Mary DeMarle has joined Bioware as the new senior narrative director on the studio’s upcoming Mass Effect game. In her former career as a writer at Eidos Montreal, DeMarle wrote on Deus Ex: Human Revolution and its sequel Mankind Divided, along with last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
DeMarle served a 14-year tenure as narrative director and lead writer at Eidos Montreal before her departure earlier this year.
DeMarle announced her arrival at Bioware via her LinkedIn. Though it wasn’t immediately clear which of Bioware’s franchises she would be working on, Mass Effect project director Michael Gamble revealed on Twitter that she was joining his team. DeMarle becomes the senior narrative director on the studio’s upcoming Mass Effect game.
Oh, hey!
I’m really excited to let you know that Mary DeMarle will be joining the Mass Effect team as Senior Narrative Director. You’ve seen her work in Guardians of the Galaxy & Deus Ex (to name a few!). She’s amazing.— Michael Gamble (@GambleMike) July 4, 2022
DeMarle began her career in games as the writer on Myst III in 2001. She then wrote Homeworld 2 in 2003, before returning to the Myst series in 2004. Her narrative stewardship of the Deus Ex series at Eidos Montreal won her multiple plaudits, despite the mechanical shortcomings of those newer games. She was the narrative lead on last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which went on to win Best Narrative at last year’s Game Awards. A move to the Mass Effect team certainly plays to DeMarle’s strengths as a science fiction writer.
While we still don’t know much about BioWare’s next game, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, we know that it’s been in development since at least 2018. The new Mass Effect isn’t anywhere near as far along. At the time of the most recent update BioWare provided on that game, it was being “actively prototyped” internally. First announced in December 2020, BioWare has had very little to say about the game since, except to address a leak suggesting Command Shepard would return.
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