BioWare BioWare is a Canadian video game developer based in Edmonton, Alberta. It was founded in 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, alongside Trent Oster, Brent Oster, and Marcel Zeschuk. Since 2007, ...

is a Canadian video game developer based in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

. It was founded in 1995 by

Ray Muzyka Raymond Alexander Muzyka is a Canadian investor, entrepreneur and physician. Originally trained as a medical doctor and practicing as an emergency department and family physician after graduation, he is the co-founder of video game developer Bio ...

Greg Zeschuk Gregory Zeschuk is a Canadian businessman who was a VP at Electronic Arts and General Manager at BioWare Austin until 2012. He co-founded video game developer BioWare in Edmonton in 1995 with Ray Muzyka and Augustine Yip, after all three earned ...

, and Augustine Yip. They signed a partnership with American publisher

Interplay Productions Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca ...

to get investment and development resources for their first game ''

Shattered Steel ''Shattered Steel'' is a Mecha, mech Vehicle simulation game, simulation game released in 1996 by BioWare for MS-DOS, and later ported to Mac OS by now-defunct Logicware. It is notable for the deformable terrain effects, and for being BioWare's ...

'', a mech simulation action game released in 1996. The game was a modest success, but BioWare's second title, ''

Baldur's Gate ''Baldur's Gate'' is a series of role-playing video games set in the Forgotten Realms '' Dungeons & Dragons'' campaign setting. The game has spawned two series, known as the ''Bhaalspawn Saga'' and the ''Dark Alliance'', both taking place mostl ...

'' (1998), achieved overwhelming critical praise and defined the company's future direction. A role-playing video game (RPG) based on ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TS ...

'', ''Baldur's Gate'' sold more than two million copies and became the most successful ''Dungeons & Dragons'' game ever at the time. Two years later, the studio released an acclaimed sequel '' Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn'', which along with the use of BioWare game engines in RPGs such as '' Planescape: Torment'' (1999) and ''

Icewind Dale ''Icewind Dale'' is a role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios and originally published by Interplay Entertainment for Windows in 2000 and by MacPlay for the Macintosh in 2002 (both the Classic Mac OS and OS X). The game takes pl ...

'' (2000) helped propel the studio to the forefront of the computer RPG genre. Interplay was suffering financially by the early 2000s, so BioWare collaborated with publisher

Infogrames Atari SA (formerly Infogrames Entertainment SA) is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Its subsidiaries include Atari Interactive and Atari, Inc. It is the current owner of the Atari brand through Atari Interactive. ...

to release their next ''Dungeons & Dragon''-based RPG ''

Neverwinter Nights ''Neverwinter Nights'' is a series of video games developed by BioWare and Obsidian Entertainment, based on the ''Forgotten Realms'' campaign setting of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game. Aside from also being set in the Dungeons & Dr ...

'' (2002). BioWare was given the opportunity to work on another popular intellectual property, '' Star Wars'', when

LucasArts Lucasfilm Games (known as LucasArts between 1990 and 2021) is an American video game licensor that is part of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as part of a large ...

approached them at the turn of the millennium. '' Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic'' released first on

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the ...

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to ...

in 2003. While it was not BioWare's first console game, it helped the studio break into the console market since Microsoft Game Studios wanted to partner with them on console exclusive titles, such as ''

Jade Empire ''Jade Empire'' is an action role-playing game developed by BioWare, originally published by Microsoft Game Studios in 2005 as an Xbox exclusive. It was later ported to Microsoft Windows personal computers (PC) and published by 2K Games in 200 ...

'' (2005) and ''

Mass Effect ''Mass Effect'' is a military science fiction media franchise created by Casey Hudson, Drew Karpyshyn and Preston Watamaniuk. The franchise depicts a distant future where humanity and several alien civilizations have colonized the known unive ...

'' (2007). In March 2006, BioWare expanded their operations and opened a new studio in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

, to helm the development of a

massively multiplayer online role-playing game A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

(MMORPG). In October 2007, American publisher

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

(EA) announced that it had acquired BioWare. Under EA, BioWare established the fantasy RPG series ''

Dragon Age ''Dragon Age'' is a media franchise centered on a series of fantasy role-playing video games created and developed by BioWare, which have seen releases on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The fra ...

'', continued to release games in their

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

RPG series ''

'', and opened a new studio in Montreal. They also revisited the ''Star Wars'' franchise with BioWare Austin's MMORPG '' Star Wars: The Old Republic'' (2011). In the early 2010s, EA restructured and rebranded several of its other studios under the BioWare label, including

Mythic Entertainment Mythic Entertainment (formerly BioWare Mythic, EA Mythic, Inc., and Interworld Productions) was a video game developer in Fairfax, Virginia that was most widely recognized for developing the 2001 massively multiplayer online role-playing game ' ...

and Victory Games which respectively became BioWare Mythic and BioWare Victory. New games from these studios were announced as BioWare projects, but they were cancelled and the studios shut down in the following years. In September 2012, co-founders Muzyka and Zeschuk announced their retirement and departure from BioWare. Following the release of '' Mass Effect: Andromeda'' in 2017, BioWare Montreal was merged with EA's

Motive Studios Motive Studio (also known as EA Motive and Motive) is a Canadian video game developer and studio of Electronic Arts (EA) based in Montreal. History Motive Studio was founded within Electronic Arts (EA) by Jade Raymond, a former Ubisoft exec ...

Games

All games developed by BioWare Edmonton, except where noted.

References

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