Mass Effect visionary leaves Bioware

[Master_Craig]

Casey Hudson was one of the key developers of Bioware, he was the project director of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic as well as the entire Mass Effect trilogy. He's announced today through his blog that he'll be leaving Bioware.

It's pretty surprising that he's leaving. Considering he was involved in the development video of Mass Effect 4 as well as the announcement of the new roleplaying game universe of Bioware's. Here's what he said in his blog,

“After what already feels like a lifetime of extraordinary experiences, I have decided to hit the reset button and move on from BioWare. I’ll take a much needed break, get perspective on what I really want to do with the next phase of my life, and eventually, take on a new set of challenges.â€

 

[madster111]

He was the person who chose the ending of Mass Effect 3.

There was an entire team of people trying to change it because they knew how the world would react, but apparently he played hard ball and put his foot down.
And because of that, EA got fucking decimated in the press.

Very surprised he didn't 'leave' earlier.

 

[Master_Craig]

Fair enough. I wasn't aware that he was apparently responsible for the original ending of Mass Effect 3.

Yeah, I wasn't too fond of that ending, due to all the loopholes and remaining questions. My faith was restored when the 'Extended Cut' was released and I'm happy it was free DLC too.

Like I've said before, I wish Bioware just did the Extended Cut ending to begin with rather than having to resort to it, you know? I'm glad they did it either way.

 

[Lien]

He was the person who chose the ending of Mass Effect 3

Fair enough. I wasn't aware that he was apparently responsible for the original ending of Mass Effect 3.

It's moment like these where i can't tell if madster is being serious or if he's just trolling to craig here. Just to be clear here, he's not someone to solely blame for the endings (and to be honest, disregarding all of mass effect 3 JUST for the ending is rather silly). He is NOT the lead of the writing team, he is not someone you should throw misguided stones at (or even to anyone), he's someone you should be thankful for actually helping create the mass effect franchise in the first place! All he did in regard to the endings was tell people they couldn't change the ending, not that he forced it down the entire team because "AHAH I R ZE BOSS11!!one!". That's not how creating a game work. Casey Hudson was loved by his team and by everyone at Bioware. There was no drama at the workplace that caused the Mass effect 3 lash-back and E.A. was definitely NOT involve in anyway. Enough unrelated people left Bioware despite their love of the company because of the misguided hate they received (some privately might i add) from the Mass effect 3 ending... and for other idiotic issues they were accused of as well.
Let's not try to bring it back here and turn this thread upside down from a two years old controversy everyone already moved on from, both fans and Bioware team alike.


Back on topic, did you know one of his first videogame career task was to make the laser gun work in MDK2? Sad to see him leave when there is a lack of laser guns in the industry! Everyone wants bullets nowadays, I tell you. BULLETS! Bullets didn't stop Tetsuo, It was LASERS! Why would a space marines need bullets when you can have lasers! What is the fascination people have with bullets? What happened to 5 years old dreams of owning a laser gun? Casey Hudson knew what that passion was!

Ahem... but seriously, yeah! His legacy will be remembered. Although he's not my favorite of the Bioware team, he has done enough for me to give him respect for his past work. He was also contributing for the next dragon age game so we might get a little taste of his touch in inquisition. Here's hoping he'll be working in a good project!

 

[Green_Lantern]

Typical Lien response is typical.


For the record, I couldn't care less about the thread news. People leave companies all the damn time.

 

[Sourdeez]

Really Lien? He was responsible.

Mass Effect 3 Writer Allegedly Slams Controversial Ending
http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/5695 ... al-ending/

I have nothing to do with the ending beyond a) having argued successfully a long time ago that we needed a chance to say goodbye to our squad, b) having argued successfully that Cortez shouldn't automatically die in that shuttle crash, and c) having written Tali's goodbye bit, as well as a couple of the holo-goodbyes for people I wrote (Mordin, Kasumi, Jack, etc).

No other writer did, either, except for our lead. This was entirely the work of our lead and Casey himself, sitting in a room and going through draft after draft.
And honestly, it kind of shows.

Every other mission in the game had to be held up to the rest of the writing team, and the writing team then picked it apart and made suggestions and pointed out the parts that made no sense. This mission? Casey and our lead deciding that they didn't need to be peer-reviewe.d

I am glad they fixed the ending in the end. They stepped up to the plot hole mistake and fixed it. I have more interest in the future mass effect games knowing Casey wont be directly in joint control of the endings anymore.

Still, thank you for one of the greatest gaming series of all time, to the whole team including Casey.

 

[Longo_2_guns]

People have been leaving Bioware like crazy the last few years.

The ending to Mass Effect 3 was more Mac Walters being a terrible writer who was in a job too big for him and had to deus ex machina his way out of it than Casey Hudson, so I'm not going to fault him for that.

 

[LinksOcarina]

People have been leaving Bioware like crazy the last few years.

The ending to Mass Effect 3 was more Mac Walters being a terrible writer who was in a job too big for him and had to deus ex machina his way out of it than Casey Hudson, so I'm not going to fault him for that.

It really wouldn't be Walters fault if Karpyshyn didn't put him in that corner first though, and honestly, was never the best writer for BioWare either.

 

[Longo_2_guns]

More like if they hadn't pulled Karpyshyn out to make him work on The Old Republic. Regardless, he's a way better writer than Walters ever was.

 

[LinksOcarina]

More like if they hadn't pulled Karpyshyn out to make him work on The Old Republic. Regardless, he's a way better writer than Walters ever was.

That's honestly debatable.

My problem with Karpyshyn is how derivative he tends to be when hes not backed into a corner. He goes for stereotyping to easily and very rarely do his characters move out of their given stereotypes out of specific scenarios. He also tends to be the "exposition dumper" of writers, something Walters at least tried to avoid, or tried to make it more smooth to handle.

Walters I always felt was a better scenario-writer, as Mass Effect 2 and 3 showcase. Although this is all overshadowed by the work of Patrick Weekes, who let's be honest, is the best writer on staff at BioWare.

 

[Longo_2_guns]

The problem with Walters is that he can't write a single cohesive story, only individual scenarios. That's shown really well in Mass Effect 2 and 3, where the entire games are character driven rather than story driven and have you going from place to place because the characters demand it from you. While that certainly isn't a problem in the right situations, Mass Effect 1 set up the franchise with a huge overarching story that was never followed up on because the characters around you became the main focus. The biggest problem with Mass Effect 3 in terms of pacing was that it felt like the characters were all written first, and then the plot and the antagonists were a secondary thought. Take the beginning of the game, which is riddled with drastic shifts in tone and pacing from having a casual talk with your mentor to BAM ALIENS BECAUSE ALIENS!

Karpyshyn himself wrote a better ending to the game, complete with actual motivation for the Reapers, but it went ignored.

I think the point I'm making is that Casey Hudson isn't that bad. Sure when the script was leaked and everyone decried the ending he chose to keep it the same, but he wasn't the one who wrote it.

 

[LinksOcarina]

The problem with Walters is that he can't write a single cohesive story, only individual scenarios. That's shown really well in Mass Effect 2 and 3, where the entire games are character driven rather than story driven and have you going from place to place because the characters demand it from you. While that certainly isn't a problem in the right situations, Mass Effect 1 set up the franchise with a huge overarching story that was never followed up on because the characters around you became the main focus. The biggest problem with Mass Effect 3 in terms of pacing was that it felt like the characters were all written first, and then the plot and the antagonists were a secondary thought. Take the beginning of the game, which is riddled with drastic shifts in tone and pacing from having a casual talk with your mentor to BAM ALIENS BECAUSE ALIENS!

Karpyshyn himself wrote a better ending to the game, complete with actual motivation for the Reapers, but it went ignored.

I think the point I'm making is that Casey Hudson isn't that bad. Sure when the script was leaked and everyone decried the ending he chose to keep it the same, but he wasn't the one who wrote it.

That is debatable on Karpyshyn, especially considering the dark energy ending which frankly is a bit more convoluted than it should be, and also depicts the Reapers with a motivation that is similar to the ending of the game; one of preservation vs extinction.

I agree that's Walter's strength. I think the shift to a character-driven game was due to that strength being more prominent in his abilities. Honestly, for the first Mass Effect the overarching story was a weaker element too anyway, but thats also opinion as well

I agree that Hudson isn't bad though, that's for sure.