A few hours ago, renowned leaker Tom Henderson published a new report on BioWare’s next game, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.
Citing anonymous sources, Henderson said the game still had some remnants of its previous live service incarnation before BioWare pivoted back to making a single-player-only roleplaying game.
The gameplay loop is said to be similar to previous games, where a central hub would feature all of the recruited companions and allies of the main character. According to the report, players will venture out from the hub into the missions (hinting that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf won’t be an open world game) via a ‘mirrored portal’, that is to say, the Eluvian network.
Arguably the most interesting tidbit concerns the combat system. BioWare appears to be dropping the ability to directly control any party members, which has been a franchise staple since its inception; instead, players would be giving them orders in a Mass Effect-like fashion.
The report ends with Henderson stating that placeholder text and missing voice lines hint at a potential delay into 2024. However, Henderson admits he was not given concrete information on the release window.
For what it’s worth, Reddit user Donny_Canceliano wrote a series of comments largely confirming the above report.
I’ve played it. You can’t directly control party members. A more apt comparison (and it’s extremely weird that they didn’t reference this considering it’s another bioware franchise) is Mass Effect. It’s exactly like ME’s wheel, where you hold RB and choose what ability they use.
The user then added some extra information about Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, such as only having two selectable party members while the third was mission specific, although that could change later in the game. Lastly, the user praised combat but complained about the current state of the facial animations.
Combat is great, cutscenes are decent. Best ever as far as Bioware is concerned (which should be a given). What’s not great are the facial animations. Granted, the game isn’t done yet (and might be far from done, who knows), but as of right now, it’s Andromeda 2.0.
Officially, BioWare said Dragon Age: Dreadwolf had reached Alpha in October 2022. The studio’s previous games were launched less than a year after getting to this milestone, which would hint at a potential late 2023 launch, although it might slip to early 2024. After all, Anthem was released was also released in late February.
