30 years of RPG history in one image: Fans bid farewell to BioWare

Games like Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age have shaped entire generations of gamers. However, as we previously reported, EA announced the closure of BioWare on October 21, 2026. With its departure, the gaming industry is losing a true RPG legend. Beyond the studio's three biggest franchises, BioWare also released several other games since 1996 that deserve a proper farewell. On Reddit, fans are now looking back at 30 years of RPG history – with every BioWare game captured in a single image.

BioWare's first game was Shattered Steel, released in 1996, around a year after the studio was founded. However, it wasn't an RPG but a futuristic mech shooter that attracted relatively little attention. The breakthrough came two years later with Baldur's Gate. Between the first and second Baldur's Gate games, BioWare also released MDK 2, a wonderfully bizarre action shooter in which, among other things, a heavily armed robotic dog battles aliens. The game received plenty of praise at the time but has probably been forgotten by many players amid the studio's major RPG successes.

ⓘ BioWare

ⓘ BioWare

Between Baldur's Gate and Mass Effect, BioWare released several other excellent games in the early 2000s. With Neverwinter Nights (2002), for example, the studio built on its success with Baldur's Gate but introduced a fully three-dimensional game world. One of its standout features was an extensive editor that allowed players to create their own adventures. The game currently holds a Metascore of 91. Of course, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic also deserves a mention. To this day, many consider it one of the best Star Wars games ever made. Then there's the Eastern-inspired action RPG Jade Empire, which, with a Metascore of 89, also ranks among the studio's highest-rated games.

ⓘ BioWare

ⓘ BioWare

ⓘ BioWare

One game that stands out from the rest is Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, released in 2008. Many Reddit users weren't even aware that BioWare had developed a Sonic game. It's also striking that BioWare released more than half of the 20 games shown in the collage between 2005 and 2014. This period was arguably the studio's golden age. Things went downhill afterward with titles such as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem and Dragon Age: The Veilguard – and now BioWare is history.

As a child in the 90s, my Gameboy was my steady companion. After school, the PlayStation was fired up. When I finally got my first PC, I was completely hooked. My passion for gaming has never waned since. For me, writing for Notebookcheck means reporting on topics that are really close to my heart - in addition to gaming, I also like to write about e-mobility, photovoltaics and innovative gadgets. When I'm not sitting at my computer, I'm probably on water rescue duty on the Baltic coast or trying to counteract the downsides of my geek life - namely sitting for long periods - at the local swimming pool.