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Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Knights of the Old Republic Writer Returns to BioWare

Drew Karpyshyn announces he's back and working on The Old Republic

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Drew Karpyshyn, former lead writer on the Mass Effect series, has announced he's back at BioWare.

Karpyshyn, who was part of the writing team for Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and Mass Effect 2, left the studio in February 2012 to focus on writing novels and other non-gaming works.

In a post on his website, the 12-year BioWare veteran revealed his book trilogy was complete, and now he's rejoining the company.

"I am back working at BioWare again," he said. "For those who don’t know, I spent over a decade with BioWare working on many award winning and fan-beloved games.

"A few years ago I left BioWare to focus on my Chaos Born novels, but now that the trilogy is finished, I’ve decided to come back into the fold. Working at BioWare was a challenging but very rewarding job, and it’s good to be back as part of the team."

Continuing, Karpyshyn said he will part of the Austin studio and working on Star Wars: The Old Republic, not a brand new project.

"I suspect a lot of folks are going to wonder if this means BioWare is about to announce a new project tied to my return. The short answer: no. I originally came to the Austin studio many years ago to work on SWTOR and – at least for now – that’s what I’m focusing on again."

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At E3 2015, BioWare and EA officially revealed Mass Effect Andromeda. According to its developer, work on the newest entry in the sci-fi series was already "well underway" when the Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3 was completed in early 2013.

"We knew we wanted to start with a foundation composed of the best parts of any Mass Effect game: exciting new worlds to discover, great characters, and intense action," BioWare said in a statement.

"At the same time, we clearly wanted to expand the definition of what you should expect from a Mass Effect game."

Andromeda was described as "very much a new adventure, taking place far away from and long after the events of the original trilogy."

Specific details about gameplay or story were not revealed, but a holiday 2016 release was indicated. It's set for release on PC, Xbox One and PS4.

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