We've just received the full story to Dragon Age's past and current developments, of course this is a direct sequel to last weeks news report regarding the reboot of the next Dragon Age title, I recommend checking out that news piece before watching this one, just so you have a complete understanding on the new info!
Following Jason Schreier's continued BioWare story, we have direct insight from many BioWare employees regarding the initial Dragon Age 4 BioWare were going to create code named 'Joplin' and envisioned by Mike Laidlaw, against the now in production Dragon Age project that has been code named 'Morrison'.
Last time we talked about both projects - Joplin and Morrison, equally named after their respected music artists who died at the age of 27, but were both known for revolutionizing their respected industry.
This latest report examines everything that Joplin was going to be regarding the future of the next Dragon Age title.
Let's now delve into the potential game that Dragon Age 4 initially was going to be, before it was rebooted for Anthem and Andromeda's developments.
Jason said: "The plan for Joplin was exciting, say people who worked on it. First and foremost, they already had many tools and production pipelines in place after Inquisition, ones that they hoped to improve and continue using for this new project."
"They committed to prototyping ideas early and often, testing as quickly as possible rather than waiting until everything was on fire, as they had done the last time thanks to the glut of people and Frostbite’s difficulties."
"Everyone in project leadership agreed that we couldn’t do that again, and worked to avoid the kind of things that had led to problems,” said one person who worked on the project, explaining that some of the big changes included:
1) Laying down a clear vision as early as possible.
2) Maintaining regular on-boarding documents and procedures so new team members could get up to speed fast; and
3) A decision-making mentality where “we acknowledged that making the second-best choice was far, far better than not deciding and letting ambiguity stick around while people waited for a decision.”
(That person, like all of the sources for this story, spoke under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about their experiences.)
Another former BioWare developer who worked on Joplin called it “some of the best work experiences” they’d ever had. We were working towards something very cool, a hugely reactive game, smaller in scope than Dragon Age: Inquisition but much larger in player choice, followers, reactivity, and depth,” they said. “I’m sad that game will never get made.”
"You’d play as a group of spies in Tevinter Imperium, a wizard-ruled country on the north end of Dragon Age’s main continent, Thedas. The goal was to focus as much as possible on choice and consequence, with smaller areas and fewer fetch quests than Dragon Age: Inquisition."
(In other words, they wanted Joplin to be the opposite of the Hinterlands.) There was an emphasis on “repeat play,” one developer said, noting that they wanted to make areas that changed over time and missions that branched in interesting ways based on your decisions, to the point where you could even get “non-standard game overs” if you followed certain paths.
"A large chunk of Joplin would centre on heists. The developers talked about building systemic narrative mechanics, allowing the player to perform actions like persuading or extorting guards without the writers having to hand-craft every scene."
It was all very ambitious and very early, and would have no doubt changed drastically once Joplin entered production, but members of the team say they were thrilled about the possibilities.
"The first big hiccup came in late 2016, when BioWare put Joplin on hold and moved the entire team onto the troubled Mass Effect: Andromeda, which needed as many hands as possible during its final months of development."
The Joplin team expanded with people who were rolling off Andromeda and kept working, prototyping, and designing the game. After spending months of their lives helping finish a Mass Effect that didn’t excite a ton of people, it was nice to return to Dragon Age.
One thing that wasn’t discussed much on Joplin was multiplayer, according to a few people who worked on the project, which is perhaps why the project couldn’t last.
"By the latter half of 2017, Anthem was in real trouble, and there was concern that it might never be finished unless the studio did something drastic."
"In October of 2017, not long after veteran Mass Effect director Casey Hudson returned to the studio to take over as general manager, EA and BioWare took that drastic action, cancelling Joplin and moving the bulk of its staff, including executive producer Mark Darrah, onto Anthem."
"A tiny team stuck around to work on a brand new Dragon Age 4, code-named Morrison, that would be built on Anthem’s tools and code base. It’s the game being made now. Unlike Joplin, this new version of the fourth Dragon Age is planned with a live service component, built for long-term gameplay and revenue."
One promise from management, according to a developer, was that in EA’s balance sheet, they’d be starting from scratch and not burdened with the two years of money that Joplin had already spent. Question was, how many of those ideas and prototypes would they use?
It’s not clear how much of Joplin’s vision will shape Morrison (at least some of it will, says one person on the game), but shortly after the reboot, creative director Mike Laidlaw left, as did some other veteran Dragon Age staff.
"Matt Goldman, art director on Dragon Age: Inquisition and then Joplin, took over as creative director for Morrison, while Darrah remained executive producer on both that project and Anthem."
In early 2018, when I first reported that BioWare had rebooted the next Dragon Age and that its replacement would be a live service game, studio GM Casey Hudson responded on Twitter.
“Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you’ll be relieved to see what the team is working on. Story & character focused. Too early to talk details, but when we talk about ‘live’ it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story.”
The game is still very early in development and could evolve based on the negative reception to Anthem. Rumour among BioWare circles for the past year has been that Morrison is “Anthem with dragons”—a snarky label conveyed to me by several people—but a couple of current BioWare employees have waved me off that description.
“The idea was that Anthem would be the online game and that Dragon Age and Mass Effect, while they may experiment with online portions, that’s not what defines them as franchises,” said one. “I don’t think you’ll see us completely change those franchises.”
"When asked, a few BioWare developers agreed that it’d be technically possible for a game built on Anthem’s codebase to also have an offline branch, but it’s not yet clear whether Morrison will take that approach. If it does turn out to be an online game, which seems likely, it would be shocking if you couldn’t play the bulk of it by yourself."
(Diablo III, for example, is online-only on PC yet can be played entirely solo.)
One person close to the game told me this week that Morrison’s critical path, or main story, would be designed for single-player and that goal of the multiplayer elements would be to keep people engaged so that they would actually stick with post-launch content.
Single-player downloadable content like Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Trespasser, while often excellent, typically sells only a fraction of the main game, according to developers from BioWare and elsewhere across the industry.
Yet this wouldn’t be a “live service” game if it was a repeat of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which compartmentalized its single- and multiplayer modes.
Fans in the past have grown outraged at the idea of BioWare putting a lot of emphasis on multiplayer gaming, but there are ways in which a service-heavy Dragon Age 4 could be ambitious and impressive.
"For example, some ideas I’ve heard floated for Morrison’s multiplayer include companions that can be controlled by multiple players via drop-in/drop-out co-op, similar to old-school BioWare RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, and quests that could change based not just on one player’s decisions, but on the choices of players across the globe."
"Maybe in two or three years, Morrison will look completely different. It’s not like Dragon Age hasn’t changed drastically in the past. In the office, BioWare developers often refer to Mark Darrah’s Dragon Age team as a pirate ship, one that will eventually wind up at its destination, but not before meandering from port to port, drinking as much rum as possible along the way."
His is a team that, in the past, has iterated and changed direction constantly—something that they hoped to cut down for Joplin, but has always been part of their DNA (and, it should be noted, heavy iteration is common in all game development).
"One BioWare employee summed it up well as we talked about the future of BioWare’s fantasy franchise. “Keep in mind,” they said, “Dragon Age games shift more than other games."
Said another current BioWare employee about Morrison: “They have a lot of unanswered questions. Plus I know it’s going to change like five times in the next two years.”
There are other questions remaining, too: With BioWare’s Austin office gradually taking over Anthem going forward, when will the bulk of employees at the company’s Edmonton HQ move to the Morrison team?
Will Morrison be able to avoid following the lead of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which took on too many people too early and wound up suffering as a result?
And, most important, will BioWare work to prevent the burnout that has led to dozens of developers leaving over the past two years, with so many citing stress, depression, and anxiety?
End of article, so my thoughts on this, of course, I have my worries especially regarding the multiplayer part, it was to my knowledge that there is a separate Dragon Age team working on the multiplayer component completely estranged from the core team.
I hope that this is still the case, however, it's EA that're the ones who plaque BioWare to incorporate multiplayer and live-service.
Honestly the biggest concern here is how much of Joplin's original vision and resources are going to be put into Morrison's production, because the description of Joplin is everything I've wanted in a Dragon Age game following from Inquisition.
To hear that this initial game has been canned is heart-wrenching, any signs of Joplin's ashes in Morrison is all I can hope for. Hope is all we really have right now regarding the future of Dragon Age, and don't forget Mass Effect, which is also going to affected by this too.
Of course, I have my worries. But I am hopeful for what the Dragon Age team can do, and I feel to fear when we still haven't seen the game yet is a little blind-sighted. Who knows when we will see or hear anything.
The next Dragon Age project is expected to release within 2-3 years from now, all we can hope for next is a reveal of some-sorts, like a title or development update.
It would be incredible if BioWare could come out and share some insight on what the heck is going on with the next Dragon Age, like a development diary which they did with Mass Effect: Andromeda.
To get a glimpse of this next game and the vision for it is what we in the BioWare fandom all need right now. To know what is going on with the next Dragon Age and how true it will stick to Joplin's original vision.