14 DAY TRIAL // Doctor Ray Muzyka and Doctor Greg Zeschuk, the leaders of BioWare and leading developers on a number of high profile video games, have announced that they are retiring from the business of creating games on the official company blog.
Greg Zeschuk stated, “I’ve reached an unexpected point in my life where I no longer have the passion that I once did for the company, for the games, and for the challenge of creation.”
Muzyka added, “I’ve largely personally achieved what I wanted in video games.”
Zeschuk plans to pursue his passion for quality beer while Muzyka will invest in and mentor activists who are trying to push social change.
The pair founded BioWare as an independent developer in 1995 and they have created a number of high profile titles before. In 2007 publisher Electronic Arts picked up the company and made it one of the most important internal development studios it owned.
The first big project that BioWare worked on was Baldur’s Gate, a role-playing title that is widely seen as having revived the genre after a period of decline.
The game is still much loved and an Enhanced Version, which aims to update the mechanics for current PCs and tablets, is set to launch later during the year.
Baldur’s Gate spawned a sequel and an expansion that delivered almost as much new content as a whole new title and BioWare used the Dungeons & Dragons universe to create another party- based franchise, Icewind Dale.
After that BioWare worked on Neverwinter Nights, a game that used the same universe but asked the player to explore on his own.
In 2003 BioWare launched Knights of The Old Republic, an action role-playing game that used the well-known Star Wars universe and set the action 3,000 years before the events of the movie series.
Since being bought by Electronic Arts, BioWare has created another successful series, Mass Effect, and worked on their first MMO project, Star Wars: The Old Republic.