It’s tough to express how much of a bummer this whole mess has been. Veilguard is such an embarrassingly lazy, shallow experience.
Placing all of the blame on Busche isn’t fair, as she was brought in at the end of the development process, but it was her leadership that prevented the game from getting the extra time it needed.
The creative and design aspects of the game’s failure falls primarily on John Epler’s lap.
BioWare was so special for such a long time. Watching them fumble the ball directly into the deepest part of the toilet three times in a row feels completely insane.
Fuck EA forever, man.
Let’s start with the word “blame”: Veilguard isn’t bad on the whole. It’s possibly good, even. I think a lot of the problem with how it’s been received is that it’s not “Bioware good”, which can be a disappontment even for a good game, especially after coming down from Baldur’s fucking Gate 3, a once in a generation game.
So maybe if we said “credit” instead, and I think we can say yeah she sort of can take credit for the game. They offered her game director and she took it, and she put her name to it. I know it’s a shit position to be in, but if you look at Whedon and the Justice League, he passed the “credit” onto Snyder. Busche could have done the same if she chose, but she chose to put her name to it.
Getting a game which is going off the rails back onto the rails is really tough. Kudos to her.