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While there have been noises about making a sequel, they quieted down significantly when both Muzyka and Zeschuk left Bioware in 2013. Sadly, while the game sold fairly well, it wasn’t the monster hit either of its successors became. It’s a game that very much feels like it set the stage for what Bioware would do with its big two franchises, and frankly, if they’d waited a year or so and put Jade Empire out for the Xbox 360 I think Bioware would have three big franchises instead of two right now. In a very real way, Jade Empire is Bioware at their Biowareiest - a fast, fun RPG epic that spanned a wide swath of playable zones and let you really dig into the meat of a weird new story, play with strange characters and discover the secrets behind your own life and those around you. The storyline even managed to have one of those classic Bioware surprises in it that I will endeavor not to spoil for you. The gender balance was amazing for the time, with three ladies and three gentlemen to pick from (the special edition added a fourth gent, but that’s still a really good balance for 2005). It lacks the customization of other Bioware games - you are one of six (seven in the special edition) character archetypes, and there’s no option to pick what you look like aside from choosing between those variations. Jade Empire feels more fleshed out, with an innovative combat system that made you feel like a real master of hand to hand combat with a wide variety of styles at your command.
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In a very real way, Jade Empire took the lessons Bioware learned from Knights of the Old Republic. The dialogue contains gems like You can make him fall down a flight of punches, and NPC companions like Kang the Made and Sagacious Zu were worth the price of admission all on their own. They even constructed a language, Thou Fan, rather than use any particular Asian language for the game.Īll of that’s great, but what really sold me on Jade Empire when it came out was how bloody crazy it is. In a way, it’s very similar to how Dragon Age draws its inspiration from a host of western historical and fantasy sources from Tolkien and Leiber to their own earlier games. It wasn’t designed tp mimic a specific era of Chinese history: instead, Jade Empire inhabited a mythical fantasy world that drew from various sources ranging from literature such as Outlaws of the Marsh and Romance of the Three Kingdoms to action films such as Fist of Legend or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as well as folk tales and legends. The game’s development process took from 2001 to 2005, the year of its release. In fact, it’s often described as a dream project of theirs dating back to the formation of the company itself. That game was Jade Empire, and it was a game near and dear to Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, two of Bioware’s founders. And Dragon Age had been on the boards for years - there were ads in Neverwinter Nights touting that Bioware was working on this new franchise, a fantasy RPG that wasn’t beholden to the Forgotten Realms or any other D&D property as were Baldur’s Gate and NWN.īut really, Jade Empire was what started the modern era of Bioware games.īut between Lucasfilm property Knights of the Old Republic and their own Mass Effect IP, Bioware pivoted to an ambitious self-created IP that aimed to capture the feeling of Chinese history, mythology, and martial arts films. In many ways, Mass Effect was Bioware taking the ideas and concepts they’d worked on for Knights of the Old Republic and seeing what they could do with an IP that wasn’t someone else’s. After that point, Bioware would alternate between a Mass Effect game and a Dragon Age game. This doesn’t include every game Bioware ever made, partially because not all of those games were RPG’s and partially because after DAO came out a rhythm was established that persisted right up until Dragon Age Inquisition came out. There’s an easy to follow path in terms of Bioware RPG’s, and it goes like this: Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, Dragon Age Origins.