Yesterday’s BioWare studio update left fans of the studio feeling very anxious about Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. BioWare General Manager Gary McKay tried to assure the public that the layoffs of 50 employees wouldn’t meaningfully affect the final development stretch of the fourth mainline installment in the Dragon Age series, but his words rang a bit hollow among the community.
Just a few minutes ago, during his Game Mess Morning live stream, Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb shared additional insight from his sources at BioWare/EA on the outlook of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. In short, the game is now targeting a Summer 2024 launch window, although Grubb believes
For a while there, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf could have come out this year. In fact, internally at one point the date that they were looking at was next month, September 2023. But internally, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf keeps getting pushed back. They moved the internal expectations to March 2024 a while ago. Guess what? It’s not coming out then, either. It’s been pushed back again. It is not coming out until Summer 2024 at the earliest at this point.
This is not them talking publically, this is from my reporting. But if it moves again, don’t be surprised in any way. I think it’s very likely it will be moved back even further. I expect this game to launch probably by the end of next year. But why launch it at the end of next year when you could move it to the last EA fiscal quarter, which ends in March 2025? This thing could keep moving. Again, Summer 2024 is what they’re looking at at the earliest.
How are they finishing Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? Guess what, they’re bringing in people from the Mass Effect team, which is being drained a little bit so that more people can come work on Dreadwolf. That naturally means Mass Effect is getting pushed further down the line, so don’t expect that any time soon. Most people weren’t expecting it, but push it back even further in your heads.
If Dragon Age: Dreadwolf launched in late 2024, it would be a full decade after Dragon Age: Inquisition, released in the latter half of November 2014. BioWare’s hope is certainly to repeat the success of that game, which was the studio’s most successful launch ever in units sold and earned various awards, including Game of the Year at the first iteration of The Game Awards.
It may be even more important now than it was then, considering that the last two games, Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, lowered BioWare’s once-pristine reputation. The latter game especially was widely panned, and its post-launch development (which was supposed to last ten years) was immediately canceled.
Many believe that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will determine the studio’s future. If it succeeds, it could turn a new page for BioWare, but the opposite outcome could mean the developer’s end.
To that end, it is perhaps encouraging that they’ll have a long time to polish it. Dragon Age: Dreadwolf reached its Alpha stage in late October 2022, being playable from beginning to end. If Jeff Grubb is right and the game ends up launching around November 2024, that would have been two years to polish the end product.
