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BioWare

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BioWare is an Edmonton, Alberta-based video game developer known for makingWestern RPGs. Formed in 1995 by three doctors[1], they originally did mostlyLicensed Games but recently they've been creating their own universes.

Let's just say that some of theirRPGs have developed a reputation for being the video game equivalent ofDoor Stoppers, in the best sense of that term. You play a BioWare gamebecause of the dialogue trees, the hours spent on developing side characters, understanding the world, and reading the Codex. The writing tends to be of good quality too, so much thatBenCroshaw once said that, if you're playing a BioWare game, it's a given that the writing is going to be good.

Mythic Entertainment and EA 2D have been absorbed into the company, as BioWare-Mythic and BioWare-San Fransisco, respectively. They've recently been split from EA Gamesinto their own label, meaning that they have their own advertising staff, and even their own online TV channel,BioWare Pulse...KlickNation has been acquired by Electronic Arts, and is being combined with what was previously EA 2d, to makeBioWare Social... Andthe new Victory Games studio, has been incorporated under thename "BioWare Victory", to makeCommand & Conquer: Generals 2.


Games developed by BioWare:

BioWareRPGs are sometimes called a genre itself. While it's not exactly true, their roleplaying games are indeed unique. They have a number of persistent tropes that move from game to game, and only setting is changed. That's the fact BioWare gets a lot of criticism and praise for.

This being said, worldwide popularity, influence and acclaiming of BioWare games once again proves to the world the fact which is well-known in our community:Tropes Are Tools.


List of tropes persistent in BioWareRPGs:
  • Action Girl: The majority of the recruitable female characters will be this.
  • Exclusively Evil: Often subverted. Drow, krogan, geth, qunari and many other examples come to mind. Played straight in other works.
  • Anti-Hero: Shepard, Hawke, and the Grey Warden stand out the most.
  • Anti-Grinding: This doesn't mean there isn't pointless combat (Far from it), just that it has no reward and appears in fixed places.
  • Astroturf: An employee of BioWarewent to theDragon Age II Metacritic page and gave the game a 10. While this isnot an example of astroturfing (EA described it as the equivalent of voting for yourself in an election), it did inspire a case ofastroturfing astroturfing, where fans ofThe Witcher went onThe Witcher 2‍'‍s Metacritic page, gave the game of zero, andpretended to be BioWare employees.[please verify]
  • Badass: Seriously, name one character from the games who doesn't fit into any badass subtrope.Mass Effect 2 is an excellent example, since your mission is to recruit a team ofBadass.
  • Battle Couple: The PC and his/her love interest.
  • Bi the Way: Knights Of The Old Republic was to include a gay love interest, which reportedly didn't sit so well withLucasArts. Since then all games included at least one bisexual love interest of either sex that are open to same sex relationships. True to the trope, this is never treated as something unusual by the games, mostly because their "bisexual" characters havenothing changed by the PC's sex.
  • Betty and Veronica: If a BioWare game includes more than one female NPC who can be romanced, it's a safe bet that one of them will be a cute, innocent girl-next-door type while the other will be a more exotic and sexy femme fatale. Some examples include:
    • Aerie and Viconia inBaldurs Gate 2.
    • Dawn Star and Silk Fox inJade Empire.
    • Liara and Ashley inMass Effect 1 and3.
    • Tali and Miranda (or Jack) inMass Effect 2.
    • Leliana and Morrigan inDragon Age Origins somewhat subvert this trope: At first Leliana comes across as the Betty, but you later learn that she has a rather promiscuous past. Meanwhile, Morrigan dresses likeThe Vamp, but she can be surprisingly prudish when it comes to sex.
    • Perhaps the most blatant example of this trope is Merrill and Isabela inDragon Age II.
  • Blood Knight: At least one recruitable (The Black Whirwind,Canderous,Oghren),Wrex and Grunt.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Often the same character as theBlood Knight, but not always.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Although there is nothing stopping you from playing aVillain Protagonist, you should be aware that, unlike the good dialogue options, most of the evil ones simply boil down to "Jerkasswho does thingsFor the Evulz."
    Of course, some of those options exist in these games, butMass Effect 1,Dragon Age, and sometimesJade Empire avert this.Dragon Age is particularly good at it, due to a lack ofKarma Meter. You can come up with a good, rational reason to do just about every evil thing. To the point where one can measure the development of BioWare's storytelling and karma meter use in their ability to challenge the player with hard choices. TheDragon Age: Origins expac in particular has a choice which seems to have no "correct" answer.
  • Character Development: Alot in most, if not all of their games.
  • Darker and Edgier: Their later work tends towards this. Despite sharing somewhat similar design styles, uniformly excellent writing and a signature character style,Knights of the Old Republic andMass Effect might have been made by different companies. If one takes the Darker and Edgier path throughKnights of the Old Republic, there's a definite trend. The difference being thatKnights of the Old Republic leaves the option to the player.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: A frequent theme, although games like Knights of the Old Republic play this trope straight.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Seems to be the prime tenet of BioWare games--at least two or three companions will sway towards snarkiness.
  • Deconstruction: Mostly of common character archetypes or plots.
  • Dialogue Tree: This is the reason why BioWare games are considered doorstoppers. Dialogues are plentiful.
  • Enemy Mine: The main protagonists of several games can be played with this motivation.
    • The Dalish Warden inDragon Age can state their sole reason to defeat the Blight is to save their own people.
    • InMass Effect 2 Commander Shepard is forced to work with the Illusive Man to stop the Collectors.
  • Evil Is Petty: Inevitably, being evil in a BioWare game will mean "be a rude, selfish jerk".
    • Dragon Age is a bit better about this, what with the lack of aKarma Meter, but gaining the approval of "evil" party members will take you down the path to jerkassery nonetheless.
    • They may have successfully made "evil" downright badass inMass Effect 2, though:

Volus: Shoot them! Shoot the--
(Renegade Interrupt: Volus' bodyguards get gunned down)
Shepard: Too slow.

    • Renegade Shepard has generally been the victim of inconsistent characterization throughout theMass Effect series. While s/he generally acts like an ignorant thoughBadass thug, there are some moments at which s/he seems almost like aMagnificent Bastard, likeat the end ofME 1, in which he and Udina orchestrate the rise of aHuman Led Council to replace the one Shepard left to die, securing humanity's position as the galaxy's dominant race. or inthe genophage arc ofMass Effect 3, during which !Renegade Shepard dupes the Krogan into thinking the genophage has been cured when it actually hasn't, and informs the Salarians of this deception, securing both their aid and that of the Krogan.
  • Expy
  • Flavor Text: Weapons usually have a description, as do other items (planets inMass Effect, for instance, have up to three or four paragraphs of description, even if you aren't supposed to stay more than ten minutes on them).
  • Fighter, Mage, Thief: Averted only inD&D-based games.Mass Effect represents this trope with Combat/Biotics/Tech.
  • Filler: Most of the minigames may qualify.
  • Genki Girl: One of the romanceable females will usually be this.
  • Hide Your Gays: Can be charted pretty well from being played straight to being completely averted.Knights of the Old Republic had it vetoed byLucasArts,Mass Effect 1 had gay romances scripted but removed at the last moment, the options becoming available inJade Empire,Dragon Age II finally gave equal amounts of options, regardless of gender (outside of one character), andMass Effect 3 is their first game to feature romance options that exclusive to the same gender. This trope is coming into play withThe Old Republic now, with similar flashpoints asDragon Age II had -- namely, people complaining that it lacks a same-sex romance option, and those railing against thepossibility of such an option in their MMO. Apparently itwill be an option, but in a post-release patch.
  • Karma Meter: There's usually one of some degree. BioWare used a standard Good vs Evil meter for all d20 games (all of 'em are licensed). Thus,Jade Empire andMass Effect are criticized for narrowing moral conflicts down to two choices -- heal the kitten vs. kill the kitten, despiteOpen Palm vs. Closed Fist is more like Altruist vs.Social Darwinist, andParagon vs. Renegade are more like Idealism Versus Cynicism, Paragon sometimes even acts exactly like a Closed Fist adept would. Thus, there is noKarma Meter at all inDragon Age, which was replaced byRelationship Values.
    InDragon Age, due to the fact that the PC's good/evil actions is reflected by which characters relationship values will build up the fastest. Ex: choosing the heroic and unambiguously "good" choice will lead like-minded, good-aligned characters to approve of your actions, making it easier to build camaraderie, loyalty, romance, etc. with them by opening new dialogue options and plot elements while simultaneously leading the more morally ambiguous members of your group to disapprove, which leads them to shun any efforts of building relationships with them by limiting said choices and quite possibly making them dislike you altogether. So the karmic dichotomy still stands, but only on the characters' front. You can just leave them behind while being morally questionable without repercussion, aside from one flagrant defilement of a major religious figure's remains.
  • Light Is Not Good: Plenty of examples, especially when aChurch Militant is involved.
  • Loads and Loads of Loading: Commonly found in their games, but as computers got faster this became less of an issue.
  • Love Redeems: If your love interest has an evil alignment (or a love interest thatswitches to the evil alignment), expect this to hit them full force. Unless she's Morrigan.
  • Mr. Fanservice: At least one romancable.
  • Multiple Endings: Slowly evolved over the games they made.
    • Baldurs Gate finished with theThrone of Bhaal expansion which offered the player character a choice between finishing as a Good God/Evil God/Staying Mortal. Outlined with text epilogues.
    • Jade Empire had different endings based on your Karma Meter, the romantic relationships between yourself and your followers and their Karma meters as well. It also had hidden pasts for two characters resulting in about three or four different endings per follower on top of the three main endings for your own alignment (Good/Evil/Dead/In Love With Hero/Secret Past/Secret past and In love with Hero/Evil with a secret past whilst in love with the hero... and you get the idea). These epilogues were only played after the main ending cutscene, however, which was chosen from 3 possibilities depending on whether the main character was good/evil/an idiot.
    • Dragon Age Origins had genuinely different ending choices that would change who died and lived (including the Warden) and the fates of various characters over the course of the game were spelled out by epilogue text-cards.
    • Mass Effect 3's (perceived)lack of this trope was a major part of the fandom's bitter response to it.
  • Mythology Gag
    • Boo, the Miniature Giant Space Hamster, makes appearances in theBaldurs Gate series. You can buy a space hamster with a knowing smile inMass Effect 2.
    • Chiktikka Fastpaws is a raccoon sidekick of a god that Aerie ofBaldurs Gate invokes by saying, "faster than Chiktikka Fastpaws!" Chik'tikka vas Paus is Tali ofMass Effect's combat drone. She'll shout "No one is faster than Chik'takka vas Paus!" during combat. She'll also shout "Go for the optics, go for the optics!", which is a reference to the aforementioned Boo and the shout his owner Minsc will say.
    • "How's adwarf get namedShepard?"
    • Really, every BioWare games after the early ones with nothing to call to has at least one companyMythology Gag in it.
    • Baldurs Gate: "Lord Foreshadow", who was heading to Neverwinter.
  • Old Save Bonus: Started withBaldurs Gate where a character imported from the first game could have better stats and some items that could be use to forge new gear. TakenUp to Eleven during theMass Effect series where an imported character would carry over a huge number of decisions from the first game that would majorly impact the second (and a number of minor impacts too). Expect this to go even further in the third game.
  • Optional Party Member: Despite the fact each of them gets truck loads ofCharacter Development and enough dialogue to fill a novel, only about two of your party members will actually be important to the plot. Generally a male and female lead, who will probably love interests.
  • Optional Sexual Encounter: Played straight withBaldur's Gate II andNeverwinter Nights, but tends to be subverted in many of their other games by having lasting, serious consequences for the player's actions.Mass Effect andDragon Age do both, with optional encounters early in the game and serious romantic interests later.
  • Planet of Hats: Generally averts this in their games, taking stereotype races or cultures and deconstructing them. Brilliantly and most notably averted in theMass Effect series.
  • Pre-Climax Climax: InJade Empire andMass Effect. Potentially one inDragon Age.
  • Reconstruction: While there aredeconstructions in it,Mass Effect is generally seen as aReconstruction of the sci-fi genre.
  • Rescue Introduction: BioWare likes this trope for party members:
    • Mass Effect: Ashley, Liara and Tali from the first game. Archangel,Legion, arguably Jack and Grunt from the second game. In retrospect,Wilson is a subversion, since he's the one who coordinated an attack on the facility on behalf of the Shadow Broker.
    • Dragon Age Origins: ThePlayer Character for Flemeth, and then more conventionally: Sten, Shale and arguably Wynne.
    • TheAwakening expansion has Anders, Oghren, Sigrun and Justice all traditionally rescued, while Velanna subverts this because the Warden was actually rescuing trade caravansfrom her. Likewise, Nathaniel is first encountered in the dungeons after being captured during an attempt tomurder the Warden.
    • InDragon Age II, Hawke and family meet Aveline by saving her and her husband from darkspawn. Flemeth again introduces herself after rescuing Hawke and company from darkspawn.
    • Baldurs Gate 2: Branwen, Dynaheir, Viconia, Yeslick and Xan in the first game; Aerie, Cernd, Haer'Dalis, Viconia (again!), Mazzy and arguably Minsc and Jaheira in the sequel.
    • Knights of the Old Republic has you rescuing Bastila (or as she'll insist, her rescuing you...)
  • Romance Sidequest: Basically a trademark of BioWare games. Starting with a minor sidequest in theTales of the Sword Coast expansion toBaldur's Gate and implemented as a major feature inBaldur's Gate 2, after which it became a staple of their games.
  • Sliding Scale of Linearity Versus Openness: Mostly type V, butsomeare more of a Type IV.
  • Sociopathic Hero: At least one will be a possible party member, if not the player his or herself.
  • Strictly Formula: BioWare games follow acharacteristic pattern.
  • The End Is Nigh
    • BioWare justloves doomsayers. From Manuel inMass Effect 1 to some crazy old kook inKOTOR...
    • The Doomsday Prophet on Omega inMass Effect 2 says this verbatim.
  • Troperiffic: Dear God yes. A notable example being theMass Effect series which after only two games, three books and two comic series, has over thirty pages on this site.Mass Effect 3's main page had a good 150 tropes on it before it was evenreleased.
  • True Companions: Usually what the party becomes by the end of the game, though certain members will always despise each others.
  • Tsundere: One of the romanceable females will be this.
  • Villain Protagonist: If you decide to be a bad guy. In most games, however, you can't be a fully-fledged evil-doer. You musttry to save the world.
  1. ↑hence the name "BioWare"; their first products were patient simulation software
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/BioWare?oldid=2052606"
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