Lead producer of next Dragon Age game leaves BioWare

Fernando Melo, lead producer on BioWare's upcoming Dragon Age game, has left the studio, following Anthem lead producer Ben Irving out of the exit door.

Melo worked as a senior producer on Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 before becoming director of online development in 2011. In 2015, he left the role to work on the online portion of Mass Effect: Andromeda, and was later made lead producer on the next Dragon Age game, codenamed Morrison.

Melo said he wanted "time to disconnect and explore a couple ideas for next chapter in my career".

(1/4) Today was my last day at BioWare. After 12 years.. that's a heck of a lot of feels. :)Tonight I got to write my name up at our local pub, alongside many other amazing peers over the years, and it reminded me of a lot of folks no longer here that I miss dearly. pic.twitter.com/MFQELPM2jrAugust 17, 2019

In a parting email to his BioWare Edmonton colleagues, which you can see in the tweet thread above, Melo said Morrison was "well underway to becoming the definitive Dragon Age experience".

"I'm incredibly proud and honoured to have played a part in that. I'll be eagerly awaiting the opportunity to experience the next Dragon Age as a fan this time around."

Last month, a short story collection all but confirmed the setting for the next Dragon Age game.

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Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.