It's reasonable to assume that Dragon Age fans were anticipating more than the release of a teaser from 2022, and the omission of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf at The 2022 Game Awards broke a long-standing BioWare tradition. Dragon Age supporters believe BioWare's strategy of drip-feeding its target audience information so close to the game's debut isn't sustainable it's now downright offensive to long-term fans. Not to add that it is truly strange nothing major is coming from a AAA company that has over the past few years pledged transparency.
I'm not generally one to post related BioWare news, hell I hate talking about it since there seems to be so little, I mostly post lore & theory videos for the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises, but its time for me to speak up on some of us as a fandom space and we are uncomfortable on what we are seeing in the development of the next Dragon Age game, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, there's a big concern for BioWare studios, and it's only growing year by year.
And no I won't sugarcoat anything regarding what transpired in the year of 2022. We are not pleased as a fanbase, and things are just getting worse. I believe we can all agree that their most recent IPs, Anthem and Andromeda, did not do well at all. And for that reason, we are going to discuss this topic as the year comes to a close. You should be slightly concerned about Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, because the awareness of no real updates plus some key members not rejoining is only increasing and escalating more than necessary.
So without further ado, let's begin:
2022 Dragon Age News Wrapup
Quickly, we are going to wrapup what we got in terms of updates for this next Dragon Age game from 2022, because there was a lot.
First was a blog post from January 6th, 2022, titled, State of BioWare and Looking Ahead, which is written by Gary McKay who is BioWare's new General Manager since early June of 2021.
They state in the post: As for Dragon Age, we have a veteran group of talented developers working on the next iteration of the franchise. We are focused on a single-player experience that is built on choices that matter... We can’t wait for you to see what we’ve been working on and look forward to sharing more in the future.
This double confirms that the next Dragon Age game is not going to have multiplayer elements. As there was a big fight to push back to the single-player experience during the span of 2021 according to the Bloomberg article from Jason Schreier.
"The diverging trajectories of two recent games changed the minds of Wilson and other executives at EA, according to the people. One was Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, a single-player game released in November 2019 that won critical acclaim and outperformed EA’s sales expectations... The next Dragon Age, had previously been designed with a heavy multiplayer component, said the people, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the press."
So again, it's relieving, but the concern is how EA and BioWare did have quite a bit of a push-back on their decision-making for the next Dragon Age.
However, more than a month later, on February 23, 2022, Executive producer for the next Dragon Age Christian Dailey leaves BioWare. a blog was written specifically for this, titled, Game Update — Dragon Age in Production.
They state:
Last month you heard from me as we reflected back on 2021 and looked ahead to 2022 with the goal to communicate more often with our community and fans around the world. With that in mind, let’s start with the next game in development: the new Dragon Age.
For the next Dragon Age, we are right in the middle of Production, which is a great feeling. Our blueprint was completed last year, so we’re now focused on building out our vision: creating amazing environments, deep characters, strong gameplay, impactful writing, emotional cinematics – and much more. The blueprint for the game is well understood and the team is focused.
And to summarize the rest of the blog, they state a formal farewell to Christian Dailey, who was the former executive producer for the next Dragon Age. While despite this, they emphasize BioWare has a strong leadership team still carrying them through Production and beyond. Specifying Mac Walters, who led most of Mass Effect, most recently the Legendary Edition, Corrine Busche, who has had 15 years in EA, and current Dragon Age Game Director. And lastly, Benoit Houle, who's also worked on all 3 previous Dragon Age games.
Later this year, you will start to hear more from the Dragon Age team in the form of blogs and social content. As we move through development we’ll also be in regular communication with players who sit on our community council.
They also state that during the year of 2022 they would do community spotlights, where they would show artwork/cosplays/videos, or anything else that is dedicated to BioWare games, many creators were shown and highlighted in their blogs, specifically in April & May.
But that wraps up the early part of Dragon Age related news, but with many fans who know, on June 2, 2022, BioWare finally released the title to the next Dragon Age game, titled Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.
They title their blog post, Our Next Adventure — Dragon Age: Dreadwolf
It adds: Our next game now has an official name. We know you’ve anxiously awaited new details, and today we’re excited to reveal the official title of the next adventure across the lands of Thedas—Dragon Age: Dreadwolf™.
The blog also explains who the Dreadwolf is, stating that it is Solas, and quotes 'whether you’re new to Dragon Age™ stories or you’ve experienced them all, using Solas’s namesake no doubt suggests a spectrum of endless possibilities on where things may go. But at the core of this, like every past game, is you.'
BioWare concludes:
More Dragon Age: Dreadwolf later this year
We suspect you have questions and they’ll be answered in time. While the game won’t be releasing this year, we’re growing closer to that next adventure. Rest assured, Solas is placing his pieces on the board as we speak. That’s all we have for now, but we hope knowing the official title has sparked some intrigue, as we’ll be talking more about the game later this year!
Shortly after that, Netflix released the Official Teaser trailer for a Dragon Age tv show, called, Dragon Age: Absolution. YouTube's description reads:
It’s official: Dragon Age is coming to Netflix. Dragon Age: Absolution - a six-episode Netflix animated series - debuts December 2022.
About Dragon Age: Absolution
- Set in Tevinter, an empire within the Dragon Age universe
- Created in collaboration with BioWare, creators of the Dragon Age video game franchise (winner of over 130+ Game of the Year awards)
- Features an ensemble of new characters inspired by, and authentic to, Dragon Age lore; including elves, mages, knights, Qunari, Red Templars, demons, and other special surprises
Created by show-runner Mairghread Scott. Produced by Red Dog Culture House.
Dragon Age: Absolution animated series showed sprouting excitement for fans, I think the main pointer of excitement was the Netflix adaptation, however, we will discuss the potential concerns surrounding this later.
Moving on, at September 29th, 2022, BioWare released another blog post titled
- BioWare Community Update: Writing Our Worlds, which states:
So far, years of effort have gone into our next game, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf™, with hundreds of people working to bring this shared vision to life. We’ve been quietly building it behind the scenes for a while now, so we wanted to give you a look at some stuff we’ve been working on!
They begin to discuss in the post for newcomers the Age of the Dragon, which features heroes like the Warden, Hawke, and the Inquisitor, with adding - Each of them marked their legacy in the annals of history, but time marches forward and the age of these heroes cannot last forever. As a friend of ours once said, “it’s time for a new hero.”
BioWare then released 3 codex entries from Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, Misconceptions about the Necropolis, _____ Talks : Dragon — Vinsomer, and The Randy Dowager Quarterly: Vol 3. Which included some interesting lore within the realm of Thedas, and included a brief written interview with 2 BioWare developers, Senior writer Sylvia Feketekuty, and Narrative Editor Ryan Cormier.
However, one gripe many fans have stated within this interview is suspecting that it's slightly outdated. Specifically, Ryan Cormier is asked "How do you two work together?",
they state- 'At this stage, as we near preproduction, editors talk with writers about big-picture topics like characters, lore, and themes.'
This sparked some confusion because, since February, they announced they were in mid-preproduction. This made some people believe they aren't even near completion.
On Oct, 20th, 2022, Dark Horse announced the release of a new Dragon Age comic series called 'The Missing', where, Varric Tethras and Lace Harding descend into the abandoned Deep Roads beneath Marnas Pell in pursuit of a former friend... It was stated to be a 4-issue miniseries, and a direct prequel to Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.
In late October, BioWare announced Dragon Age: Dreadwolf finally hit its Alpha milestone. The EA website for Dragon Age, written once again by Gary McKay, states,
In my last blog, back in February, I talked about the next Dragon Age™ game entering the production phase. Well, we’ve come a very long way since then, and the team is incredibly happy to announce a huge step forward in the development of the game you now know as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf™: We have just completed our Alpha milestone!
Up to this point, we’ve been working hard on the various parts of the game, but it’s not until the Alpha milestone that a game all comes together. Now, for the first time, we can experience the entire game, from the opening scenes of the first mission to the very end. We can see, hear, feel, and play everything as a cohesive experience.
He states, it's a game completed from start to finish where-
It’s exciting to finally be able to bring our fans to parts of the world that we’ve previously hinted at, but never been able to fully explore—like the city of Minrathous, the capital of the Tevinter Empire. We’ve talked about Minrathous in previous games, and now you’ll finally be able to visit! It’s a city built on and fuelled by magic, and the ways in which that has come through in its visual identity, and what that looks like in comparison to previous cities we’ve visited in Dragon Age, are pretty spectacular.
As I mentioned earlier, the Alpha milestone is an extremely important one for us, but there’s more work to be done. We also want to continue being transparent with you, our community, and keep you up to date on what we’re crafting. Hopefully you’ve been enjoying our development updates on Dreadwolf this year as we’ll be looking to share more in the future.
So with all of this knowledge, knowing that Dreadwolf is literally playable from start to finish led a lot of fans ready and excited for them to announce something solid, like gameplay a the Game Awards, for BioWare had a tradition of showing the next Dragon Age trailers every 2 years there, one teaser in the 2018 Game Awards, another teaser in the 2020 Game Awards. It just made sense timeline-wise, it seemed BioWare was creating the game just in time for another trailer and potential release date for this upcoming game.
And plus, on November 10th, 2022, Netflix released another trailer for the Dragon Age: Absolution animated series, showing some more context about the main character Miriam, and releasing the voice cast for the show with a release date debut on December 9th, 2022. Again, pretty interesting considering Dragon Age was getting a lot of references on mainstream media, but I don't think people were anticipating the next bit:
December 4th is considered Dragon Age Day, like November 7th dedicated to N7 day for Mass Effect, we have had BioWare involved with Dec. 4th for quite some time now. With this, they released a blog post celebrating Dragon Age day for December 4th, 2022:
It states: For some, today is merely December 4th—but for us, it’s Dragon Age Day (aka DA Day), and we’d like to be the first to officially welcome you to this year’s celebration! We have a lot to celebrate this year, with Dragon Age: Dreadwolf deep in development and Dragon Age: Absolution just around the corner.
They released a short-story written by Lucas Kristjanson called 'As We Fly', which talks about Antivan Crows fighting against the Antaam invasion on Treviso, a city in Antiva. BioWare also collaborated with 32 different artists to create a piece consisting of companions from Origins to Inquisition.
Unofficial Dragon Age Day team partnered with TEP, the Trans Empowerment Project, to which BioWare donated to the cause as well.
Lastly, BioWare finishes with -
Friends, we wanted to thank you for your years of amazing support of the past and future of Dragon Age. We’ve had a particularly fun and fascinating year working on Dreadwolf, reaching the Production phase in February, announcing the Dreadwolf name in June, and hitting Alpha in October—along with showcasing some of our amazing team members throughout the year.
We wanted to close out this year with a little treat to celebrate Dragon Age Day in our own way by sharing a key cinematic from the game. Enjoy!
They release an in-game cinematic from Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, which, I mean I have talked a lot about, but we will get there later on the fandom's disappointment. Of course, as BioWare stated, they wrapped up the year with just this small cinematic, so nothing was shown at the 2022 Game Awards last year, as many including me would have hoped for.
To wrap up, here is the gist of what we learned from 2022:
February 2022 - Confirmed mid-production
June 2022 - Title Release
Oct 2022 - Confirmed Alpha Milestone (8 months)
Dec 2022 - In-Game Cinematic Trailer
With all this knowledge, the game is now playable, from start to finish. Rumors, including the former Executive Producer of Dragon Age Mark Darrah all suspect Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be released in a time window to the Q4 of 2023, or Q1 of 2024. So that window of release many people are expecting this game to come out to be late 2023, to early 2024.
Honestly, it really depends on how well BioWare completes their development goals for this game, but we know well that taking their time is essential, but let's move on to the things they aren't telling you, which brings in the real concerns & worries for this game:
Cinematic Scene
As stated before Dragon Age Day, Dec. 4th, 2022, BioWare tweeted the video out with the caption 'Elvhen god of lies or heroic rebel against tyranny? Depends on who you ask.'
Below they state, "We're Kicking today off with an in-game cinematic from #Dreadwolf!". And for many fans of Dragon Age, a lot of us have an understanding of who Solas is, what he did in the Elvhen Pantheon etc. Dragon Age: Inquisition is an 8-year-old game, so this cinematic scene was not anything new in terms of knowledge about the next game. Earlier in the year, BioWare from their blog made a promise they would show something big to us later this year in 2022, so to be just shown this- was downright anti-climatic to fans to just see a slideshow similar to their Dragon Age keep's cinematic recap.
However, as several BioWare developers have said, this is an in-game cinematic scene in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. Because this is a cinematic scenario, it is similar to what we see in Dragon Age: Origins and even in Dragon Age 2. But that's just that, BioWare severely is missing to point on what we fans need. This seemed scary considering that nothing of BioWare's use of the Frostbite Engine was shown in this cinematic scene, which is concerning considering that Andromeda and Anthem's facial and character animations aren't the greatest compared to their competition like Larian Studios, CDProject Red, and hell, even Bethesda at this point... Plus a lot of issues arose from Andromeda and Anthem with their mass amounts of bugs within this engine, like Anthem's intense loading screens at launch and Andromeda's texture problems/floating characters/and a lot of others during that launch too.
Many fans—including myself—feel insulted by the fact that Bioware is always drip-feeding material. That kind of content was fantastic during the year 2019, but after Gamescon in 2020, which showed us concept art, voice acting, pre-alpha gameplay, and much more, BioWare's failure to deliver in 2021 and now in 2022 has left us all with some concerns and really nothing to look forward to in terms of the upcoming Dragon Age game.
Not to mention, this is the same exact theme we saw at the 2018 and 2020 Game Awards, Solas, a mural, varrics narration that a protagonist is going to out beat the DreadWolf. We've had enough of Solas' advertising; and during Inquisition's trailers, they didn't even use this to that extent. The fact that BioWare is moving in this direction embarrasses us and reinforces our perception that they are utterly disconnected from their community. Not everyone romances Solas, or frankly even cares for him, everyone probably has the notion that he isn't also the big bad. And also, as a BioWare content creator, I'm sick and tired of making 20-30 minute breakdowns of a mural, I'm not carrying a fanbase just for small tidbits of a new Dragon Age game. Seriously, it's overdone, rant over.
Mac Walters Leaves BioWare
Mac Walters, the lead writer on Mass Effect 2 and 3 and production director on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf who had been with BioWare for nearly two decades, has officially left the company as "with a new year comes new adventures."
Some rumored to he left sometime at the end of 2022, a long time veteran for 19 years and was the Production Director for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. It just so happens not even a year before when Christian Dailey left the Dragon Age team, BioWare made a blog in trusting Mac Walters being part of their current strong leadership team.
A strong leadership team of industry and Dragon Age veterans is in place to carry us through Production and beyond. The game’s Production Director is Mac Walters, who recently led the development for Mass Effect Legendary Edition and has an 18-year history with BioWare.
His job was important in the production phase for Dreadwolf, and while others may say his role was insignificant due to Dreadwolf finally entering out of production phase and now into Alpha, all Senior roles are important, and anyone who is leaving the Dragon Age team and BioWare in general does put the company at a risk, while I'm sure leaving during this time was smart, we have to bring up the exodus BioWare does deal with:
BioWare Exodus & Outsourcing
BioWare is known to not be a big company compared to other AAA game studios. BioWare holds about 300+ employees in the Edmonton Canada location, and some estimated BioWare Austin in Texas has around 250+ employees. Plus, with the result of Andromeda, BioWare's former studio in Montreal was closed down and was merged into the company EA Motive.
With this, posts throughout 2021, and including 2022, have some game developers announcing their work on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, some examples include Alex Renner, a Facial/Character Artist. (add more?)
BioWare is working with Outsourcing companies, some of these include Roarty Digital Inc., & Magic Media, this should come as no surprise because most AAA gaming studios outsource their work. But one thing we are seeing is the mass exodus of this company.
While we know many people are leaving BioWare for the last 5 years, specifically Senior Developers such as former general manager Casey Hudson, former lead writer for Dragon Age David Gaider, former Executive producer for Dragon Age Mark Darrah, another former executive producer for Dragon Age Christian Daily, former lead writer for Mass Effect Drew Karpyshyn. All of them have been a big voice within the company at BioWare.
Drew states in his blog when leaving:
I’ve been in the video game industry for twenty years now. When I started at BioWare, everything was fresh and exciting. It was a dream job – talented people working together to create epic games like Baldur’s Gate, KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age. But as we grew and became more successful, things changed. We became more corporate. We were less able to make what we loved, and the teams were pushed to create games based on market research rather than our creative instincts and passions. My dream job became just a job, and I lost the enthusiasm and excitement I once had.
With knowing this, it seems like many Senior Devs are following, Drew moving on to Archetype Entertainment, Casey Hudson started up his own company Humanoid Studios, and announced a new sci-fi IP. These Senior Devs aren't really keen on retiring when departing BioWare, it's estimated more than 150+ Senior Devs have been leaving the company for the past 5 years, and no one is talking about that considering that once again, their company is not that large.
And while I will state that it's nothing new for BioWare to outsource, they posted they were hiring during April of 2022, with the openings below for:
Senior Technical Designer for Dragon Age
Senior UX Technical Designer for Dragon Age
Senior Audio Designer for Dragon Age
Senior VFX Artist for Dragon Age
Technical Designer for Dragon Age
Technical Animator for Dragon Age
Environmental Artist for Dragon Age
This is an ongoing problem for BioWare, Senior Developers are leaving, and it's not due to burnout anymore. With what Drew said, I think many workers are outstanding that this company is becoming more corporate and they are leaving ship from a project we know little of and to have their creativity be used elsewhere...
Missing out on TGA's
The 2022 Game Awards, I tweeted about the reason we might see something, because, like many others, we assumed this was the perfect marketing plan:
reasons why we might see Dragon Age: Dreadwolf at #TheGameAwards :
- title of the game came out this June
- every 2 years there has been a trailer at TGA's
- game has been confirmed to be in Alpha stage
- dragon age netflix show is released TOMORROW
But nothing, as it turns out, BioWare was extremely quiet. Even former executive producer of Dragon Age Mark Darrah had a live stream for the TGA's with the description:
Is BioWare going to punk me?
Only one way to find out.
Apparently, Mark Darrah tweeted that he was punked out and in a state of limbo. And I'll be honest—because I was aware that a former Dragon Age: Dreadwolf executive producer was co-streaming the 2022 Game Awards, I and many other fans thought with certainty that something from the game would be presented live. I don't know, you would think something would be revealed when a prominent former employee comes to search for Dragon Age-related marketing in a significant gaming event where BioWare participates every two years in. I mean it was really common sense at this point.
Mark after the awards tweets: (read aloud) (+reply)
The other thing I want to highlight is that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf released an announcement back in October that they are in the Alpha stage of game development. The games we saw in the Game Awards from 2022 showed Alpha gameplay, so to be honest, BioWare is being very quiet about showing the next Dragon Age, and many are having a feeling is because they are brewing something not that substantial compared to their previous iterations. Or to put it in another way, let's make the marketing so short that when the game comes out no one could criticize this game until it's too late. Speculation obviously, but the Game Awards was a great way to show something like gameplay to us and make fans not worry- which leads fans to believe this is a marketing failure:
'A Marketing Failure'?
In the year 2022, where it seemed already promising that BioWare released the next Dragon Age title, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf back in June. Which was of course a huge announcement for most fans. Making us believe more was to come for this upcoming Dragon Age game.
Jeff Grubb, who has been a reputable source for this game announced Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is still more than a year away. But here is the name.
Another big thing BioWare kind of released was that it is actually playable, and this was as far back into August-
There was a tweet from Corrine earlier this year tweeted:
They made according to them a huge milestone with Dragon Age: Dreadwolf being marked as Alpha back in late October of 2022. This usually means in the game development realm that the game is when practically all of a video game's features have been finished, the game enters the "Alpha" stage. The game most likely still has to be fixed for a number of significant issues, and it may also benefit from the addition of a few new features.
A greater number of players begin testing the game during the alpha phase. The primary purpose of these testers is to attempt to break the game, after which they must inform the development team of any problems they discover.
The reports may be about technical problems or they may be about how the game mechanics feel, the game's balance, or something else entirely.
So a Title release, an Alpha milestone announcement, and then the Netflix show literally released the day after the Game Awards, there was really no better time to market their next Dragon Age game than this year. In what world would you have so many milestones for a game and only display a slideshow for it?
A reddit user in the dragon age subreddit made a post explaining their discomfort about BioWare's marketing plan:
"I definitely feel like we were led to believe there would be more substantial content released in the latter half of the year, but we only got an "in-game cinematic" which was extremely similar to the one released in 2020. Its extremely disheartening, and honestly makes me think that DA:D isn't nearly as far along in production as their blog updates would have us believe.-
This marketing strategy of drip-feeding fans morsels of information isn't sustainable, I'm starting to feel burnt out and I know I'm not the only one.
Honestly, I'd rather not hear from them until they have something real and substantial to share, and I'm sick of being sold tv shows, books, comics, and merch when I just want to play an actual game.
Sorry for the vent, I'm just frustrated. I love this series and can't wait to play Dreadwolf, but I don't feel Bioware is handling this well at all."
We as a fandom community are worn out, it's not enjoyable to be drip-fed, and it's out of date for all of us. Frankly, it's time to speak up about it- While it's good for us to be enthusiastic about supplementary media like the Netflix series and the comics, don't count on the fan base to all remain excited about this content going forward until we hear something solid about this next Dragon Age game.
Former Composer Not Returning
Trevor Morris, the former composer for Dragon Age Inquisition, including all 3 of that game's DLC's is not returning to compose Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.
A tweet was posted on December 13th, 2022 but Trevor Morris, he quote retweeted a fan who stated I hope @bioware & @EA are bringing back @MorrisTrevor to do the score for Dragon Age 4. Morris states- nope, bailed on me for Mr.Zimmer and co. Appreciate the love though.
Trevor seemed to delete the tweet quickly, but led many fans and even articles to come out that Hans Zimmer was composing for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. And while many people love Hans Zimmer's work, you can clearly see the implication Morris wasn't too happy with not being invited back to work once again on composing Dragon Age.
Some fans suspected it couldn't just be Hans Zimmer though, as Borislov Slavov is also part of Zimmer's company, Slavov composed Divinity Original Sin 2, and currently composes Baldurs Gate 3. Slavov even liked the tweet that mentioned his name, so it is certainly possible, but with the timing of Slavov currently working on Baldurs Gate 3, this could be highly unlikely.
I think what is noteworthy, is that there are a lot of talented people who are tweeting and becoming salty about their non-return and some include voice actors as well:
https://twitter.com/blightedboy/status/1603881399806824449?s=20&t=YoVyiueYEyovbKILh4A-6w - Borislov? from Divinity Original Sin 2
Non-returning Voice Actors
From what we learned throughout the years, and now throughout the year of 2022, there are more than what we expected for non-returning voice actors. And some of these are really going to surprise you.
Freddie Prinze Jr
Who voiced Iron Bull from Dragon Age: Inquisition, stated in a tweet that he was not part of the cast to return to Dragon Age Dreadwolf. He deleted the tweet once after, but I think part of it was his confusion. Specifically fans brought up that it might be because of his previous actions from twitter. Specifically talking about the character Krem in a way that deemed inappropriate to many fans. Freddie doubled down on the joke, claiming it was due to the times and how things were different instead of an apology, and spurred some amount of anger from the fandom after that.
While fans may suspect that this could be the reasoning, there really could be more than what we know behind the scenes, perhaps it BioWare is also on a budget, but the more likely cause is that players choices throughout the game can kill Iron Bull in the Trespasser DLC. So it is possible that BioWare had no plans for his character mainly due to his factor of dying in the previous Dragon Age DLC.
Greg Ellis
This one has been obvious, but the voice actor of Cullen Rutherford who shows up in all 3 Dragon Age games is not returning, and that's mostly due to his scary behavior in the fandom, including just downright being narcissistic and abusive within the fandom space.
Cullen Rutherford can of course be killed in some people's world states if you let Cullen continue with his lyrium addiction from being a Templar in his personal quest in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Trespasser states he eventually dies, so, like Iron Bull, BioWare isn't too interested in continuing Cullen's story, since it seemed to wrap up pretty well within this DLC too.
Claudia Black
Claudia Black, the voice actress for Morrigan, who is prominent in Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Inquisition, many fans presumed her return would exist in the next Dragon Age game, but it seems to be the opposite.
Claudia stated on November 4th- I have two big things coming out — one in December/January and one probably late 2023 that I just finished filming and I can’t talk about either of them. They’re juicy.
A fan replied:
To many fans, Claudia Black was one of the most memorable characters in the Dragon Age franchise, and for her to not return leaves many fans nervous about the plot for Dragon Age: DreadWolf. Morrigan's return was mostly assumed through the death of Flemeth in Dragon Age: Inquisition, even so, Flemeth stores a piece of something through an eluvian which either meant it belonged to Morrigan or perhaps Flemeth will return after all.
It kind of reminds me this game might end up being like a Dragon Age 2, where they will have to cut massive amounts of content just to produce a game. Hopefully this isn't the case, but Morrigan not returning seems to concern many fans about the future of the next Dragon Age.
Alix Wilton Regan
Alix, who voiced the English Inquisitor from Dragon Age: Inquisition, seems to mention throughout the years on not returning. Of course, with some knowledge, the next Dragon Age was under 2 different projects, once code named Joplin, that project was dropped due to Anthem. And the current project code named Morrison- the reason why I state those two projects is mostly because they had two different visions. Project Joplin was suspected to not have the return of the Inquisitor, while perhaps she may return in Morrison.
We know with Alix's enthusiasm with BioWare and her ongoing support for them, its a large possibility she might come back, but with BioWares tendencies to wrap up the Inquisitor's story from Trespasser, it might not be planned for that protagonists return, since Solas the Dreadwolf knows that character too well.
It's really a stretch at the moment, with little to know so far, but if Alix did return, it would most likely be due fan service and the demand of seeing the Inquisitor for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.
ESG
There's an article by the Verdict on 'Why the gaming industry must embrace ESG'.
This was mostly due to a lot of factors, for those who don't know ESG- ESG stands for Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing refers to a set of standards for a company’s behavior used by socially conscious investors to screen potential investments.
It made me worry if BioWare was becoming more and more prone to this type of behavior, as ESG is typically used by many corporations to express political opinions. And although it may be beneficial, it sadly never alters the core dynamics of a business. For instance, it's great to promote diversity in your commercials and marketing, but many businesses that do so aren't really hiring people of color or choosing diversity in the first place.
Again, this may be beneficial, but it also serves as a smokescreen for businesses, and when money and investments are involved, the situation becomes even worse. Pop culture in general and gaming companies, in particular, are now being used to advance various political agendas without ever actually taking a stand on them internally, or doing additional research on why it might not resonate with people everywhere, as not all gamers are from the western side of the world for instance.
This barely seems like an achievement for BioWare, who have always been pretty progressive within their video games, but do not be shocked if they continue to take a stand and force write political stances in their games and supplementary material. More chances for a varied cast are beneficial and I love seeing that in pop culture, but not if the writing suffers as a result of the forced characterization. This is mostly due to ESG, which investors carefully select to believe these companies are safe and good to give money to within their walls.
However, this is just untrue, as BioWare has a culture of toxic work pressure within its walls.
On April 2, 2019, Jason Schreier published an essay on Kotaku discussing Anthem's development process and its "floundering" over the IP's reputation.
At least 19 individuals, according to Schreier, "either worked on the game or adjacent to it," and in their accounts, they talk about the scraps and redoing of their new ip Anthem and how there was no real image that stuck on because the leadership was not "willing to listen to feedback." As a result of the mistreatment, a large number of BioWare veterans—mostly from the Edmonton Studio—have left and went to work in other gaming companies for over the past two years:
Perhaps most alarming, it’s a story about a studio in crisis. Dozens of developers, many of them decade-long veterans, have left BioWare over the past two years. Some who have worked at BioWare’s longest-running office in Edmonton talk about depression and anxiety. Many say they or their co-workers had to take “stress leave”—a doctor-mandated period of weeks or even months' worth of vacation for their mental health. One former BioWare developer told me they would frequently find a private room in the office, shut the door, and just cry. “People were so angry and sad all the time,” they said. Said another: “Depression and anxiety are an epidemic within Bioware.”
“I actually cannot count the amount of ‘stress casualties’ we had on Mass Effect: Andromeda or Anthem,” said a third former BioWare developer in an email. “A ‘stress casualty’ at BioWare means someone had such a mental breakdown from the stress they’re just gone for one to three months. Some come back, some don’t.”
Jumping through the article, the majority of us who are watching are deeply concerned about the future of BioWare and primarily, Dragon Age. We are asking ourselves questions like, "Does this mean there won't be any more Dragon Age?" and "Is Dragon Age even going to be Dragon Age 4", which is to be expected coming from an article that offers some clear evidence of a studio with a lot of dysfunction to function properly as of date.
However, even while it appears like Dragon Age development is well underway, ESG's ability to hide behind investors and deflect criticism from former employees who claim that the company is highly unhealthy makes their political viewpoint irrelevant in the gaming industry. If you won't discuss how your workplace culture is being improved, then when you introduce characters and storylines to satisfy an ESG standard, consider me cautious that you haven't evolved as a business very much, if at all. Your political stances don't mean much if you can't take care of your employees, but I guess it's okay since you made a fictional character fit your standard, no it will not work with me and many other fans, BioWare is mistreating their employees and people shouldn't be quiet about it anymore.
I will end with saying this, there seems to be a growing toxic positivity within the fanbase, I would urge you to stop that, its okay to have doubts on this next upcoming game, its okay to dislike the game when it comes out. I urge you to see it face-value, that only catches gaming companies in their tracks and can potentially set them back up for success. It's okay to criticize the things that you love, we want a good game, we want this game to grow our fanbase, I would love to see that, we should be allowed to criticise this game. For me however, it discourages me to make content for Dragon Age at all. Their lack of communication leaves me not wanting to talk about the same things over and over on my channel, so if you see any different content here, please don't be surprised, and forgive me.
In any case, I hope you enjoyed watching this video. Be cautiously hopeful about this game, and don't be shocked if a gaming company we love gradually develops in a different way than what we saw when we were younger or in a different stage of life when we first started playing these games.
Also, since YouTube loves to give me a small amount of income, please if you can afford, support me on Patreon to continue this type of content, I really would hate to put this sort of channel on the backburner because I have bills to pay, but Patreon is a great way to support this channel becoming a full-time thing for your favorite BioWare and Dark Fantasy games.
But with that, we are going to wrap up, Thank you for watching this longer video, thank you for my Patreons, and I will see you in the next video.
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