Over the three decades of its existence, BioWare rightfully earned the reputation of a legendary role-playing game studio. The news of its closing understandably has fans in mourning, and we’re left reminiscing about game franchises like Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. But every studio has at least one oddity within its gameography, and the clear outlier for BioWare has to be Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.
The 2008 Nintendo DS game is BioWare’s first–and only–handheld game. While the studio was no stranger to working with other IPs after making a Star Wars game, the upbeat and colorful world of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, et al. is a far cry from what those storytellers were used to. And it wasn’t some small, side project for BioWare; the studio assembled a team of 30 developers, led by director Mark Darrah, who also directed the first two Dragon Age games, and writer Jay Turner, who wrote for Mass Effect 2 and 3.
Storywise, The Dark Brotherhood was a bit more complex than what Sonic the Hedgehog was used to, though noticeably simpler than usual BioWare fare. It’s a plot that involves a tribe of echidnas from an alternate dimension, introducing new, otherworldly characters and concepts. It’s a serviceable addition to Sonic canon (well, it was), and it should be no surprise that BioWare was able to come up with sharp dialogue for the Sonic characters we’re all familiar with.
