Writer Drew Karpyshyn announced he is joining 21st Century Fox's gaming division FoxNext and its new studio Fogbank Entertainment after leaving BioWare for the second time.
In a post titled "A New Beginning" on his official website on Mar. 9, Karpyshyn announced that he was no longer part of BioWare or Electronic Arts (EA) Entertainment as of Mar. 2. He also acknowledged that this is the second time he will be leaving the video game studio and that the reason for his first retirement in 2012 was that he focused on his making his fantasy "Chaos Born" trilogy of novels. This time, however, he left to pursue other projects including more original novels, an original science-fiction (sci-fi) graphic novel he is co-creating as well as freelance gaming work.
Karpyshyn has been widely known for his contribution to BioWare's games such as "Baldur's Gate II," "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic," "Star Wars: The Old Republic" and the first two entries in the "Mass Effect" franchise. He was reportedly working on BioWare's upcoming online science-fiction (sci-fi) shooter "Anthem" before he announced he left BioWare. Wccftech reported that BioWare general manager Casey Hudson confirmed "Anthem's" development will in no way be affected by the famous writer's departure as he had wrapped up his work on the game before he left the game studio.
Eurogamer reported that Fogbank is a 20-person game studio based in San Francisco. The game studio is run by another former BioWare staff member, Daniel Erickson, the founder of BioWare Austin and the creative director for "Star Wars: The Old Republic" which Karpyshyn has previously worked on. Aside from Erickson, Karpyshyn will also be working together with BioWare former lead writer Alex Freed who had also worked on the same "Star Wars" installment the two did. Both Erickson and Freed left BioWare in 2012, the same year Karpyshyn left the game studio for the first time.
