A Dragon Age trilogy remaster may never happen because nobody at BioWare understands the old engine anymore, former producer claims

Former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah has explained why a Dragon Age trilogy remaster in the vein of Mass Effect Legendary Edition is unlikely to materialise, pointing to two compounding problems: EA rejected the pitch outright, and the institutional knowledge needed to actually do it has largely left the company.

The details:

• Speaking to FRVR, Darrah says he proposed what he called a "Champions Trilogy" or "Champion Edition" during his time at BioWare, which would have collected Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. EA turned it down, with Darrah noting the company has historically been resistant to remasters. He called it "strange for a publicly traded company to seemingly be against free money."
• The deeper problem is technical. The original Dragon Age games were built on BioWare's proprietary Aurora Engine, and Darrah says "there is basically no one at BioWare anymore that understands" it. Unlike Mass Effect, which runs on Unreal Engine and could therefore be worked on by any number of external studios, Aurora is unique to BioWare and has never been used anywhere else.
• A remaster would require assembling a dedicated team from scratch, which Darrah says EA is also unwilling to support. EA doesn't like carrying extra headcount, meaning those people would need to come out of BioWare's existing staff and could not be working on other projects at the same time.
• EA's preference for Mass Effect over Dragon Age also plays a role. Darrah says the company wants "mainstream success" and has historically found it harder to view Dragon Age: Origins as a mainstream game, regardless of its critical standing.