Dragon Age 4 News Update: Morrsion, Anthem's Codebase And Near Future Reveal!
- Apr 4, 2019
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 29, 2020
We've got ourselves an update regarding the development of the next Dragon Age game, this news is a direct continuation to my January 2018 news update when we spoke on Dragon Age 4 being given the project title 'Joplin', which we'll get to uncover once more within this update, only we've got the full scoop now!
Most of you will have heard about this recent article by Jason Schreier as he comments on the current state of BioWare, Anthem and the next Dragon Age game's development. I'm glossing over the whole 'Anthem is a mess' narrative, and jumping straight to the important juicy Dragon Age news.
The production on Dragon Age 4 {title still not announced} reportedly started in 2017, under the leadership of Mark Darrah and veteran Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw. With the departure of studio general manager Aaron Flynn and Anthem in a desperate state, Darrah was parachuted into the Anthem team as executive producer.
This iteration of Dragon Age 4 was code-named Joplin, and those who were working on it have stated that they were excited by creative director Mike Laidlaw’s vision for the project. The project was named after Janis Joplin as the game aims to be revolutionary for the Role-Playing Game genre, proving to be a landmark on the franchise.
The next Dragon Age will also be the fourth instalment in the series following in the same vein as Janis Joplin and her massive success with her fourth album launch, BioWare felt inspired to name the project after Janis' achievements.
However, Anthem received flack, by October, it was on fire. BioWare had decided to make some massive changes. That summer, studio general manager Aaryn Flynn departed, to be replaced by a returning Casey Hudson.
As part of this process, the studio canceled Joplin. Laidlaw quit shortly afterward, and BioWare restarted Dragon Age 4 with a tiny team under the code name 'Morrison'.
The code name Morrison is a call back to Jim Morrison, a legendary American songwriter renowned for being an influential front-man in rock history. He went on to create the rock band - The Doors.
This is what was meant when we heard the news that the next Dragon Age project had been 'rebooted', the fact that Laidlaw left, with his creative vision. Morrison is seemingly what remains of the skeleton team working on Dragon Age 4, the likes of Patrick Weekes, John Epler, Mark Darrah, Nick Thornborrow, etc. Each of these developers are Dragon Age franchise veterans.
Meanwhile, the studio moved the bulk of Dragon Age 4’s developers to Anthem, which needed all of the company’s resources if it was going to hit the ship date that EA was demanding. One big change that’s already been enacted at BioWare is a new technology strategy.
Developers still at the studio say that under Casey Hudson, rather than start from scratch yet again, the next Dragon Age will be built on Anthem’s codebase. BioWare have stated that they will share more on what this means for the game in the near future.
Parts of 'sharing Anthem's codebase' mean that BioWare will avoid throwing out huge amounts of work developers put into adapting Frostbite. Jason Schreier has confirmed on Reddit that we'll be getting an updated news story hopefully this week regarding Dragon Age 4 in the near future.
Okay so opinion time!
The fact that Dragon Age was pushed aside for the likes of Anthem is upsetting to all BioWare fans, however, I feel this isn't the most pressing news to be alarmed about.
Regarding the whole, Dragon Age 4 will share the same codebase as Anthem, all this means is that the next Dragon Age will build on the existing tech used for Anthem. This is exactly what I mentioned in my previous video, the idea that sharing resources on the Frostbite Engine would be handy for BioWare given the trouble with the Frostbite engine.
Sharing the same codebase is in no way, shape or form declaring that the next Dragon Age game will be multiplayer, we already know that their working on a separate multiplayer feature for the game, as they've hired a new, side team to embark on that task alongside the development of the main game.
How I envision Dragon Age 4 basing it's codebase on Anthem's is simply by using it's most upgraded presets within the Frostbite engine as BioWare have constantly innovated it with three previous games, each systematically adding and changing mechanics within the software.
Dragon Age: Inquisition layered the foundations for their first role-playing game in the Frostbite engine, Mass Effect Andromeda stretched out the engine with larger maps and fast vehicle usage, and Anthem innovated with it's flying mechanics with a streamed-in world.
I've seen a lot of people worried about using Anthem's codebase and what could this mean, and by a lot of people I mean Reddit. One particular comment I noted said, why don't BioWare just use the same codebase as Dragon Age: Inquisition since that was the previous RPG title that the team is most comfortable with.
Well, if you think about it, the codebase for Inquisition is at least 5 years old now, and not to mention a large part of that games was brought down due to previous game-generation limitations, as Inquisition released on both PS3 and Xbox 360. It's probably a super outdated preset on the Frostbite engine, whereas Anthem's codebase is higher tech, more developed and not to mention super recent.
It makes sense for Dragon Age 4 to share the same codebase and resources as Anthem, this is in no way saying that the next Dragon Age is going to be stickily multiplayer, it's just an improvement regarding the tech of the Frostbite engine.
I feel a lot of these confessed mistakes for Anthem's developments show an optimistic light for the next Dragon Age game, BioWare are embracing their mistakes once more, this time with Anthem and BioWare's A team.
They've learned throughout the course of creating three games on the Frostbite engine, each from scratch is a very hard thing to do. So instead, they've decided only now for the next Dragon Age, they're going to share the presets from their most recent, previous title.
This is exactly the same situation as how Fallout 4 is built upon Skyrim's engine, they ported the presets of their tech for Skyrim into a next generation level of the Creation Engine and then began creating Fallout 4. If anything, I see this as a positive, it shows that BioWare have learned how chaotic the Frostbite engine is, and now they've decided to make their lives easier, they can actually speed up development on new projects because they'll have a template and needn't start from scratch.
And judging my Anthem's latest tech within the engine, the gameplay is super fun, the world is streamed in and allows for tight flight controls whilst looking beautiful all at the same time. I've made a video literally explaining the Frostbite engine's developments with Anthem, and how they pave the way for Dragon Age 4.
Using previous games as build templates just sounds like a typical games design motto, I feel perhaps this gets bad press because Anthem wasn't a BioWare epic and it's an always online multiplayer experience, however, the motivation is still the same.
Moving on, It's disheartening to see that BioWare have responded with an underwhelming, lacking reply which attempts to throw shade at the likes of Jason Schreier who're just showcasing the mistakes of Anthem, so BioWare can learn.
It's almost hypercritical, it's like we, as a studio can call our games a mistake, but how dare you point out the flaws and call it journalism.
To nip this in the bud, I feel like there are two teams within BioWare, the sympathetic developers who deeply love their games, and will actually come out and say when something went wrong, as noted by Jason's sources.
And then there's the EA side in BioWare, who're conflicted against them, controlling every word from the studio and not accepting room for growth or improvement.
We can see from Jason's article that plenty of the BioWare developers have spoke out, regarding the studio and Anthem's developments, there not all EA puppets. So, there's seemingly a few decent bunch in the studio who care for sharing the studio's current state to the public.
Trying to end this positively, the fact that the next Dragon Age has been 'rebooted' shows that the studio hasn't given up on this franchise, that there trying to work it out in the best way possible, that they will give the game it's due time and care. And lets not forget the masterminds working on the project as mentioned before!
If the title had merely been a failure without Mike Laidlaw's vision, they'd have given up on the game, but no, there's still hope for the future of this franchise. They've found a way to reboot the project, following a different vision and seemingly unique enough to be given a new project title.
It doesn't seem like it'll be that long before we hear what this could potential mean, and how the next Dragon Age as been rebooted, examining what the differences are between project Joplin and Morrison.
Sheer speculation on my part, but other than Jason delving into when we'll hear from Dragon Age next, I feel he could have a bigger story on the horizon.
Comments