Mass Effect: Legendary Edition outperformed expectations

Electronic Arts reported its earnings today, and the company revealed that it is very happy with the success of some of its recent releases. In particular, the updated Mass Effect: Legendary Edition was a major launch for the publisher and developer BioWare. But even with all of the hype for the return of that series, the game ended up outperforming EA’s internal forecasts.

“The launch of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition … reignited passionate fans around the world,” EA chief executive officer Andrew Wilson said on an investor call today. “[And it drove] sound performance that was well above our expectations.”

EA was aiming to rekindle fond memories for Mass Effect while also building a profitable product. But with the Legendary Edition, it seems that the company has reminded a generation of gamers why they loved the Mass Effect series in the first place. And the game earned a significant return on investment.

While EA and BioWare won’t be ready to capitalize on this success for a few years, it should provide a morale boost for BioWare as it attempts to build the next Mass Effect game for this reinvigorated audience.

Mass Effect’s success should also help provide evidence that EA and BioWare are making the right decision when it comes to the structure of its next games. EA was considering focusing on multiplayer and live-service mechanics for Dragon Age 4, according to a Bloomberg story from Jason Schreier. But EA abandoned that in favor of a more traditional-style single-player RPG. That’s something that I can independently corroborate, according to a source familiar with the studio.

But does Mass Effect: Legendary Edition’s success mean a Dragon Age: Legendary Edition is coming? Possibly, but that’s a slightly different set of circumstances. Mass Effect is a continuous, connected trilogy. The Dragon Age games are much more loosely connected, and therefore EA might not feel the need to bring back those games to prepare fans for Dragon Age 4.