BioWare is getting shutdown. It sucks. I'm in mourning.
A lot of days I call Oblivion my favorite game of all time, but BioWare was the studio that shaped my gaming tastes.
It started with KOTOR, which I played because I loved Star Wars. I fell in love with the characters and choices and trying to build this "flawless" playthrough where my character perfectly aligned choices and dialogue to match who I thought they should be. I didn't know the value of RPGs as a genre at this time.
Next it was Jade Empire. I picked it up because I was obsessed with Asian cultures and loved the martial arts themes. Again, I fell in love getting to know a world, characters, and crafting a person in that world.
Later, I got my Xbox 360 and played Oblivion and some other RPGs and started to put together my genre tastes. I learned about Dragon Age: Origins and picked it off the GameStop shelf. I fell in love with Thedas, tried every origin, and beat the game four times in a row. It was my second Mythic/100% achievements game ever. It started something there. I then saw Dragon Age 2 was coming out and asked my parents to preorder it for me. I loved it.
Dragon Age was when I learned who the studio was. I retroactively learned this same team made KOTOR, JE, and DA. I learned about Mass Effect existing and decided to try it.
N7 is tattooed on my chest. RPGs are my favorite genre. I named my first car Avina. I started listening to podcasts to learn more about what was next from BioWare. I went to college for game design thinking I'd get a job at BioWare (pivoted to general software because life). So many little things that I can trace to repeated exposure to this studio and team. Today is tragic. I'm sad.
Thank you to everyone in the BioWare community, dev, fan, whomever.