect, BioWare's celebration includes a throwback trailer, an invite for users to perusal The Archive with their in-game choices, and a suite of streaming events for all of the franchise entries, from the original Mass Effect all the way to the latest Mass Effect: Andromeda.

While this celebration of BioWare's IP accomplishments is a welcome sight, it doesn't exactly put to rest fears of an "iced" IP, which has been reported to be the case regarding the Mass Effect franchise. It's a shame that a publisher's pressures towards meeting launch deadlines sometimes goes ahead even at the cost of final product quality. Mass Effect: Andromeda is a perfect example of a good game that died, through massive effect, by word of mouth and a thousand cuts. Let's see where the future takes us in this universe, though I for one am eagerly awaiting for a new installment in this sci-fi setting. You can head over to the source link and scroll to the bottom of the page to take a look at a uber-resolution collage of what BioWare considers the Mass Effect franchise's best moments. You can also check out a 7-minute video, after the break.

Mass Effect: Andromeda was met with a lukewarm reception from reviewers and users alike (even if there was just a smidge of overblown issues,) and it would seem this has made EA cautious regarding this IP. Make no mistake: Mass Effect still lines up alongside EA's biggest franchises, and it's almost guaranteed the publisher will want to return to it at some point in time. It just so happens that its less than stellar reception has seemingly put further plans on the IP on hold. Bioware Montreal, the studio behind Andromeda's push, as apparently been relegated to a "support studio" role, with staff being channeled towards the new Star Wars Battlefront 2 game and other projects. Part of the staff will still be working on Mass Effect: Andromeda, looking to work through patches and multiplayer support, though it would seem that there are now no plans for eventual Andromeda DLC. This is a sad development, all in all, as Mass Effect counts one of the most interesting settings - and the most potential - among game franchises

On to Bioware's new original intellectual property, codenamed "Dylan", Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson revealed during a recent call with investors that its launch has been postponed. Originally scheduled to launch by the end of March 2018, the not-yet-named title has been pushed back to EA's 2019 fiscal year (April 2018 through March 2019.) This game looks to be EA's take on the kind of "live" game that is Bungie's Destiny and upcoming Destiny 2 (under Activision's supervision), and Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's The Division, being built around a live service and a "disruptive" new social design which was, according to Andrew Wilson, the reason for the delay.

AMD is pleased to announce that Electronic Arts (EA) will support Mantle, AMD's groundbreaking graphics API, in three new games: Battlefield Hardline, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. These join an extensive catalogue of more than 40 games that now support AMD's revolutionary graphics API. All three of these games are powered by DICE's cutting-edge engine, Frostbite 3.

The latest title from the Battlefield series, Battlefield Hardline follows Nick Mendoza's journey on a cross-country vendetta against once-trusted colleagues of the force.

BioWare, a studio of Electronic Arts Inc., and LucasArts announced today that the new, Free-to-Play option for the critically-acclaimed, massively multiplayer online game Star Wars: The Old Republic is now live. Players can experience the complete storylines of all eight, iconic Star Wars classes, all the way to level 50 for free. This new option complements the existing subscription offering, providing players with maximum flexibility in how they choose to experience Star Wars: The Old Republic.

"We want to give our players the freedom to enjoy Star Wars: The Old Republic when and how they want," said Matthew Bromberg, General Manager of BioWare Austin. "There has never been a better time to start playing with us."