Mass Effect Lead Writer Drew Karpyshyn Back to BioWare

The latest news update on Drew Karpyshyn’s website mostly deals with his work as a novelist, but one of the tidbits is very much within the scope of our RPG-focused coverage. Karpyshyn, who had been lead writer on the original Mass Effect and shared the lead writing credits with Mac Walters on Mass Effect 2, is now working at BioWare again, at their Austin studio to be precise.

For now, he seems to be focusing strictly on Star Wars: The Old Republic though, which I’m sure will disappoint those fans that saw his departure from the company as the primary reason behind the perceived decline in writing quality for the Mass Effect series:

Speaking of full circle, here’s the second piece of big news: as of this past week, I am back working at BioWare again! For those who don’t know, I spent over a decade with BioWare working on many award winning and fan-beloved games like Mass Effect 1&2, Knights of the Old Republic and the Star Wars: The Old Republic Online MMO. A few years ago I left BioWare to focus on my Chaos Born novels, but now that the trilogy is finished, I’ve decided to come back into the fold. But for those of you who love my novels, don’t worry I’ll still be writing more of those, too!

Working at BioWare was a challenging but very rewarding job, and it’s good to be back as part of the team. The thing I missed most about BioWare was the amazing people I got to work with, and luckily for me many of them are still there! I suspect a lot of folks are going to wonder if this means BioWare is about to announce a new project tied to my return. The short answer: no. I originally came to the Austin studio many years ago to work on SWTOR and at least for now that’s what I’m focusing on again.

Spotted on NeoGAF.