BioWare Interview

UK video game retailer GAME had the chance to talk with Ray Muzyka, one of BioWare’s “doctors”, at this year’s GamesCom, and shares the results of this chat with us. Here’s a sampling of this interview, in which Muzyka talks about what it means for BioWare to craft “a deeper, richer gaming experience”, what he’s most proud of in Mass Effect 3, what question he wishes interviewers didn’t ask him anymore and more:

Of all your portfolio of games, which was the most challenging in terms of dev work?

Theye big games. We have small games, too. We have social games, but then at the other end of the spectrum we have big MMOs like Star Wars Old Republic, which has an amazing amount of rich content that people will be discovering for years and years to come, and then RPGs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. None of them are easy to build, theye all challenging in different ways, I think.

(…)

So which of your games is most challenging in terms of fan expectation? For example, I notice that RPG fans seem to be much more intense about gaming and all the different aspects of it.

They do seem to be, I mean, they like an intense, accessible experience, but they also want the depth, the richness, the story and the choice. And it one thing to give a choice, but you also need to show the impact of that choice in a meaningful way, which means creating new content for different paths and non-linear storytelling. It means investing more time in development to enable that choice in a personally engaging way that means something to the player, and so they can see how their character reacts to their events, and the world changes based on their actions. That part of what makes an RPG satisfying. You see the consequence to your actions.

(…)

You must sit at events like this being interviewed a lot! Is there anything that youe dying for an interviewer to ask you that youe never asked?

There probably is but I can remember right now, it been a long day! I think someone asked me a question today that Ie never been asked which was, ‘What were you like growing up?’, and I was like, wow, no one ever asked me that before! I used to play a lot of videogames, my parents let me play whatever I wanted because I got good grades at school. And for me it was a real motivator, you know, I see it as an art form. I have a passion about the evolution of games. I love the fact that now there so many manifestations of them. It like movies there such a spectrum of different types of games like there are different movies and books. And those are art forms as well.