Despite the turbulent development roadmap of Dragon Age 4, BioWare announced yesterday that the RPG is in the middle of the production phase. The announcement coincided with the news that a Dragon Age executive producer was leaving the studio. As the blog post tells it, the developers’ morale is reportedly high right now, and the game is hitting deadlines despite the recent and previous departures and the general lack of major updates.
BioWare explained that the fantasy RPG is currently executing on the blueprint that was set out during the pre-production phase. The studio assured its fans that the team is currently “creating amazing environments, deep characters, strong gameplay, impactful writing, [and] emotional cinematics.” It also named longtime series veterans for both the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, such as the production director Mac Walters, the game director Corrine Busche, and the director of product development Benoit Houle as directors who would be leading the production phase.
At the same time, just yesterday, the Dragon Age executive producer Christian Dailey announced that he would be leaving BioWare, and that the next installment of the series “is in great hands.” He added in a separate tweet that “the Dragon Age team is killing it and the game is in amazing hands. Don’t fall for the hate.”
If the public reaction to the four-year wait (so far) seems cynical, it’s because Dragon Age had also recently lost its creative director. Matt Goldman “mutually [agreed] to part ways” with BioWare in November. Besides these staffing changes, Dragon Age 4 had been rehauled multiple times, including an entire shift from single-player to multiplayer to single-player again.
The official blog post also mentioned that the next Mass Effect game is currently being prototyped under the leadership of its project director, Mike Gamble. BioWare emphasized that quality was important, and asked for the community to be patient.
At The Game Awards in 2020, BioWare showed off their cinematic trailer for Dragon Age 4. It confirmed that its protagonist would be facing off against Solas, a companion character from Dragon Age: Inquisition. None of this information was new to anyone who played Inquisition to the end, or its Trespasser DLC. According to GamesRadar, lead writer Patrick Weekes stated that the game will be addressing questions such as “What happens when you don’t have power?” and “what happens when the people in charge aren’t willing to address the issues?” BioWare also unveiled a trailer for the next Mass Effect game, which showed series mainstay Liara trudging through an icy landscape.
Dragon Age 4 does not currently have a planned release date.
