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BioWare's New IP Is Story-Based, Not Being Announced Anytime Soon

"It's a privilege to get to work on new IP."

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BioWare manager Aaryn Flynn has shared some new insight into the Mass Effect developer's mysterious new IP. Speaking to Game Informer, Flynn said the unannounced game is coming along well. He also stressed that you shouldn't expect the game to be announced soon.

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"We're not going to talk about it until we're confident about what it's going to be and everything," he said. "We've been doing reviews with [EA CEO Andrew Wilson], and I think he likes it. So, knock on wood, we'll keep working on it and we'll keep doing it. Hopefully you'll hear more about that once Andromeda's done and we've satisfied fans with that game."

Asked what piece of feedback Wilson gave BioWare in his review session, Flynn said the CEO might have said the game is "more done" than what he would have expected. The game, which is being made by members of the Knights of the Old Republic team, was playable all the way back in 2013.

Speaking generally about working on a new IP, Flynn said BioWare feels lucky to be able to do so.

"It's a privilege to get to work on new IP. It's one of those once every ten years kind of a thing that you get to do," he said.

BioWare did a lot of "soul-searching" to determine what it wanted to make for a new IP, Flynn said.

"You have to ask yourself, 'Do you want to do something that fiercly different or do you want to do something that's very recognizable?' 'Do you want to take something that you've done and put a spin on it, or do you want to wipe the slate clean and say what would we do in this.' And for us, what we said was we're BioWare, so we have a certain kind of game that we love making and we know our fans would love, so we started with that and that's a game that has as its heart stories and storytelling. So we decided we're going to stick with that. We're not just going to walk away from that."

"Once we agreed on that, everything started to fall into place."

Flynn added that BioWare's ambition with the new IP is to "push technology." He went on to say that the game aims to have believable, relatable characters; those that you would want to know in real life.

Also in the interview, Flynn said the canceled BioWare game Shadow Realms might have been announced too early. He added that the developer is hoping not to repeat that mistake with the new IP. Flynn also added that BioWare is interested in finding out a way to make a co-op campaign work in a future game.

BioWare announced its new IP in September 2012, saying the game is being built from the ground up running on "new gaming technology." This could have been a reference to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, which hadn't been released yet. In March 2013, former BioWare designer Casey Hudson said the game will deliver "something new, the way we did at the very beginning of Mass Effect."

Flynn's full interview with Game Informer is incredibly fascinating and well worth your time if you're interested in Mass Effect and BioWare in general. Watch the video interview here.

BioWare's next game is Mass Effect: Andromeda, which comes out in Spring 2017. In the interview today, Flynn said BioWare could delay the game out of that window if it's in the best interest of the title; EA's CFO said this, too. We learned more about the game today in the area of cooperative multiplayer.

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