We sit down wth BioWare founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka...

You think you’re just having a nice old jabber with the twin heads of one of the world’s greatest videogame studios, when out comes the doctor joke. It’s distinctly un-hilarious and takes you right back to that point in your childhood when you were sitting in a white room with a taciturn, bespectacled man administering a painful Hepatitis-B shot – jarring, and not exactly conducive to the flow of conversation.

The joke is dusted off when we suggest that Neverwinter Nights’ single-player campaign was regarded by some as inferior to those BioWare presented in previous games – anaemic, even. “I would disagree,” Ray Muzyka counters, “from triple-A Alberta beef to tons of spinach salad, Neverwinter Nights was given plenty of ‘iron’ throughout its creation.” Yeah.

And then you remember: these guys are doctors. It’s the kick-off for pretty much every interview with Muzyka and his partner, Greg Zeschuk, so you really should know better by now, but it takes some time to adjust. Sure, neither Muzyka nor Zeschuk have had the time to go all Hawkeye on the infirm recently, but the dual-identity slips out sometimes.

It’s not surprising, then, that pretty much everything about BioWare comes in twos: the two founders; the partnership with Pandemic; the fact that for every good story path there’s an evil one; the corresponding double endings; or even the two companions who are allowed to leave the ship/tavern/safe house with you at any time, as has been the convention since Neverwinter Nights: Hordes Of The Underdark.

This year is a major turning point for the studio, still located in its original home in Alberta, Canada. No, Zeschuk and Muzyka aren’t returning to test their allegiance to Hippocrates, rather, BioWare is releasing Dragon Age: Origins, its first RPG to reportedly abandon the dualistic model. Oh, you’ll be confronted with the moral dilemmas and achingly difficult decisions that typify BioWare’s interactive narratives, but they’re more varied this time, and as in 2007’s hidden gem The Witcher, you’ll likely be picking from the lesser of several evils. You’ll get to take three companions with you, too.

“Every game we do we’re always striving to make better than the previous ones,” Muzyka explains, “and Dragon Age is one where the morality and alignment, the way the world looks at you, and the way you look at the world… There’s a lot more nuance to it. And your companions really are the lenses through which you see the rest of the world. Each of them has their own opinion of you. There’s no black-and-white system of good and evil here – that’s up to you to determine. You’re going to have to do some things that are kinda grey. Your companion characters can like your actions – they might even become your best friend or even a romantic interest – or they may hate them and become your enemy. The system in Dragon Age is one of the more interesting ones we have.” As well as a major conceptual step forward for BioWare, Dragon Age can be seen as a return to past successes, most notably its first major hit, Baldur’s Gate.

Dragon Age has been designed with Baldur die-hards in mind – although Zeschuk is keen to stress it still feels “fresh” – and marks a return to the medieval fantasy setting largely abandoned since the Neverwinter reins were handed over to Obsidian Entertainment. It’s a fitting tribute, not only to BioWare’s roots, but also the fantasy RPGs that inspired Muzyka and Zeschuk to form the company in the first place.

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A New Hope

BioWare’s other big project is Star Wars MMO The Old Republic – possibly subtitled ‘Galaxies Who?’ While there’s little doubt BioWare will invest the time and money necessary to make The Old Republic more World Of Warcraft than Age Of Conan, we have to ask, who’s going to play it? How many of BioWare’s current fans double as WOW zealots? Zeschuk considers.

“In RPGs such as Dragon Age: Origins,” he says, “you have control over your character, story and overall gameplay experience. It was written to fully immerse the gamer within the world to make their gaming experience and to make the story arc and flow very personal and emotional. And that’s the point of games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect – they’re meant to bring you into a world you can control and immerse yourself in. In an MMO such as The Old Republic we’re creating an environment that’s fully expandable for mass numbers of players, with a BioWare-quality story. It’s one of our biggest challenges to date, but we are looking forward to seeing how people from all over the world shape the world and story we have created. The experiences are different but can be both very fulfilling and cater to numerous gaming styles.” It doesn’t exactly answer the question, but his confidence is encouraging.