When is the Dragon Age 4 release date? Dragon Age 4 is real and in production at BioWare, we know that much, but where will the story go next? And which of our favourite characters will return?
Bioware has officially announced the title, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, which looks set make a list of the best PC games and best RPG games. So far we’ve had a cryptic teaser trailer about Dread Wolf, suggestions of a potential multiplayer angle, and heaps of clues to its story contents courtesy of various interviews and tweets with developers and writers who have worked on previous Dragon Age games. BioWare has teased more about the Dread Wolf saying, “Solas, the Dread Wolf. Some say he might be an ancient elven god, but some say not. Others say a betrayer of his people…or a savior who now seeks to rescue them at the cost of your world. ”
Dragon Age 4 release date rumours
There is currently no Dragon Age 4 release date. BioWare has said, “While the game won’t be releasing this year, we’re growing closer to that next adventure.”
Dragon Age Solas
In this very short teaser, we actually see Solas. He’s an elven apostate hedge mage that just so happens to be an expert on the Fade, and was one of the companions in Dragon Age: Inquisition. We see some of the locations in the upcoming Dragon Age adventure, as well as a few monster and class designs. We’re most intrigued by Solas’ description of the player character. “No magic hand, no ancient prophecy. The kind of person they’ll never see coming”.
Dragon Age The Dread Wolf Rises
The Game Awards 2018 gave us our very first official glimpse at Dragon Age 4 in the form of this brief teaser trailer called The Dread Wolf Rises. The trailer features Solas, suggesting the game will take place after Dragon Age Inquisition. We can also spot the lyrium idol that appears in Dragon Age II, although it’s impossible to infer anything from this.
Dragon Age 4 development
Word from sources within BioWare suggested that the game would be “live”, leading to concerns from players about Dragon Age becoming a Destiny-like multiplayer game. BioWare’s general manager Casey Hudson tweeted about these fears, emphasising that the live elements would be focused on continuing the story after the main narrative is over.
It has since been confirmed that Dragon Age 4 will not be getting multiplayer. According to the report, the success of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and the failure of Anthem were contributing factors behind this decision, though there was push-back from BioWare to make it a single-player game prior to this.
Though recent updates on Dragon Age 4 development have been few and far between, thanks to a tweet from Mark Darrah, fans have been reassured that the fourth Dragon Age game is still on its way. Darrah explains that though the team is now working from home, and ‘working from home is harder’, they’re ‘making progress.’
Dragon Age 4 story
A Gamescom 2020 showing touched on some story elements of the next Dragon Age game. The first thing is that we’ll get to see new things and new places and interact with the people who live there, too. While this is far from groundbreaking, it is a definite suggestion that we’ll be exploring entirely fresh regions of Thedas in the Dragon Age 4 story.
From the same video, lead writer Patrick Weekes explains that “for the game we’re working on now, we want to tell a story of ‘what happens when you don’t have power?’ and the people in charge aren’t willing to address the issues.” Again, this is all very vague, but we get the impression we won’t be starting off the story as a powerful noble or mighty mage.
While no concrete details of Dragon Age 4’s story have been revealed, we do know that Alexis Kennedy, founder of Failbetter Games, has been involved in the game’s writing. In May 2017 he revealed that we was working for BioWare on a chunk of story and lore. His plotline is said to be separate from the core story, but more substantial than background lore drops. In short: expect characters with dialogue and backstory.
“If you’ve seen a lot of my work before you will probably not be surprised by the choice of subject matter. It’s familiar stuff,” Kennedy told Eurogamer, suggesting that there will likely be a strange, Lovecraftian feel to his section, or at least a focus on death or loss. Perhaps it will be set in the Fade, Dragon Age’s demonic dimension?
Aside from that, any details about Dragon Age 4’s plot are purely guesswork. After the success of Inquisition, it is a sensible bet that the next game could be a direct sequel, as opposed to a largely standalone story set in the same universe as the series has been so far.
The end of Inquisition saw trickster elf Solas – revealed to be the god of betrayal Fen’Harel – disappear, and the Trespasser DLC concluded with the Inquisitor vowing to track him down and stop his plan to destroy the world. It makes sense that a sequel would cast Solas as the key villain and deal with halting his plans to usher in a new age for the ancient elves.
The Dread Wolf Rises trailer does offer some context for the new Dragon Age game, as it features Solas we can assume the game will follow on from the events of Inquisition and its Trespasser DLC.
Dragon Age 4 locations
It’s possible that we’ve been shown some brief clips of brand new Dragon Age 4 environments at EA Play 2020. The first of the three scenes features a large, creepy looking tree, covered in thick, faintly glowing growths, in a snowy graveyard. The second, a stone archway surrounded by water, with bright red tendrils bursting from the rock. The third scene features more of these luminous tendrils growing in a fortress, framing an ominously pulsating stone egg.
Though these scenes are all labeled with ‘Work in Progress’, and we shouldn’t expect to visit these exact locales come the Dragon Age 4 release date, they at least serve to set the scene and give us a small indication of what awaits us – a dark, foreboding world, glowing with magical corruption.
Yet more scenes were shown off at Gamescom 2020, mostly in the form of concept art, but with some ‘work in progress’ environments revealed as well.
There really was a huge diversity in the types of environments and architecture in the ‘Behind the Scenes’ video, with mountains, underwater areas, dark forests, and desert lands glimpsed. Below you can view a gallery of some of the scenes.
Our favourites are the underwater treasure hunting scene, the view of the Venetian city, and the landscape full of floating boulders. The amount of concept we saw for oceanic areas suggests we may be heading to the Boeric Oceans in the next Dragon Age game. Of course this is just concept art, so there’s every chance we won’t see the majority of these locales by the time Dragon Age 4 ships.
That’s everything we know about Dragon Age 4 at the moment, but once we get a whiff of a Dragon Age 4 release date, we’ll be sure to update you. While you wait, why don’t you check out our guide on the best dragon games? We have some cool recommendations to keep you occupied.
