In a post on his personal website, BioWare lead writer Drew Karpyshyn said that he's decided to leave the company. Karpyshyn has had a hand in a number of BioWare titles including Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Jade Empire.
“As of last week, I have officially retired from BioWare,” he wrote.
“I’m leaving to focus more time and energy on my novels and other non-video game related projects. But even though I’ll no longer be working on games for BioWare, I’m not going to be severing all ties with them. Many of my closest friends still work at the company, and I’m also in the process of writing the next Star Wars: The Old Republic novel, though I can’t say too much about it yet.”
Karpyshyn has written three Mass Effect novels and four Star Wars novels set in the Old Republic timeline while still working on BioWare titles.
“During my time at BioWare I worked on a number of beloved and award winning titles. I’m proud of everything we accomplished, and I know going forward that BioWare will continue to live up to its well deserved reputation for making the best story driven games in the industry. The story and dialog in any BioWare game is the result of an entire team of writers working together, and I often felt I received an excessive amount of the credit for the games we created,” he wrote.
“The Dragon Age games and the continued success of the Mass Effect series after my departure make it pretty clear that BioWare can get along just fine without me, and I’m looking forward to experiencing the games as a fan rather than from the other side of the fence.”
