With Dragon Age 4 still quite a few years away, given it's expected 2022-2023 release window. I've been reflecting and thinking retrospectively about how long Dragon Age 4 has actually been in development. And so, with that question, here I am on a quest to try and answer it.
This investigation has been put together for the betterment of everyone in the BioWare community, including myself, plaguing the developers with infinite questions regarding what’s next for Dragon Age and when will we hear something about the next game.
If we, as a community, can understand at which point BioWare are with the development of the next Dragon Age, then perhaps we’ll have more grace and patience as we support the developers with their hard work and dedication to creating the next game.
We’d have some appreciation, all the while garnering an understanding of how long this game has left in development. Yes, for our sakes, but also for BioWare’s sake. We need to see if EA are giving the Dragon Age team enough time for them to create the Dragon Age game they want to make, and nothing short of that.
And that’s exactly what I want to uncover. With that, let’s begin. it's no secret that the next Dragon Age game has already had quite the tumultuous time in its early stages of production:
The previous iteration known as 'Joplin' was canned and has been rebooted for 'live service elements'.
The Creative Director and 14-year BioWare Veteran Mike Laidlaw left the studio, along with his vision for the next Dragon Age game.
Shortly after that, the Lead Writer and 17-year BioWare Veteran David Gaider left the studio to pursue other games design avenues.
Not to mention the anxiety and panic attacks the developers faced ensuing Anthem's development.
Although all of these factors point to disaster and worry, and they can lead to mixed feelings about the next game in production, I can assure you that there's still plenty confidence and hope for the next iteration of Dragon Age 4:
The developers working on the next Dragon Age game are creating the next with "an eye to what the fans love about Dragon Age, which is easy because they love Dragon Age."
The Creative Director of 'Morrison', the latest iteration is Matthew Goldman, the previous Art Director of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Plenty of BioWare Veterans are still in the studio, working on the next Dragon Age title such as Patrick Weekes (15 years), John Epler (13 years), Caroline Livingstone (12 years), Mary Kirby (13 years), Graham Scott (13 years), Mark Darrah (23 years?), Parrish Ley (14 years), Lucas Krisjanson (22 years), and many more legacy developers!
There's been signs of improvement within the working conditions at BioWare, Casey Hudson personally has been getting involved with solving these issues. I've seen a few developers sharing tweets that they're enjoying working at BioWare, and they're eager to share more on the next Dragon Age game. I'll share even more on this topic in my next news video coming end of May! But it seems that the developers are staying on top, and positive for the next Dragon Age.
Regardless, I'll take any chance I can get to inspire folks that the next Dragon Age game is in the right hands and BioWare are aware of what the fans expect from them. Let's move on to the main investigation - to examine the next Dragon Age game’s development process.
Ironically, the next game hasn't officially been announced, according to many of the developers at BioWare, yet EA have already given the project an initial release window of 2022-2023.
One of the main questions I want to answer by the end of this is - do BioWare have enough time to create an epic Dragon Age game, with that strict deadline mandated by EA?
Well, in order to answer that question and understand the production stages the game is currently at, I'm going to have to begin at the start by revisiting Jason Schreier's "The Past & Present Of Dragon Age", which I know we've talked about a lot, but it's the biggest indicator on Dragon Age 4's development. So, here we go.
2015:
Following Dragon Age: Inquisition's Trespasser DLC release in 2015, Dragon Age 4's previous iteration began its very early stages of production. The plans for the next game were very exciting, and some of the developers had put their best work into it.
The project was called 'Joplin' and it would've centred on spies embarking on heists in Tevinter, smaller in scale then Inquisition, however, much further in depth, choices and consequences. And there was an emphasis on repeat play, having the player's visit previous areas again, with new content.
2016:
However, the first major bump in the road occurred in 2016, one year after development had started. Mass Effect: Andromeda required all hands-on deck, and so many members of the Dragon Age team were moved to work on Andromeda, they're even mentioned in the credits of Andromeda as the 'Dragon Age Finaling Team.'
2017:
After Andromeda's release in March 2017, it was back to working on 'Joplin' for the majority of the shifted developers. For some developers, it was refreshing to get back to working on the next Dragon Age. However, it wasn't long before BioWare's next releasing title - Anthem was suffering through development troubles. By the latter half of 2017, Anthem was in real trouble, and so EA took drastic action.
In October, 2017, EA cancelled 'Joplin's' development and moved the bulk of the project's staff onto Anthem. With two years of development on a project that will never see the light of day, Mike Laidlaw departed BioWare that same month.
Alexis Kennedy was previously working on 'Joplin' too, however, according to his LinkedIn profile, he left the project in October too. It seems his work only extended to 'Joplin' and will most likely be scrapped as well.
Towards the end of 2017, as the majority of "Joplin's" core team went to work on Anthem, a very small skeleton team stuck around to work on a brand-new Dragon Age project under the new title 'Morrison.' This team will have consistent of developers like Patrick Weekes, who was anointed the role of Lead Writer since David Gaider departed. Other key developers working on the foundations of 'Morrison' in 2017 included: John Epler, Matthew Goldman, Daniel Kading, Matt Rhodes and many other talented designers.
It's unknown how much of "Joplin's" previous work will make its way into 'Morrison', surely a project with production escalating over two years would have some worthy elements that could be added to 'Morrison'.
As it stands, we don't know if the games will share the same vision, or if any of the same key mechanics, concepts, story threads, etc, have made their way into 'Morrison'.
All that is known about 'Morrison' is that the game has been rebooted with Anthem's codebase, so the developers aren't starting from complete scratch, they'll have somewhat of a preset of the Frostbite engine that can act as Dragon Age 4's very foundations. However, unlike 'Joplin', this new version of the fourth Dragon Age is planned with a live service component, built for long-term gameplay and revenue.
A few developers working on 'Morrison' stated that this game will change drastically in the next two years, however, that's been the case with every Dragon Age game. The point is that the project will take many different shapes until it feels like a Dragon Age game.
2018:
So, we know that this project reboot happened around the end of 2017, with a very small skeleton team going forward following a slightly new approach, and a new Creative Director. This is the new Dragon Age 4 that was later teased at The Game Awards in 2018. However, unbenounced to us at the time, we didn't know the game was rebooted, and therefore, as fans do, we presumed that this title would release soon.
In actuality, when 'The Dread Wolf Rises' teaser dropped, the new iteration of Dragon Age 4 had only been in very early development with a small team for about a year, hence why we still haven't heard, or seen anything of this project since. the game's production stages had barely started.
Not only that, but the teaser wasn’t supposed to act as an announcement, but more of a message to the fans that something is happening with Dragon Age.
2019:
Anthem shipped in February, 2019, and following its release, the Dragon Age developers who were shuffled to the Anthem team back in 2017, then went back to the new iteration of Dragon Age in May of 2019, including the Executive Producer, Mark Darrah.
The Dragon Age team; fully operational with all hands-on deck, could begin to wrap up its pre-production stages, and start production development. We discovered a few key production stages last year in my massive 2019 news roundup, things like voice acting, concept art, and potential 3D models.
Fernando Melo left the studio in August of 2019, stating that his work of “guiding the team through EA’s concept and early production phases” had been complete, and he felt it was the least messy time to leave the company. This proves that indeed; the title has begun production stages.
2020:
With that, we can safely say that Dragon Age 4's production has continually increased, as the project makes its way through many core development stages.
To this date, the game has recently had script readings for scenes, some of them being romance moments. Animations for a dog-like companion. Something about coding 'Scriplets' and plenty more of tidbits.
Conclusions:
So, in an attempt to work out how long Dragon Age 4 has been in development...
If we do some quick maths, it seems that project 'Joplin' was in development for around two years, between 2015 - 2017.
Therefore, project 'Morrison' has been in development for around 3 years, given that it started in 2017 - present.
However, from late 2017 to early 2019. the work on 'Morrison' was pre-production. The main production stages began in May 2019.
So, 'Morrison' has been in pre-production for approximately 18 months, with the production stages starting around a year ago, in May 2019.
With its release window of 2022-2023, can BioWare successfully create an epic Dragon Age title? Is this enough time for the developers to create the best Dragon Age possible?
Well, I'm not one to leave you with rhetorical questions. If we look at Dragon Age: Inquisition's development, a game that I'd consider to be a Dragon Age epic, that served the fans supremely well.
In a 2014 interview with Mike Laidlaw, conducted by UK newspaper The Guardian.
Dragon Age: Inquisition's production had been about three years, but taking in the early concepting, it would be four years. As studio general manager Aaryn Flynn kindly pointed out, that’s about 10% of Mike's life.
If we go by that measure, 'Morrison' with 18 months of pre-production and one year of full production, and two to three years of development left before an initial release window.... it sounds quite plausible that BioWare could pull this off.
Although BioWare have their work cut out for them, I have hope that they can deliver an amazing Dragon Age game dedicated to the fans. With plenty of time spent on the pre-production stages, hopefully the team has learned from Anthem and Andromeda's rough early stages, and they've conceptualised the development enough, that production can carry on at ease.
And regarding 'Joplin's' two years of previous work, I hope that at least some aspects of that project's production went into 'Morrison', the core concept alone sounded like it could've been the best Dragon Age game to date, and with so many developers pouring in some of their best work, I truly hope that it all hasn't been canned and it can make its way into the next Dragon Age game.
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