Drew Karpyshyn Announces His Second Retirement From BioWare

Yes, it’s true. As of Friday, March 2, I am no longer an employee of BioWare/EA. Some of you might be thinking, “Wait, this sounds familiar!”. Yes, this is my second retirement from BioWare. Last time, I left to focus on my Chaos Born trilogy. This time, I’m leaving to pursue a number of other projects, including more original novels, an original sci-fi graphic novel I’m co-creating, and freelance gaming work.

I know a lot of you are wondering why I’m doing this. For many people, working at BioWare would be their dream job and they can’t imagine anyone stepping away from it. But it was time for me to move on.

Everyone who works at BioWare pours their heart and soul into the games they are making. It’s creatively demanding and – at times – exhausting. In the past, I’ve managed to juggle outside projects with my work at BioWare, but it always took a toll. And there were always outside projects I had to pass on because they would represent a conflict of interest with BioWare or EA properties.

So I made the decision to step back (again) and focus on my freelance work. I’d love to say more about the novel(s) I’m working on, or my graphic novel project, but those details will have to wait a while. (Yes, I’m using this announcement to tease other future announcements. In marketing, they call that “synergy”.)

But I’m not leaving games entirely. As of Monday, I’m officially working with Fogbank Entertainment and FoxNext Games. I can’t say a lot about what we’re up to yet, but here’s the official Fogbank Entertainment announcement.

I’m very excited to be part of the Fogbank team. I’ve worked with both Daniel and Alex before in my BioWare days, and I really like what they’re building. Obviously, this release is a bit cryptic, but as more details of what I’m working on getting announced, I’ll be sharing them on my Twitter feed and here on the NEWS page of my website.

Moving forward, I expect to start making semi-regular posts here, and not just about the projects I’m working on. One of the great things about being a freelance writer is I can write about… well, anything. So maybe I’ll react to politics or sports (and piss a bunch of people off). Maybe I’ll give my opinion on certain movies or TV shows (and piss people off). Maybe I’ll talk about my golf game or my favorite places to eat in Austin (and bore people). Maybe I’ll write posts about my creative process, using mysterious references to unreleased projects (and piss people off). And maybe (definitely) I’ll be posting information about any conventions I’m attending or public appearances I’m making or interviews and podcasts I’m doing. (Another benefit of going freelance is more free time to interact with my fans.)

Drew Karpyshyn 

The writer will now work on other projects, first for FoxNext Games’ new studio, Fogbank Entertainment, alongside former BioWare writers Alex Freed and Daniel Erickson. The project is an “episodic narrative game, which will draw from story, character, and location elements based on acclaimed Fox intellectual property as well as original content.”

You can find the full announcement here.