Because of BioWare's expertise in crafting rich tales and memorable characters, Dragon Age has long been a hallmark of the RPG scene. Dragon Age: Origins, with its dark heroic fantasy backdrop and emphasis on player choice, had won many hearts. In 2011, Dragon Age 2 was released, taking the franchise two leaps ahead and one step back. Despite some criticism, the sequel improved the main combat system and other elements, setting the basis for Dragon Age: Inquisition, the multi-regional success that debuted in 2014.
However, Inquisition was launched more than a half-decade ago, leaving fans eager for the next chapter. The release of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf has been unknown to this day, with a lot of ambiguity inside the company. It was previously heard to be published in 2023, but that still remains a mystery. I also wanted to emphasize that I am not attempting to cast aspersions on the studio, but rather to express constructive opinions regarding the issues we are discussing as a fandom. And the fact that you're watching this video suggests that you like the franchise, so subscribe to my channel to learn more about BioWare in general.
Regardless, despite the fact that Electronic Arts and BioWare have confirmed the project, worrying rumors have many worried about the fate of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. So here are 5 Reasons Why We're Concerned About Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.
Track Record
Despite receiving largely excellent reviews from critics, Dragon Age 2 was met with considerable criticism from gamers when it was launched in 2011. With Inquisition in 2014, the studio reclaimed part of the lost Origins audience, despite a near-catastrophic development cycle with Frostbyte that nearly destroyed the crew.
Mass Effect: Andromeda, the most current game in the famous Mass Effect franchise, rocked fans' trust when it was launched in March 2017 following a five-year development period. In reaction, BioWare paused the franchise and reduced the size of its Montreal unit then later merged with EA's Motive Studios in August of 2017. A rapid reaction to the release of Andromeda, demonstrating EA's BioWare studios were under scrutiny.
Then there's Anthem, a game that took nearly seven years to produce. Despite being delayed from the end of 2018 to March 2019, Anthem debuted with a slew of flaws, disappointing critics and players alike. Despite the studio's efforts to preserve the project, it is still seen as an outcast in the gaming world.
To say the company has had a difficult few years would be an understatement. Their current production has failed to live up to their previously illustrious reputation. The studio employees are cl early giving their all to their projects, but mismanagement has a negative impact on the end results. Putting so much thought and work into something that eventually fails is heartbreaking, but hopefully, the BioWare team is keeping their heads up. Fans want them to triumph and reclaim their previous greatness, but their morale must be at an all-time low right now.
Lack of Updates
Let's be honest: information about Dragon Age has been... sporadic. The trailers and information about the game have been more transparent than, say, Elder Scrolls 6, but the absence of updates since the previous trailer has left many fans concerned and anxious to hear if things are going well for the game.
While it's difficult to tell when the game's marketing will begin, there is certainly some excitement to see detailed gameplay and more dramatic trailers like what we saw at the 2020 Game Awards.
However, the year 2021 seems to be BioWare's quietest since that time. Of course, many fans are skeptical of BioWare's content updates, such as short stories in the place of Thedas they posted in 2021. However, the following game has very modest and niche updates that you should check on the developer's Twitter for. And I know a lot of people rely on articles or YouTube videos to keep them updated because not everyone has a Twitter account...
So what I'm referring to is a serious update, one that includes trailers, gameplay, and character/protagonist insights into what scenario we're in the game, among other things.
As many Dragon Age fans have been waiting since 2017 for any update to the upcoming Dragon Age game, getting drip-fed teases and little little things is great but not required. It becomes tiresome for us and leads us to believe that this game is not as close to completion as one would want to believe. To put it another way, these teases thrill us but leave us wondering when these teasers will become a reality. The technique of constantly showing us snippets has worn dry, and we're hoping for something huge to be released in the upcoming Dragon Age game.
And, as I previously stated, there are updates for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf if you look for them; the team just seems cautious to provide updates as we fans would like. Of course, this is likely because BioWare does not want to overpromise things for this upcoming game, but it does raise the question of whether the game will be worth it when it is released.
Project was cancelled before
Dragon Age: Dreadwolf has a long and tumultuous history for a game that was only debuted a brief trailer at the 2018 Game Awards, however given that Dragon Age Inquisition was published in 2014, many were perplexed as to why so little was displayed.
According to Kotaku's The Past And Present Of Dragon Age 4 by Jason Schreier, production on Dragon Age 4 began in 2015, following the critically praised Trespasser DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition. While some of the Inquisition crew went on to Mass Effect: Andromeda, Mike Laidlaw, Mark Darrah, and a few dozen other developers began working on the next installment in the series under the code name "Joplin."
Project Joplin had a defined goal, tools, and a production pipeline in place, which motivated everyone who was engaged. The team had learned from its blunders and the ensuing Inquisition crunch. Although smaller in scale, Joplin would have more variety and complexity as you played as a gang of spies in the Tevinter Imperium utilizing heists, presumably to get around Solas' intentions.
One former BioWare developer who worked on this project even stated, "We were working towards something very cool, a hugely reactive game, smaller in scope than Dragon Age: Inquisition, but much larger in player choice, followers, reactivity, and depth. I'm sad that game will never get made."
The cancellation was mostly caused by the lack of production rate for Anthem. However, the project was formally restarted by the studio somewhere between the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018 under the code name "Morrison." And it's uncertain what, if any, features will be carried over from Joplin to the current edition.
EA's Opinion of RPGs
Dragon Age: Inquisition received over 150 awards, including Game of the Year in 2014, and had the most successful launch in modern BioWare history. Despite this, publisher Electronic Arts does not appear to be interested in rushing out a sequel or RPG games in general.
Not to mention, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was first confirmed to be a live-action game, demonstrating EA's dislike for single-player games once again and contributing to their desire for longevity in monetization within the Dragon Age setting, resembling something similar to Assassin's Creed: Odyssey's business model.
I mean let's be honest, what exactly would a Dragon Age with live and online capabilities even look like?
While these aspects have the potential to propel the Dragon Age franchise to new heights, many fans are anxious because of EA's renowned usage of microtransactions. Concerns have also been raised about utilizing Anthem, a game with its own tragic past, as the foundation for the next chapter in one of BioWare's most beloved series.
According to an interview with Mark Darrah, former Executive Producer for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, single-player games are highly expensive when compared to other genres of games, which is why EA does not respect and encourage that sort of gamebase in their community.
As far as we know, single-players are popular in the gaming community, despite the fact that they do not have a lengthy lifespan for monetization.
A statement by CFO Chris Suh, said, “If we think about the model impact and the financial impact of it, I think the first thing to always keep in mind is that live services still encompass, on a trailing 12-month basis, over 70 percent of our business, and that has been a proven, very reliable, highly reoccurring revenue stream, and that will still be the predominant driver in our P&L [profit and loss] long-term.”
So live service is what generates income for their corporation, leaving single-player games at an all-time low to fund and keep up for the future of gaming. I'm curious when they'll realize that live-service is seen as gimmicky and greedy in the gaming business. Single-player games have long been appreciated and revered, with Elden Ring being the most recent example.
There are several examples for EA to select from, but they inevitably go the monetization route, leaving BioWare as a disregarded and undervalued studio for EA.
BioWare's Shift/Frostbite
All EA-branded titles have recently moved to Dice's Frostbite Engine. There are a few exceptions, such as Respawn Entertainment's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, but most developers have used Frostbite. The powerful engine was used in both of BioWare's most recent games, Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, with unsatisfactory results. The technologies were created for first-person shooters rather than open-world RPGs. If the new Dragon Age will use it, why should anyone expect it to be free of the same issues?
Of course, the Frostbite engine was exceedingly tough to create for an RPG fantasy setting like Dragon Age, and while Inquisition appears to have done well with it, there were a lot of adjustments to concept artwork for characters, as well as the extension of negating hairstyles for certain characters. The Frostbite technology is clearly ahead of its time, but it is just unsuitable for creating RPG games.
For fans, the engine has served as a scapegoat for recent issues in EA franchises ranging from Need for Speed to FIFA to Star Wars titles. The notion is that Electronic Arts forces all of its studios to utilize Frostbite, which is supported by the fact that practically every EA product has switched to the engine. However, several development leaders have challenged such notion.
"It was our decision," former BioWare general manager Aaron Flynn said of employing Frostbite for Dragon Age: Inquisition "We had been wrapping up Mass Effect 3 and we just shipped Dragon Age 2 and we knew that our Eclipse engine, that we shipped DA 2 on, wasn't going to cut it for the future iterations of Dragon Age. It couldn't do open world, the renderer wasn't strong enough, those were the two big ones..."
BioWare had to design a communication system within Frostbite as well as an animation system for dogs and horses for Dragon Age: Inquisition, but Frostbite could only animate bipedal creatures.
Cameron Lee, a BioWare producer, on the use of Frostbite in Dragon Age: Inquisition commented, "We started with a really solid foundation of the engine but we had to build a lot around it,"
"The concept of save games didn't exist, at least as Bioware knows them. The tactical camera, just being able to pause a game and still work within it, Frostbite didn't have that, it had no concept of that. We've had to add all of these things to it over the course of our development over the last four years. We built all of these different tools for the engine."
Frostbite takes a long time to include fundamental RPG elements. BioWare was working hard to create one of the most ambitious games company had ever created, partly inspired by Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, but using an engine not designed for RPGs. It felt like I they were pulling teeth.
And now, they've announced that they'll be utilizing the same Anthem codebase for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. It forces the crew to work extra, demonstrating that the engine is a difficult tool to utilize, causing us to wait longer than intended...
In any case, BioWare understands the stakes for them and their reputation, and they must be aware of the amount of pressure on them to create Dragon Age: Dreadwolf as something extraordinary. If it fails or something goes wrong, the company is at a larger risk.
Other companies have recovered from even more serious errors throughout the years. But it all depends on what BioWare presents for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, with a hint that it would be later this year in 2022.
But with that, we are going to wrap up, 5 Reasons Why We're Concerned About Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. Which on the list are you most concerned about? Leave that comment down below.
Thank you all for watching, and I will see you in the next video.
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