In Worrying Sign For ‘Ghost Of Yōtei’, Two ‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’ Writers Found To Have Left BioWare For Sucker Punch Productions
In an update that could potentially have a worrying effect on Ghost of Yōtei‘s potential narrative direction, a pair of now-former Dragon Age: The Veilguard writers have left BioWare following the failure of their latest title in favor of new positions at Sucker Punch Productions.
Now employed as Senior Writers at the Sony subsidiary, the two writers, John Dombrow and Courtney Woods, previously worked as staff writers on The Veilguard before making the move to their new place of employment.
And although Dombrow and Woods’ new assignments have only recently come to public attention thanks to the Ghost of Yōtei IMDB being updated to list them as the only confirmed members of the game’s writing team, both writers’ respective exits from BioWare are far from new developments.
The first to leave was Woods, then a ten-year veteran of the once-beloved studio who had contributed to the scripts of such titles as Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, and Anthem.
Taking to her personal Twitter account on September 19th, 2022, Woods revealed, “I am SO excited to announce today is my first day as Senior Staff Writer at Sucker Punch Productions! I can’t wait to work with and learn from my incredibly talented coworkers. This is a dream come true for me!”
A few months later, Dombrow, who in his almost twenty-year career in the Western video game industry has contributed script work to such titles as Mass Effect 3, BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea – Episode One, and Anthem, as well as serving as the lead writer on Mass Effect Andromeda, would likewise announce that he too would be departing BioWare for Sucker Punch Productions.
“I’ve had a terrific time working at Bioware on Dragon Age and Mass Effect all these years,” he wrote via his personal LinkedIn profile in early 2023 (the site does not provide specific dates for posts over a certain age). “Now it’s time for a new adventure, and I couldn’t be more excited to announce I’ve joined the awesome team at Sucker Punch.”
In the interest of fairness, while Dombrow’s LinkedIn profile explicitly lists ‘Senior Writer on Ghost of Yōtei‘ as his current role, it is currently unknown how much, if at all, Woods is contributing to the highly-anticipated sequel, as no one connected to either Sucker Punch or Sony have offered any public information regarding her current assignment.
And while many fans understandably will respond to this news with apprehension and even a little bit of ‘doom and gloom’, there does exist the distinct possibility that despite their struggles with the sci-fi and high-fantasy genres, both Dombrow and Woods hit their stride with a historical, real-world-inspired tale that provides slight ‘guard rails’ to how much one can necessarily play with their setting.
But regardless, the sheer fact that writers who contributed to such an absolute narrative ‘miss’ as Dragon Age: The Veilguard – not to mention other disappointments like Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem – are apparently now in charge of producing a sequel to the much-beloved Ghost of Tsushima does not inspire confidence in Sucker Punch’s next outing – and given such amazing instances of The Veilguard writing as Taash’s temper tantrum over her mother’s confusion regarding her non-binary identity, it’s going to take a lot to convince skeptics to take a trip back to the fields of historical Japan.
At present, Ghost of Yōtei is scheduled to draw its blade sometime in 2025, but it does not yet have a specific release date.
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