BioWare

BioWare Corp is a Canadian entertainment software company best known for its roleplaying games, including a number of Forgotten Realms computer game titles.
BioWare was founded in Edmonton, Canada in 1995 by medical students Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk. After initially developing Shattered Steel in 1996, BioWare went on to develop Baldur's Gate for Black Isle Studios in 1998, their first out of many contributions to the Forgotten Realms license. Baldur's Gate proved to be both a smash success and critically acclaimed and in 1999 the developer put out an expansion pack, Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, followed by a sequel, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn in 2000, which was even more acclaimed and acquired another expansion pack, Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal in 2001.
In 2002, BioWare released its last stand-alone Forgotten Realms game to date, Neverwinter Nights, which, again, proved a critical and commercial success. BioWare continued support for the game, releasing two story-based expansions (Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide and Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark) as well as several downloadable "premium modules" and the Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker expansion pack. BioWare would later also provide limited oversight over Obsidian Entertainment's development of the sequel, released in 2006.
In 2005, BioWare merged with Pandemic Studios which were later both acquired by Electronic Arts in late 2007. BioWare's most recent release was Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, an expansion to Dragon Age: Origins, which BioWare billed as a "spiritual successor" to Baldur's Gate.
==List of Forgotten Realms titles==
Title 	Platform 	Release date
Baldur's Gate 	Microsoft Windows and Mac OS PCs 	November 30, 1998
Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast 	Microsoft Windows and Mac OS PCs 	April 30, 1999
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn 	Microsoft Windows and Mac OS PCs 	September 24, 2000
Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal 	Microsoft Windows and Mac OS PCs 	June 21, 2001
Neverwinter Nights 	Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS PCs	June 8, 2002
Neverwinter Nights 	Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS PCs	June 21, 2003
Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark	Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS PCs	December 2, 2003
==List of other titles==
Title 	Platform 	Release date
Shattered Steel 	MS-DOS and Mac OS PCs 	1996
MDK2 	Dreamcast, Microsoft Windows PCs, PlayStation 2	March 31, 2000
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic	PC, Xbox 	July 15, 2003
Jade Empire 	Xbox 360, Windows and Mac OS PCs 	April 12, 2005
Mass Effect 	Xbox 360, Windows PCs 	November 20, 2007
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood	Nintendo DS 	September 25, 2008
Mass Effect Galaxy 	iPhone OS 	June 22, 2009
Dragon Age: Origins 	Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Windows PCs 	November 3, 2009
Mass Effect 2 	Xbox 360, Windows PCs 	January 26, 2010
Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening 	Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Windows PCs 	March 16, 2010
Star Wars: The Old Republic 	PC 	Spring 2011
==External links==
*Bioware.com
Category:Video game developers