At the bidding of BioWare's bosses, David Gaider created the world of Thedas, the setting of Dragon Age. And lo, it was beautiful, for a time. But he left the company after an abortive spell on Anthem, and today he's working on a new RPG.
"You play a crew of rogues in an airship that go around performing heists," he says. "And this leads you into a plot that becomes, maybe, your more typical RPG."
Gaider is best known for his dark riffs on sword and sorcery—beginning with the half a million words he wrote for Baldur's Gate 2, before taking on the all-timer Neverwinter Nights campaign Hordes of the Underdark. Then there was the decade he spent steering Dragon Age. But this time, he's shooting for something a little more lighthearted.
"I wanted to do something that was not full-on comedy, but something that could make me smile," he says. "It seems like at this point in the world, we could use something like that. I know I could. So that's what we've been working on, and it's been getting a great reception."
The trouble is, the games industry is currently on fire. "It's been almost three years it's been going through this weird contraction," Gaider says. "The most obvious e...
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