Several key members of the original BioWare Edmonton team are reuniting for a special event.
It’s happening at the inaugural North American Games Industry Summit (NAGIS) in Edmonton from June 18-19, a conference powered by fintech company Xsolla that’s running alongside sister consumer event Game Con Canada. At NAGIS, the following BioWare alums will take part in a panel on June 18 at 4 p.m. MST:
- Greg Zeschuk (co-founder)
Casey Hudson (creative director, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect trilogy) - Trent Oster (one of the original hires, programmer and artist on several games, including Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights)
- Mark Darrah (a 20-plus-year BioWare veteran who directed Dragon Age II, executive producer of games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Inquisition)
- Mark Meer (voice of male Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect trilogy) — moderator
The panel will officially be called “The BioWare Secret Sauce: What Made Great RPG Teams Work (and What We’d Change Today)”. As the name suggests, the talk should offer some fun insight into the history of the iconic Canadian developer, as well as what the BioWare alums would do if they were still with the company. It’s an exciting reunion given the pedigree of the team, and since leaving BioWare, the quartet has gone on to do some rather interesting things.
While Zeschuk is no longer in the gaming industry, he’s kept busy with various craft brewery investments and the smart playground technology startup, Biba Ventures. Hudson recently formed the Edmonton- and Kelowna-based Arcanaut, where he’s working on a spiritual successor to Knights of the Old Republic called Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic. Oster co-founded the Edmonton-based developer Beamdog in 2009, where he’s remained ever since. And Darrah retired from BioWare in 2020 and has since run an enlightening YouTube channel where he shares advice and gets candid about the gaming industry, including a recent video detailing the issues with BioWare’s ill-fated Anthem.
Notably, the BioWare alums are just some of the many developers and artists set to attend NAGIS. Others include:
- Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell
- Richard Garfield (creator of Magic: The Gathering)
- Ben Gelinas (writer, Times & Galaxy, Mass Effect, Control)
- Ceri Young (writer, Assassin’s Creed series, Gotham Knights)
- Barsun Unique Jones (recording artist and performer, son of the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard of Wu-Tang Clan)
- Toni Domenich (producer, strategist, and co-founder of ATFP Production)
While NAGIS is more of a business-to-business (B2B) event, it does have student options, which is a great way for both industry and aspiring game devs to check out the programming. (What better way to get inspiration than to hear from people like the BioWare legends?)
NAGIS tickets cost $100 for a Student Pass, $235 for an Industry Pass and $350 for a VIP Pass. All passes give you access to NAGIS panels and roundtables, as well as Game Con Canada.
Running from June 19 to 21, Game Con Canada is the country’s largest gaming event, featuring playable video games, board games and tabletop games, celebrity guests like Deborah Ann Woll (Daredevil) and Edmonton’s own Mark Meer (Mass Effect) and more. Game Con tickets start at $12 for day passes, while weekend passes are $32. A special limited VIP pass is also available for $368 that offers a $600 value, including a weekend pass with early entry, VIP seating and a buddy pass, game keys from the likes of Focus Entertainment and Beamdog, a Warhammer introductory set, mystery gifts from EB Games Canada and more.
Game Con and NAGIS are some of the many gaming events happening in Canada over the next several months. Others include the Canadian Game Awards, XP Game Summit, and Montreal International Game Summit. Check out our comprehensive list of events for more.
Image credit: BioWare/EA
