Community Focus – Adrienne Fiore

Living Bungie’s Values as Engineers

Company values are a funny thing—they can so easily feel like insincere marketing, or wishful thinking of company leadership, or simply a list of generic positive attributes that any company might endorse—a thesaurus-check away from the Scout Law.

Engineering Values Handbook – Teams are Stronger than Heroes

Let’s look at the key ways we try to cultivate high-functioning teams.

This Week at Bungie – 6/2/2022

Our Next Adventure — Dragon Age: Dreadwolf

Our next game now has an official name. We know you’ve anxiously awaited new details, and today we’re excited to reveal the official title of the next adventure across the lands of Thedas—Dragon Age: Dreadwolf™.

Who is the Dread Wolf?

Solas, the Dread Wolf. Some say he might be an ancient elven god, but some say not. Others say a betrayer of his people…or a savior who now seeks to rescue them at the cost of your world. His motives are inscrutable and his methods sometimes questionable, earning him a reputation as something of a trickster deity—a player of dark and dangerous games.

Whether you’re new to Dragon Age™ stories or you’ve experienced them all, using Solas’s namesake no doubt suggests a spectrum of endless possibilities on where things may go. But at the core of this, like every past game, is you. If you’re new to Dragon Age, you have no need to worry about not having met our antagonist just yet. He’ll properly introduce himself when the time is right, but we did hint at his return when we announced #TheDreadWolfRises back in 2018.

More Dragon Age: Dreadwolf later this year

We suspect you have questions and they’ll be answered in time. While the game won’t be releasing this year, we’re growing closer to that next adventure. Rest assured, Solas is placing his pieces on the board as we speak. That’s all we have for now, but we hope knowing the official title has sparked some intrigue, as we’ll be talking more about the game later this year!

What do you think #Dreadwolf could mean?

—The Dragon Age Team

Presenting Your Latest Obsession

Hello, everyone!

This is Sicycre from the Community team. It’s the beginning of June, which means summer is nearly here! The coming days may bring the heat, but wanna know something cool?

The Make It Rain Campaign will be starting soon!

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Event Period
From Friday, 3 June 2022 at 8:00 GMT (18:00 AEST)
to Monday, 20 June 2022 at 14:59 GMT (21 June at 0:59 AEST)

How to Participate
Speak with Ollier at Ul’dah: Steps of Nald (X:9.4 Y:9.2) to begin the quest.

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Quest: A Prickly Plaint
The Gold Saucer attendants are poised to promote their establishment far and wide, but the appeal of a certain sabotender is seemingly lost on its potential patrons…

Event Rewards
▼ Emote: Ballroom Etiquette – Soliciting Applause

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This new emote is all about showing something off in style!

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You can use it to present something to your right,

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or, use it to present something on your left!

The subject you choose to showcase will be presented with a cute sparkle effect, so be creative~! Your limit is your imagination!

Showcase your favorite minions with this new emote!

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Showing off using the new emote is guaranteed* to make things appear 100% more amazing than they would otherwise. Use the new emote when you finally get a minion you’ve been wanting for a while! Show it off!
* Not an actual guarantee.

Use this emote however you like! Whether it’s for a plethora of group pose screenshots, introducing a new member of the free company, or simply praising your typically tardy friend for making it on time to the scheduled raid–we can’t wait to see what you all do with it!

Furthermore, this year’s the Make It Rain Campaign also features a new item to obtain with MGP.

▼ Furnishing: Moogle Balloon

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It’s suuuuuuper tall and big!

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Whether it’s for everyday use or for hosting a party, it’s certainly an eye-catcher and is sure to leave a lasting impression.

You can exchange MGP for this prize and more from the campaign attendant in the Entrance Square of the Gold Saucer. There are also several existing prizes available at a discounted rate, so be sure to check those out too, but there’s one other thing to make this endeavor much sweeter. But before that…

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A number of the new moogle balloons can be found in various places around the Gold Saucer! Gotta find ’em all!

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Okay, so remember how I said there’s one more thing? Get this: During the event, you’ll earn 50% more MGP! So if there’s any prizes like glamour items or mounts that you’ve been scraping together MGP to purchase then you won’t want to miss out on this bonus.

Best of luck racking up the MGP and we hope you enjoy the offerings and activities during the Make It Rain Campaign!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some extremely large desserts to show off.

Sicycre
– Community team
——————————
Visit the Make It Rain Campaign special site.

Destiny 2 Hotfix 4.1.0.1

Developer Story: Mac Walters

Friends, it’s time for another Developer Story, where we meet the folks who make the games that make BioWare what it is. Today we sit down with another member of the Dragon Age™ leadership team: Production Director Mac Walters. Mac has been with BioWare for… wait, 18 years? That can’t be right. Oh, here we go: 18 and a half years. 

In some countries, Mac’s time at BioWare would be old enough to vote.

THE STORY SO FAR

With such a long tenure here, it may surprise you to learn that before joining BioWare, Mac wasn’t in the video-game industry at all. In fact, he’d spent most of his life up to that point thinking that wasn’t even an option. “The first time I realized that there were teams of people who made the games I loved, I thought, ‘I want to do that one day,’” he says. “But growing up, everyone said, ‘Video games? That’s not a real job. You can’t do that.’ So I pursued a bunch of different things that weren’t my passion.”

A chance encounter changed his perspective dramatically. “I happened to meet Ray [Muzyka], one of the founders of BioWare, at a conference,” he says. “He was there talking about how BioWare was a business, how he and Greg [Zeschuk, co-founder] got their MBAs—and I know that doesn’t sound exciting, but I was like, ‘Wait a second, this is a real business? You can do this for a living?’ So I carved out part of my schedule every day to work on a submission to BioWare. That was a long time ago… but it worked out in the end.”

And as for why he looked at BioWare, specifically? “Every time I fall asleep, I’m creating a new world in my head,” Mac tells us. “I’ve been that way since I was a kid. And the worlds that BioWare was building—at that point Neverwinter Nights™ had just come out—those worlds really excited me. They released the Aurora toolset for Neverwinter Nights, which let players create their own RPG stories; I could build those worlds myself. I spent a lot of time playing with that. And there weren’t a lot of companies that were so strongly focused on telling interesting stories and having amazing characters.”

Coming off Mass Effect™ Legendary Edition as its project director, he’s taken on the role of production director for the next Dragon Age, and that role is… well, what, exactly? “The easiest way to think of it,” Mac says, “is to take the two key components of that title and map it to the film or TV industry: imagine someone who’s both producer and director. So you have the vision for a product you’re helping to uphold—something you and the team want to do—but on the producer side, you are also responsible for figuring out how you’re going to support the team in creating that vision. And then you work with the team to actually execute that vision.”

ON DRAGON AGE

This isn’t his first leadership position at the studio, though. During his time here, Mac has held high-level roles across multiple franchises. But he never forgot his very first look at a BioWare game in development—because it was love at first sight.

“When I started at BioWare, I didn’t know what project I was going to be on immediately,” he says, “so I was kind of just wandering around, chatting with people. And I remember someone showed me a super-early concept of Dragon Age: Origins, and there were all these characters having a battle beneath the bridge, with all these arrows flying up and everything. And I was like, ‘Oh, my God, that looks incredible, I want to work on that!’” 

He was fated for a different path, however: he started as a writer on Jade Empire™ before moving to the Mass Effect franchise, graduating from senior writer to narrative director and then to creative director, most recently serving as project director of Mass Effect Legendary Edition. But things have a way of coming around. “Eighteen and a half years later,” Mac says, “I finally get to work on Dragon Age, the one I saw literally on the first day I was at BioWare.”

And what is it that makes that franchise so special? “For me,” he tells us, “it’s exploring a deeply magical world, alongside incredible characters who really make that journey, that exploration, impactful and meaningful. And it’s the diversity of characters, the ability for players to really see themselves in that heroic role. Dragon Age really lets you lean into that. It allows anyone to play the role that they want to play, in a way that they can see themselves as the hero of the story, whatever that means to them. I think that’s one of the great things about BioWare games in general, and specifically the Dragon Age franchise.” 

ON BIOWARE

Talk to enough folks at the studio, and you’ll start to notice a common thread that runs through the developers’ feelings about BioWare, something that you’ll see in all kinds of artistic endeavors: The people who make BioWare games make them because these are the kinds of games they want more of in the world! 

“I assume if you’re reading this blog, you’re probably a fan of at least one of the franchises,” Mac says. “So imagine going to work with a bunch of people like yourself who are fans of the same types of games, who are passionate about making them—and then getting the opportunity to build more of those games. I think that’s what BioWare is; we started as fans of the games that we’re building.”

And that’s kept at the core of everything the team does. “One of the questions we often ask ourselves is, would we want to play this?” he says. “Is this exciting to us? That’s what leads us to develop the games and franchises and worlds that we do. And I think that’s one of the things that makes it so much fun to work here. It is work—but it’s also getting to do something that you’re deeply passionate about.” 

Even after 18 and a half years, Mac doesn’t seem at risk of losing that passion. “The franchises, the worlds themselves—they’re so big,” he says. “Like I said, I go to bed every night thinking about new stories to tell and new places to explore in those worlds. There are so many stories yet to be told.”

Mac Walters is the production director for the next Dragon Age. He can be found on Twitter at @macwalterslives or on his road bike. Or his mountain bike. Or his fat bike. He likes bikes, is what we’re saying.

Developer Story: Corinne Busche

Our latest edition of Developer Stories shows how a career path can take you to different places but still lead you right where you belong. Today the spotlight is on Game Director Corinne Busche who’s helping guide the next Dragon Age™. It’s the latest stop on a more-than-15-year journey that started with… golf?

THE STORY SO FAR

Fresh out of college with a degree in digital animation, Corinne wasn’t originally aiming for a career in games. “I expected I’d probably work in film,“ she says, “but while looking for career prospects, I was fortunate enough to land a contract gig doing environment art on the Tiger Woods franchise. I knew nothing—literally nothing—about golf, but I’ll tell you, from my first taste of being part of a game team, I knew I’d never do anything else. I absolutely fell in love with game design.”

Following her time on the links, Corinne moved over to Maxis’ The Sims™ franchise to work as a systems designer. She remained at Maxis for almost a decade, but when the opportunity to move over to BioWare arose, she jumped at the chance. “It had always been one of those dream destinations for me,” she says. “I just adore RPGs that prioritize choice and offer the kinds of relationships that tug at your heartstrings.”

Now she’s helping guide one of those RPGs herself—though she’s careful not to overstate the directorial role. “Game directors are sometimes thought of as big personalities who are singularly responsible for the purity of their creative vision,” Corinne says. “But for me, it’s really about being a steward for the vision that we, as a team, have collectively defined. I get a high-level view of everything as it’s coming together and can steer the project as it does, but ultimately it’s about empowering people to work together, play with ideas, offer critiques, and make decisions, all to help create a cohesive experience for the player.” 

ON DRAGON AGE

The Dragon Age franchise has a very special place in Corinne’s heart. In part, she says, that’s because the games are all about possibility. “In Dragon Age, you can be who you want to be, explore the possibilities and consequences of your choices, and build relationships that leave a lasting impression,” she says. “Few games give players that kind of autonomy while also weaving such a rich narrative—I think it really speaks to why our players feel so invested in this world.”

And the idea of being who you want to be carries a particularly special meaning for Corinne. “As a queer trans woman,” she says, “I have a perspective on the games that not everyone has. Dragon Age has long been a place where LGBTQIA+ folks can see people like themselves, represented respectfully. It’s inherently very queer, and it’s such a rare thing for marginalized communities to have representation where we feel proud and powerful in how we are depicted. It’s so deeply meaningful for so many. I often get emotional when I think about what it would have meant for a younger version of myself to see someone like her in a game, and as a hero, no less. I hope we can be a safe place for our queer players to know they are not alone, that they are brilliant and worthy, that they are not only welcome but celebrated.”

ON BIOWARE

Corinne has found a similarly welcoming environment at BioWare itself, she says. “I transitioned during my time at BioWare,” she tells us, “and I reflect all the time on how supported and seen I felt through that process, and how lucky I am to be surrounded by people of this caliber. It really speaks to the values of this team, and their commitment to inclusion in their works and their lives.”

And she’s found that this welcoming mindset extends to the fans. “My favorite part of working at BioWare and on Dragon Age specifically is how much we get to interact with, and learn from, our players and fanbase. It always brings a smile to my face when a tweet from a fan gets posted in our Slack channels and sparks discussion. I think our fans would really be surprised if they could see how influential they are in our day-to-day discussions.”

Of course, Corinne is a fan herself, of many kinds of gaming experiences. Board games are a big draw for her, for instance. “I love board games,” she says. “I’m just fascinated by them as a game designer because they really are the craft distilled down to the fundamentals. And I love the social experience.”

Naturally, she also plays a lot of video games—“way too many,” she says. “I’m especially fond of RPGs, action RPGs, and strategy games. Most recently I’ve been playing Elden Ring, Fortnite (don’t @ me!), Slay the Spire, and of course another playthrough of Inquisition.”

And when playing a role in those role-playing games, she remains unabashedly herself. “I guess I play my characters like I behave in real life: rarely mean, sometimes snarky… and always thirsty.”

Corinne Busche is the game director for the next Dragon Age. You can find her on Twitter at @CorinneBusche or seated at a table covered with dice, cardboard, and rulebooks.

This Week at Bungie – 5/26/2022

Destiny 2 Update 4.1.0

This Week At Bungie – 5/19/2022

Bungie Statement on the Terrorist Attack in Buffalo, NY

Community Focus – Ansonikage

This Week at Bungie – 5/12/2022

Introducing the Cosplay Cosmodrome

Destiny 2 Hotfix 4.0.1.3

Community Focus – RoboticAdi

This Week At Bungie – 5/05/2022

Community Update: May the 4th Be With You

Friends! Welcome back to another BioWare Community Update!

The fourth day of May is a special holiday. It is one when we come together to celebrate all things Star Wars™. So please, allow us to say: 

Star Wars Day: May the 4th be with you

While everyone celebrates differently, our May the 4th celebration brings with it a variety of special treats for players of Star Wars: The Old Republic™. First off, all players who log in between May 3rd and May 10th will earn a new minipet: the adorably boxy and extremely visible orange P1-XL Droid.  

During that same time, the Cartel Market will be holding a 50%-off collection-unlock saleand all players will earn double XP. All these promotions run from May 3 (starting at 1200 GMT) to May 10 (ending at 1200 GMT).

We’ve also heard whispers about special May the 4th observances from our friends elsewhere in EA. But you’ll have to ask them about that.

Meet The Team (SWTOR-style)

This is a particularly special May the 4th for us, because Star Wars: The Old Republic recently celebrated its 10th anniversary! So, it’s a perfect time to get to know some of the people behind the game. For this edition of the Community Update, we sat down with Creative Director Charles Boyd, Project Director Keith Kanneg, Lead Cinematic Designer Ashley Ruhl, and Community Manager Jackie Ko to discuss all things Star Wars.

First off, what’s your earliest memory of Star Wars?

KEITH: Well, mine may be the earliest. I had my first date with my wife nearly 45 years ago—to see Star Wars: A New Hope! Over the years, we took our kids to all the Star Wars films, waiting in lines for days, just to be near the front of the crowd. 

CHARLES: I honestly don’t have one specific memory. I grew up with the original trilogy on Betamax and all the toys from my older brother, so it feels like it’s always been a big part of my life.

ASHLEY: I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. I remember watching Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back on VHS, and at the end there was a trailer for Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. I excitedly asked my mom “So when does the next one come out?!” and was delighted to discover we already owned it.

JACKIE: I was probably around that age too—definitely younger than 10. My parents would take us to a video rental place and I remember pointing at a VHS tape of Return of the Jedi because I liked the cover art. I couldn’t quite grasp everything that was happening, but I just knew that I wanted to watch more and I wanted to be just like Princess Leia.

Why do you think Star Wars has become—and stayed—such a major cultural touchpoint? What makes it so special?

CHARLES: I think Star Wars is really excellent at presenting big, grand, and exciting ideas while also keeping them relatable. It’s as much a fairytale as a sci-fi story; family conflicts play out with blasters and space battles, and every location is populated by regular workaday folks right alongside the outlandish aliens and psychic space wizards.

KEITH: Right, Star Wars is about family, but it’s also about good versus evil, with deep and compelling stories. And, you know, lightsabers, stormtroopers, The Force…

ASHLEY: That’s what it is for me, that meshing of technology and fantasy. Star Wars has futuristic visions of spaceships and blasters that are detailed enough to feel real, but it also has a mystical power of The Force connecting all things in the galaxy. We can relate to the experiences while also believing in the magic.

JACKIE: For me, when you look at the original trilogy, it had a perfect combination of action, adventure, love, creativity, wonder—but it only gave a peek into what was clearly a much bigger universe. There are so many more stories that can be told within that galaxy, and each of those only adds to the magic.

What’s your favorite planet in Star Wars: The Old Republic?

KEITH: Oh, that’s not easy to answer! Tatooine comes to mind, but mostly due to A New Hope and a line in our game from Theron: “I don’t like Tatooine, but I do like saying Tatooine.” From a gameplay perspective, my favorite place for Daily Missions is Yavin 4, as there’s tons to do, fun missions, and a wide variety of mobs.

ASHLEY: I really like Voss. I enjoy the design of the Voss people, the landscape, and the experience of the Shrine of Healing. It’s a unique interpretation of The Force that goes beyond the Jedi–Sith conflict.

JACKIE: Alderaan! I cannot get over how beautiful this planet is. I’m from the desert, so I love any landscape that features snow—well, as long as it’s not at Hoth levels! Alderaan has the perfect balance of greenery and magical winter.  

CHARLES: I don’t know if I could pick an all-time favorite, but my favorite recent addition is Mek-Sha, the lawless port built into a mined-out asteroid. I love the gritty outlaw vibe the artists brought to it. It feels like a ramshackle harbor that’s hanging over the void of space.

What is it about Star Wars: The Old Republic that has kept players coming back for more than 10 years?

JACKIE: Well, it’s like what I was saying about the original trilogy: Star Wars: The Old Republic adds to the universe several times over. There isn’t just a singular story. Players can get lost in all kinds of different stories—and then build their own stories and spaces with Strongholds and Guilds and the like.

CHARLES: It really is a unique experience. You play the hero (or villain!) of the story, decide what choices they’d make when it really counts, decide who they’ll romance or befriend or betray, and control their journey across the sprawling Star Wars galaxy.

ASHLEY: And all those different stories keep players coming back to try different roleplay opportunities. You can be a vicious Sith one day and a cavalier smuggler the next, and with a fully voiced story it feels like you’re creating your own cinematic saga. Plus, it’s fun to revisit all the iconic worlds from the movies. Riding a tauntaun mount on Hoth or a bantha on Tatooine is really satisfying.

KEITH: And I think the variety and customization helps make it special. You can be a Jedi, a Sith, a Mandalorian, and more. You can give each one a unique look. And even after 10 years, we have so much more planned. Our fans constantly push us for new content, new features, new ways to play, and I’m fully expecting we’ll continue to surprise them.

Keep an eye on our Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook throughout the month to meet more of the folks who make Star Wars: The Old Republic happen. 

Community Spotlight

Given the special occasion, today we want to highlight some of the best community-created Star Wars: The Old Republic art on our feeds. Check out these amazing creators and give them some love.

And don’t forget to share your own creative works—art, cosplay, video, whatever—if you’d like to be featured in a future spotlight. Again, we’re on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and if you tag us or use a hashtag related to our games (like #SWTOR) we’ll be sure to see it. 

If you haven’t had a chance to check out Star Wars: The Old Republic yet, there’s no better time than right now. Over these past ten years, Star Wars: The Old Republic has been fortunate to be home to a vibrant community and has a ton for new players to explore. If you’re curious to learn more about the game, be sure to check out its website for more details.

Until next time, May the 4th—and The Force—Be With You!

The BioWare Team

STAR WARS and related properties are trademarks in the United States and/or in other countries of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates.

Bungie Supports Essential Healthcare Rights

Developer Story: Benoît Houle

“Follow your passions!” That’s the lesson we’re getting from the subject of today’s Developer Story, Director of Product Development Benoît Houle. See, Benoît has been with BioWare for over a decade and a half, which is an impressive stretch on its own. But before joining the studio, he spent nearly as much time doing something extremely different.

THE STORY SO FAR

“I spent 14 years developing personal-finance software,” Benoît says. “Don’t laugh, I know how to prepare my tax return incredibly well!” Yes, it turns out that a degree in computer science can lead down a number of different paths. But after all that time working as a project manager at a personal finance company you’ve definitely heard of, Benoît was looking for a change. “In 2006, a close friend of mine who worked at BioWare told me they were scaling up development,” he says. “I applied instantly. And I’ve been working here ever since—over 16 years now, mostly on the Dragon Age franchise.”

After starting as a principal project manager for Dragon Age: Origins, Benoît quickly moved up to the position of senior development director and co-director of production, then to director of production. In 2017, he took on his current role as director of product development for the studio. 

Benoît explains this role as being sort of a holistic one. “I work with our amazing team of development directors and producers to manage how we make our games,” he tells us. “The mission is to balance the needs of our players, our employees, and the studio as a whole throughout the development practices. In other words, we’re continuously working to make the process more efficient while keeping key decision-makers fully informed across the project. At the end of the day, we want to foster an environment where our teams can create wonderful games that delight our players.”

ON DRAGON AGE

Benoît has been part of the Dragon Age franchise since the beginning, having a hand in every game and expansion in the series so far. So of course we wanted to hear his take on what makes Dragon Age so special. And here, too, Benoît takes something of a holistic view. “It’s the whole package,” he says. “A rich world, an immersive story, captivating moment-to-moment gameplay—and also emotional, memorable moments with your companions. There’s a great mixture of player agency, brilliantly sharp humor, and really weighty choices with real consequences—you know, those moments when you need to put down the controller for a bit and really think about your choices.”

When we ask about those emotional, memorable companion moments, Benoît cites Cassandra’s development in Inquisition as a prime example. “She starts off the game very guarded,” he tells us, “very focused on one thing: the mission. She comes across as standoffish, even a little hostile—it feels like she doesn’t care about you. But as you spend more time with her, you start to realize that the reason she’s so guarded is that she cares deeply about everyone around her. But caring is dangerous, and sometimes it hurts, and so she keeps you at arm’s length until you’ve spent enough time with her that she feels like she can let down her guard.”

And the fact that Cassandra is willing to let her guard down no matter what kind of character you’re playing points to one of the other things Benoît finds so special about Dragon Age. “I truly love how inclusive our games are,” he says. “This is something that’s very important to the leadership team, and I’m glad that fans appreciate that inclusiveness too.”

ON BIOWARE

That ability to let yourself get lost in the game, no matter who you are, is something that gave Benoît a feeling of kinship with BioWare even while deep in the finance mines. “Even before I got into the industry, BioWare was a tremendous source of escapism and immersion for me,” he tells us. “I spent so much time playing Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic…. To have an opportunity to work for a beloved game developer and be part of creating these amazing worlds and stories has been a dream come true. And I need to provide a huge shout of admiration to our Mass Effect team. They’ve been a constant source of inspiration and have created something truly amazing and remarkable!”

That dream, Benoît says, has come with more than its share of memorable moments—including how the game interacted with celebrities. “I was so thrilled when Inquisition won so many Game of the Year awards,” he says. “And I’ll never forget when we won the best RPG award for Origins at the 2009 Video Game Awards— I was so proud of the team and what we accomplished together…AND receiving the award from Snoop Dogg was definitely a bonus! And I have to say I also really enjoyed working with Thirty Seconds to Mars on the cinematic trailer for Origins.

But it’s pretty clear that when it comes down to it, it’s not the celebrities or the accolades that drive Benoît, but something much closer to home. “You’re probably hearing this a lot, but it’s true: The thing that makes BioWare special is the people. We have an amazing pool of talent, people with the passion and the commitment to create something amazing—every day! The creativity on display here is just astounding!”

Benoît Houle is BioWare’s director of product development.

GUARDIAN GAMES CUP

Destiny 2 Hotfix 4.0.1.2

Community Focus – Grant Stoner

This Week at Bungie – 4/28/2022