BioWare bosses clam on Mass Effect, admit more DS plans, reveal 500-strong staff roster

Speaking to VG247 at LucasArts in San Francisco yesterday, BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk said that the team behind freshly-revealed Star Wars MMO The Old Republic will be the biggest team in BioWare’s history, as well as confirming some future dev plans and a fairly startling figure regarding the size of the company as a whole.

“A whole range of stuff,” said Zeschuk when asked how the developer was split down now in terms of resources.

“Obviously, we’ve got this game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, down in Austin. The studio’s dedicated to that.

“We got a lot of stuff going on in Edmonton. There’s Mass Effect stuff going on: we won’t say exactly what, or when, or how.

“We also have Dragon Age, and we recently released the Sonic handheld game for DS, and we’ve got other DS plans that we’re thinking about these days.

“It’s quite a bit of stuff. We’ve a pretty a big plate full of things we’re working on. Across the studio we number probably over 400 people.”

Muzyka added: “Close to 500 including Austin."

Ray wouldn’t be drawn on the specific size of the team for The Old Republic, however.

“We’re not talking about team size and structure and things like that, or scheduling, but it’s a big team,” he said.

“It’s going to be the biggest team we’ve ever had at BioWare.”

The Old Republic was announced in San Francisco yesterday.