The senior creative director on Dragon Age 4, Matt Goldman, has left BioWare. He had been senior creative director on Dragon Age since 2017.
As reported by Kotaku, Goldman's departure from BioWare was announced in a recent staff email written by studio General Manager Gary McKay. In the email, McKay explains that the creative director has agreed to leave the developer after the two parties "mutually [agreed] to part ways."
"I’m writing to inform you all that Matt Goldman is leaving BioWare," said McKay in the email. "We have mutually agreed to part ways, and his last day is today."
"We understand that Matt’s departure has an impact on you, as well as the game’s development," the email continued. "Rest assured our commitment to a high-quality Dragon Age game has not waivered, and we will not ship a game that is not up to BioWare’s standards."
EA have since confirmed to Kotaku that Goldman has departed the company. "Matt Goldman is no longer working at BioWare," the publisher said in a statement. "He leaves the next Dragon Age game in excellent hands, with the team here at the studio who will carry forward our vision for the game."
Goldman originally started work at the studio in 1998, when he worked as an artist on a number of BioWare games including Baldur's Gate and previous entries into the Dragon Age series. Following a spell working on Halo Wars at Microsoft's Ensemble Studios, Goldman returned to BioWare and in 2017 was appointed the role of senior creative director on Dragon Age 4.
While Goldman's departure from the studio may be its latest, he isn't the first notable figure to have left BioWare in recent memory. Last December former general manager Casey Hudson and Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah both parted ways with the studio. In February, EA CEO Andrew Wilson was keen to reassure investors that BioWare still had a bright future ahead.
"I think that from the outside world there have been some blips in [BioWare's] delivery over the last couple of years, but that has come as a result of them pushing deeply into innovation and creativity, and we feel very, very confident about their future roadmap," he said at the time.
Goldman's replacement at the studio is yet to be confirmed by EA. For more on Dragon Age 4, make sure to check out this article detailing how the series owes its title (and dragons) to a random name generator.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.