Update 07/05/2022: Bioware's project director has now confirmed that Mary DeMarle has joined the studio to work on the new Mass Effect game.
"I'm really excited to let you know that Mary DeMarle will be joining the Mass Effect team as senior narrative director," he said in a tweet spotted by GameSpot (below).
DeMarle will therefore stick to her sci-fi lineage, having previously led the narrative for Guardians of the Galaxy and the Deus Ex games.
Oh, hey!
— Michael Gamble (@GambleMike) July 4, 2022
I'm really excited to let you know that Mary DeMarle will be joining the Mass Effect team as Senior Narrative Director. You've seen her work in Guardians of the Galaxy & Deus Ex (to name a few!). She's amazing.
Original Story: Guardians of the Galaxy and Deus Ex prequel writer Mary DeMarle has joined Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare.
As reported by VGC, DeMarle had previously spent more than 14 years at Eidos-Montréal, where she was the narrative director and lead writer on Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex: Mankind Dividided. Most recently she created the story of 2021's Guardians of the Galaxy, which won Best Narrative at the Game Awards last year.
DeMarle announced the switch to BioWare on her LinkedIn page, revealing her new position as senior narrative director. It's unclear what games DeMarle will be working on, but we know that BioWare is currently developing Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and a new Mass Effect game (the latter of which would match DeMarle's sci-fi writing roots).
Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was officially unveiled last month but we've known about its development since 2018. The new Mass Effect, on the other hand, was only being "actively prototyped" as of February this year, meaning it's in a much earlier stage of development.
It was first announced in December 2020 but Bioware has been fairly tight-lipped otherwise, outside of revealing a new teaser image that includes a handful of secrets for fans to decipher. The developer was also forced to address (and deny) an apparent leak that suggested original protagonist Commander Shepard was returning in the new game.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.