Drew Karpysyhn leaves BioWare. Again.

Yes, again: until 2012, he was part of the team, and until then, he was the lead writer of the two Mass Effect games. Then, he left for three years to focus on his novels, but he returned in 2015 to work on Star Wars: The Old Republic and Anthem.

„For many people, working at BioWare would be their dream job, and they can’t imagine anyone stepping away from it. But it was time for me to move on. Everyone who works at BioWare pours their heart and soul into the games they are making. It’s creatively demanding and—at times—exhausting. In the past, I’ve managed to juggle outside projects with my work at BioWare, but it always took a toll. And there were always outside projects I had to pass on because they would represent a conflict of interest with BioWare or EA properties. So I made the decision to step back (again) and focused on my freelance work,” Karpysyhn writes on his website. What next for him?

He is going to work for a new studio called Fogbank Games, which was founded by another ex-BioWare writer, Daniel Erickson, who was the lead writer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. The studio is part of FoxNext Games, Fox’ video game arm, and they are developing an episodic narrative game, based on one of 20th Century Fox’ IP.

The currently 20-strong team is planned to double, and they already have several former BioWare employees outside Erickson and Karphyshyn – Alexander Freed is the head of the writers at the team. What will they do, and will Disney affect Fogbank? (Disney is planning to buy Fox, and they might shut down Fogbank’s development…)

Source: VentureBeat, PCGamer