While everyone is focusing on Bioware’s upcoming Dragon Age sequel, it seems that the recently founder-less RPG company has been toiling away in secret on an unannounced side project.

Teaming up with a small-time developer called Failbetter Games, the once prominent CRPG developer seems to have ignited a lot of interest in the community concerning this little leak, which managed to even gain mention on The RPG Codex.

Keeping secrets doesn’t come naturally to us. We are excitable: we love our work: we love talking about our work.

But for the last year, on and off, we’ve been working in absolute secrecy on a project for a much larger company. When we’ve gone quiet for no obvious reason, it’s because we’ve been heads-down on this. When I’ve mentioned that we don’t take client work any more, with rare exceptions, this is the rare exception.

We’ve finally been allowed to lift one corner of the veil. I can’t tell you anything at all about the project – not for a little while yet – except to say that it’s a Failbettery one, down to its bones. But I can tell you the name of the company:

BioWare.

We are thrilled about this. We can’t wait to say more.

Posting speculation seems to be my Raison d’être, but this time the story has perked up quite a few ears in the hardcore CRPG’er crowd.

While Failbetter Games seems to be rather inexperienced in terms of game designing, their last game claims to be heavy on “choice & consequence”, which is a feature that BioWare was once known for but has been criticized for lacking in their last few big name releases. So much so that the current crop of back-to-basics CRPGs (Wasteland 2, Shadowrun, Age of Decadence, Eschalon) are often said to be the direct result of BioWare leaving a giant vacuum in the market for that kind of title. Popular opinion states that this may be BioWare attempting to regain a fanbase that left them after Dragon Age 2; a game which symbolized the newly EA-acquired company’s new “mainstream approach” to gameplay.

With the changing of the guard within the CRPG genre having taken place during the past few years and companies like inExile and Obsidian taking most of the wind out of former industry Juggernaut BioWare’s sails, this theory doesn’t seem too far-fetched. Either way, this is a story we’ll be keeping an eye on as information trickles out.

Until then, curious gamers can peek at Failbetter’s recent Kickstarter game.