Dragon Age: Origins had the longest development period in BioWare’s history, which makes Dragon Age 2 as the shortest all the more unsettling to think about. Ladyinsanity, well-known among the Dragon Age community for her many YouTube videos on the series, tweeted a photo of a page in the book discussing the game’s development cycle. I’ve mentioned this before, but here it is in writing. One of those things isn’t quite new, but it serves as a good reminder of one of the most astonishing facts of the video games industry: Dragon Age 2, a Good Game, was somehow made in a mere nine months.
There’s plenty to learn from it, including the existence of some early concept art for the next Mass Effect. This week saw the release of BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development, an extensive book that serves as a retrospective on the famous studio’s development history.
