Mass Effect: Writing The Bioware Way

At a recent AGDC lecture, Bioware’s own Mike Laidlaw, Drew Karpyshyn and Mac Walters discussed “Writing the Bioware Way” and the importance writing plays in designing their games. Together, they go through each of the stages the writing takes during production of the game, from the sexy Prototype, to the sexy voice acting.

Once the dialogue recording is completed, the game moves into what BioWare calls the cinematic pass — emotional variants assigned to characters. “There might be seven different ‘angrys’ attached to this character. It’s very limited in what we can do, but it’s good for when the experts come on. We’ll also do first pass camera angles. Music tracks are often hooked up at this point, too. We do this all through the same tools writers use.” This is turned over to the cinematic design team, who make it all work right. “We, at this point, have to realize we’re more hands off. The cinematic designers will come and ask for clarification on why certain decisions were made, and then fix everything. Cinematic bugs are QAed at this point, and the project moves upwards in the food chain to be signed off on. “It’s the key to making BioWare’s games so memorable — the iteration. All writers here should know that rewriting is great writing.”

To read the full article, check here: AGDC: BioWare Charts Writing For Mass Effect