Following yesterday’s news that work on the Anthem Next overhaul would be suspended, we also learned that those BioWare developers would move to Dragon Age 4, the company’s next big project.
Today, the game is once again in the news (albeit in an unofficial capacity) thanks to a new report published on Bloomberg. Almost two years ago, rumors described Dragon Age 4 as ‘Anthem with Dragons’ or something of the sort, highlighting the new franchise installment’s focus on the game as a service model.
However, it seems like EA has since reconsidered. In fact, the new report suggests multiplayer components have been entirely dropped from Dragon Age 4, reverting it to a single-player only roleplaying game. According to the anonymous sources cited by Bloomberg, Anthem’s failure and the success of a single-player only game like Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order convinced EA executives to reconsider their long-held assumption that the industry was irreversibly shifting towards online multiplayer games. The news does lend a bit more credit to EA CSO Laura Miele’s statement that internal studios at Electronic Arts actually have a lot of creative autonomy.
We don’t know much about Dragon Age 4. The game was announced at The Game Awards 2018 and then pretty much went dark for an extended period of time; we only got another teaser trailer a couple of months ago, two years after the announcement trailer, once again at The Game Awards. However, it seems like the dangerous (and highly sought-after) mineral red lyrium, the character Solas (unveiled as the Elven deity Fen’Harel, or the Dread Wolf’, in the Trespasser DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition), and the region of Tevinter will all factor heavily into the plot.
EA has confirmed some time ago that Dragon Age 4 will probably be available in its fiscal year 2023 (which begins on April 1st, 2022).
