As spotted on the Resetera forums (opens in new tab), Eidos-Montréal’s executive narrative director Mary DeMarle has joined BioWare as a senior narrative director. DeMarle was most recently responsible for creating the story and leading the writing team on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, which had such excellent back-and-forth patter between its cast we declared it the new king of party banter. Before that, DeMarle oversaw all things Deus Ex, having been lead writer and narrative designer on Deus Ex: Human Revolution before becoming narrative director for the entire franchise.
If you were holding out for a direct continuation of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided by the same team following Embracer Group’s acquisition of Eidos-Montréal, it might be time to let that dream go. Remakes of the original games may well be step one in Embracer’s plans anyway.
DeMarle’s other writing credits include Homeworld 2 and both Myst 3: Exile and Myst 4: Revelation, but it’s her work on Guardians of the Galaxy that seems most relevant to her new position at BioWare. While the plot of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is hopefully fairly solid at this point, just five months ago BioWare was advertizing for a Narrative Director – Mass Effect position (opens in new tab), looking for someone to “Partner with the core leadership to establish the narrative, branching gameplay, and character vision.”
While we don’t have a release date for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf yet, we do know the next Mass Effect is even further off. Though a narrative director would have to answer to a creative director, there’s still plenty of time for DeMarle to make a mark on BioWare’s sci-fi sequel. And those deep-and-meaningful chats between missions in Guardians of the Galaxy sure were reminiscent of Mass Effect at its best, bouncing between witty repartee and some surprisingly moving moments of bonding as they did.