EA Reportedly Rejected Multiple Pitches for Dragon Age: Origins Remake or Remasters

In a recent interview with YouTuber MrMattyPlays, former BioWare veteran Mark Darrah revealed that Electronic Arts (EA) turned down several proposals to remake or remaster Dragon Age: Origins, as well as potentially its sequels Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Darrah, who served as Executive Producer on the first three entries and as a consultant on the upcoming Dragon Age: Veilguard, explained that one idea was to rebrand the trilogy under a unified banner, calling it the Champions Trilogy. This would highlight the series’ iconic protagonists, the Hero of Ferelden (Origins), the Champion of Kirkwall (Dragon Age II), and the Inquisitor (Inquisition). The plan was to modernize the visuals and re-release the three games, possibly alongside Veilguard, as a refreshed collection.

According to Darrah, EA has historically shown little interest in pursuing remasters, despite the commercial success of projects like Mass Effect Legendary Edition. The primary reason, he noted, is that the Dragon Age series is far more complex to update due to its use of three different engines: Origins ran on BioWare’s proprietary Eclipse Engine, Dragon Age II on the Lycium Engine (an enhanced Eclipse), and Inquisition on Frostbite. In contrast, all Mass Effect titles used Unreal Engine, streamlining the remaster process.

“EA has historically been “and they’ve even said this publicly” kind of against remasters,” Darrah said. “It’s strange for a publicly traded company to be against free money, but they seem to be against it. The other problem is that Dragon Age is harder than Mass Effect to do; maybe only a little bit harder, maybe a lot harder.”

Darrah also revealed that an early idea for the cancelled Dragon Age: Joplin project involved transitioning tools to Frostbite and hiring a skilled external modding studio to develop a remake of Origins. Despite these pitches, EA reportedly never moved forward with any such project.

With Dragon Age: Veilguard expected in 2025, fans are left to wonder if EA will ever revisit the origins of the franchise in a modernized form.

Would you want to see a fully remade Dragon Age: Origins, or should BioWare focus entirely on new entries in the series?