Today I’m wrapping up 2021 with every single major news update on Dragon Age 4’s development throughout this year. While the game is undergoing its key production stages, and still largely remains a mystery, there have been mighty news updates this year.
This 2021 news roundup is a direct continuation of my previous yearly roundup videos, so if you’ve missed the previous yearly updates, you can check them out on my news round-up playlist. Anyhow, seizing an end to 2021, let’s delve into everything that was revealed about Dragon Age 4 this year. We’ll kick this off with an exploration of the major stories of 2021, we’ll start with the new concept art pieces of the year.
2021 Concept Art Pieces:
Throughout 2021, BioWare have revealed a few conceptual artwork pieces on the next Dragon Age that’s kept each of us tinfoiling what these pieces could mean for the next game.
Speculatively, we’ve had four faction-based concept art pieces, showcasing a significant amount of relevant factions and their presence in the next game: The Executors, The Tevinter Siccari or an anti-slavery Tevinter movement, The Grey Wardens and The Antivan Crows. Each of these factions have had some relevance with Tevinter Nights and the Dragon Age Day short stories.
At Halloween, BioWare also revealed a spooky, conceptual peace that’s more ominous in its overall message - it could showcase a relevant faction like the other pieces, potentially the Mortalitasi given their necromantic nature and the red lyrium zombies shown in the piece, but, even so, I’d say that’s a bit of a stretch. I feel like it was revealed to suit the Halloween theme at the time.
In the past, we’ve been told by BioWare staff to look at their concept art like a mosaic, picking apart the themes of each piece, rather than focusing on the minute details. So, following that premise and piecing each concept art piece together, we currently have a lot of fun, bold and heroic, faction-based characters in contrasting and diverse locations.
So, is this symbolic of the next Dragon Age game? Is the next hero going to join together with a bunch of relevant factions in a wide range of locations? Is the next hero a member of one of these factions? Do the characters in these concept pieces represent conceptual classes the next game could include, for example, an archer who uses magic to fire their bow or a mage who can use a staff in physical combat? Or do they simply showcase that BioWare are aiming to create a fun, enjoyable game with a roster of heroes who may join our next hero? I am once again asking for faction-based backgrounds for our new hero to choose between.
Whatever the truth is, I thoroughly love the drip-feed of Dragon Age 4 concept art, examining with the community what it may mean for the next game. I’m sure there'll be plenty more concept art pieces to examine in the future, which is always exciting. Moving on to the next major story of 2021, let’s explore the challenges that the next Dragon Age endured through the pandemic.
Pandemic Challenges:
In May, Dragon Age Lead Producer Scylla Costa participated in Brazil’s Independent Games Festival, he spoke on the challenges the Dragon Age team endured through the pandemic, as they entered the games’ bulk production stages.
Scylla Costa introduced himself as one of the heads of the next Dragon Age project. Scylla and another producer are directly under Executive Producer Christian Dailey. He opened up his talk revealing the crash course timeline of BioWare’s development cycle with regards to the next Dragon Age’s production.
The first stage of game development is pre-production. Within BioWare, the pre-production stages of any project can have a size between 5, 30 and 60 people. In this early stage, core concepts, prototypes and system developments are heavily iterated on. Considering BioWare creates story-driven games, plenty of time is spent on creating many tools for the game’s narrative. Other focuses during this stage are on the game’s key features, as well as market research.
The next Dragon Age is currently in its production stages - this is the stage after pre-production where the team goes through the whole development of content and features. At this point, the team has the majority of the game’s systems in place, some new systems may be created with the implementation of newer features. The team also starts growing tremendously bigger as the development progresses.
After the production stages, Dragon Age 4 will go on to its Alpha stages. Within this stage, the game’s systems should all be running and working and the game’s features should be fully implemented. Technical tests are then assessed and lots of QA players test and play the game.
The stage after Alpha is the Beta stage. At this point, the game should have its entire content added. The team will then focus on balancing the game. Many more tests are run in order to further test the balance. Final tweaks are also made.
After Beta, it’s the launch stage where the team creates something known as the War Room. Everyone in every department comes together once a day to the meeting room where every single existing issue is brought up, then those issues are prioritised on what needs to be done depending on importance leading up to launch day.
After the game has shipped, the focus is on patching the game. Day zero patches with more tweaks and fixes to follow.
The final stage of BioWare’s development cycle is the new content stage with the creation of downloadable content post-launch. This cycle offers a very thorough perspective on the next Dragon Age’s production stages and how far into development it actually is.
Scylla moved on and explored the next game’s production at the height of the pandemic. On the 12th March, 2020, BioWare held a team meeting reviewing the story for the new Dragon Age. Scylla said that everyone was very excited, however, on the evening of that day, an EA CEO emailed each developer stating that due to the pandemic, everyone was to start working remotely.
Given this overnight mandate, less than 50% of the devs were not ready to work from home straight away due to many issues like not having a VPN. Scylla and his team started working on short-term changes that were needed - their top priority was to take care of the developers, review each situation on a case-by-case basis, and support the needs of each person.
A lot of working hours were made flexible, as well as deadlines. This support is still strong today for each developer. There was a lot of work looking at the individual team’s need for certain gear and equipment, ensuring that each developer had the required kit for working remotely.
Every three months, there was a sum of money that was given so the teams could buy specific developer kits like new mice, keyboards, microphones, webcams, etc.
Regarding mid and long term changes. Scylla said they had to look at them from 2 perspectives, the change in personal and professional environments.
As an example of a change in personal environments, Scylla showed his FitBit stats that drastically dipped once the team had started working from home, the number of steps he’d previously taken when working in the office were halved because of working remotely. This had an effect on his productivity as he then got a kidney stone.
Each developer was going through similar situations and felt like they needed to adapt to a new routine in order to feel more productive. Scylla, in particular, started getting dressed at the same time, planned meetings, not through lunch, got a standing desk and a treadmill, etc. All with the motive to get more active. Each developer built their own routine, ensuring they were going for a walk or getting a new hobby to remain active, as a result, the developers became more productive when working.
On the professional side, the team had to improve the remote delivery of builds. When working from home, developers need a VPN so they can download builds. make their changes to the game and then upload the updated build to the server. To help each developer access the build, Scylla and his team worked with new infrastructure and found a way for each developer to remotely access the console build-kit in the BioWare offices via streaming methods.
The team also worked on adapting new channels of communication. Scylla revealed a shot of a few developers storyboarding the narrative before motion capture implementation to reflect the draft that quickly illustrates the intent of the scene.
Before the pandemic, the team could sit in the meeting room and discuss things with ease, however, during the pandemic, BioWare had to adapt to new channels of communication like Zoom meetings and re-analysing their Slack server.
Another issue that the team had to face was the number of meetings they needed to have while working remotely. Essentially, any conversation within the team became a meeting because of the uncertainty of the pandemic. At one point, there were so many meetings throughout the days that not much time was dedicated to production.
To overcome this, the team questioned which meetings should take priority, which conversations should be taken to Slack instead. They wrote meeting notes for anyone who didn’t need to be in said meeting but wanted to know what was discussed. With these guidelines in place, the number of meetings decreased and the production improved significantly.
From a content point of view, the most difficult thing about the pandemic was adapting performance and motion capture. Previously, BioWare hired actors to fill out scenes for the next Dragon Age for animation and scene frameworks. The pandemic brought great limitations to what BioWare could and couldn’t do. As a fix, the mocap actors wore masks and socially distanced themselves for their own safety, no other crew members were on scene, and the directors were guiding the actors through a Zoom call.
Scylla shared that these adaptations made the work harder, however, the team managed to do it. When it was once said to be impossible to do things like mocap remotely, the team have strived through challenges like this and they’ve made them possible - which is honestly inspiring.
Going forward for the future development of the next Dragon Age, depending on each developer's roles, some of them may continue working from home, while some slowly return to work at the offices. During the pandemic, BioWare began hiring other developers outside of the Edmonton and Austin studios, because of this, the team gained more talent that they wouldn’t have been able to before without those developers relocating. They’re going to continue doing this.
In summary, Scylla ended the talk by answering a few questions. As a big fan of Dragon Age, he’s really excited for the next game, Scylla believes they have the opportunity to launch the best story with Dragon Age 4. The characters are amazing and Scylla is dying to say more, but he can’t.
And on that exciting notion, these are the main takeaways from Scylla Costa’s talk which was exceedingly insightful on Dragon Age’s production through the pandemic.
Single Player Pivot:
In February, BioWare revealed that the Anthem Next reboot was cancelled, Christian Dailey, who previously worked on the reboot, shared that the team made this decision to keep a laser focus on their efforts as a studio and strengthen the next Dragon Age, Mass Effect and SWTOR. The Anthem teams were moved to work on each project.
Global Director of Integrated Comms Andy McNamara spoke more on Anthem’s cancellation, he said he sees people ripping BioWare for this, and knows he can’t change that, but COVID has been a global challenge and these types of decisions aren’t easy for them. Anyway, less hate. More hope.
“I see people ripping BioWare for this, and I know I can’t change that, but covid has been a global challenge and these types of decisions aren’t easy for them. Anyway, less hate. More hope. I am saddened about Anthem but the teams are hard at work on some amazing stuff.”
Merely a day after Anthem’s cancellation, Jason Schreier via Bloomberg reported that Electronic Arts had made a major pivot on the next Dragon Age game, allowing the developers to remove all planned multiplayer components from the game, according to people familiar with the matter.
“Video game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. has made a major pivot on the next game in the popular Dragon Age series, allowing the developers to remove all planned multiplayer components from the game, according to people familiar with the matter.”
Jason shared further that the next Dragon Age, which doesn’t yet have an official title or release date, had previously been designed with a heavy multiplayer component, said the people, who asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the press. However, in recent months, the next Dragon Age has transformed into a single-player-only game after EA was stung by a recent multiplayer flop.
“The next Dragon Age, which doesn’t yet have an official title or release date, had previously been designed with a heavy multiplayer component, said the people, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the press. In recent months, it has transformed into a single-player-only game after EA was stung by a recent multiplayer flop.”
Following this story up, BioWare reiterated on Dragon Age Day 2021 that the Dragon Age team are hard at work building the next single-player focussed experience - so this vision seemingly hasn’t changed.
“Speaking of building new worlds and stories for you to explore, we want to let you all know that we're still hard at work on building the next single-player focused experience for Dragon Age.”
While this single-player pivot has been the most exciting news update on the next Dragon Age, there are still many current lingering questions regarding the removed planned multiplayer components like how many multiplayer and live-service elements were originally implemented? Is the removal of those components another reboot? Did Mark Darrah and Casey Hudson know about this shift before they departed the studio? And is a multiplayer mode completely off the table for the next Dragon Age game?
Regardless, whatever live service and multiplayer elements that were planned have since been removed - BioWare’s vision for the next Dragon Age is back on track with a single-player focused experience.
The only upsetting part about this single-player rework is the fact that ‘Joplin’—the original single-player Dragon Age iteration helmed by Mike Laidlaw’s creative vision—was cancelled in 2017 and rebooted with a live service pivot. At the time, Mike Laidlaw left the project with Matthew Goldman taking over as the Creative Director of this multiplayer-focused iteration.
And now the project has pivoted again, similar to its original iteration, yet without Mike Laidlaw or recently, Matthew Goldman helming the project as a Creative Director.
It really is quite frustrating that the BioWare developers have had this in-flux development that has wasted production time and influenced key staff to leave, only to then return to a very similar project. It would’ve been easier if EA just let BioWare do what they wanted to do in the first place like they are now… but at least the tides have changed, and the Dragon Age team can focus on creating the best single-player experiences. And as a silver lining, at least aspects of ‘Joplin’ will still be used for ‘Morrison’, as the Wolf Rook book confirmed - so not all is lost.
Production:
Okay so now we get into the tea, throughout 2021, we’ve had many indicators and updates on the current Dragon Age project in-progression. Let’s go over each of them rapidly, month by month.
January:
In January, BioWare kicked off the new year with the speculated Executor agent concept piece revealed by Christian Dailey, also former Creative Director Matthew Goldman joined Twitter, getting more involved with the fandom personally.
Justin Masse left the Dragon Age team after 5 years as a UX Designer and Technical Experience Designer.
Animation Director Mike Jungbluth tweeted about the animation team having some cool stuff to show off and review. Mike had so many, “That is so awesome/gross/wild moments after every call.”
February:
In February, Former Creative Director Matthew Goldman shared that it was his 12th anniversary working on Dragon Age. In celebration, Matthew revealed a few Dragon Age concepts and insights that he’s archived over the years. One of Matthew’s most prominent posts was an image of the new Dragon Age font that featured in the 2020 Game Awards trailer with its golden accents and circular designs.
The other more prominent post from Matthew Goldman regarded a cool image by Kafka_Sai that I’m not going to repost because it’s fanart, but it resembled the enigmatic figure in the 2020 Game Awards trailer - the character that we’re all speculated to be an agent of the Executors. Matthew said that this figure is the ‘mysterious V.... archer.’
Veilfire? Void? Venatori? Who knows. Maybe it’s an upside-down triangle that represents the Executors again? I look forward to more answers and reveals on this in the future.
February also meant the announcement of a quarterly EA earnings call, the CEO Andrew Wilson discussed their plans up till Q3 2021. As a TLDR, Willson said that BioWare have recognised the few blips in delivery over the past few years, but EA and BioWare are confident in its future roadmap. The new leadership team are taking the studio in a new direction, and overall EA feels good about the ongoing success of BioWare and they plan to reveal more in the near future.
Moving on, back in December, when Casey Hudson and Mark Darrah decided to leave BioWare, the Edmonton Journal reported that Mark actually agreed to stay at BioWare until February to help with the role transition.
“Darrah has agreed to stay on until February to help with the transition.”
As of February 5th, Mark Darrah officially left BioWare having spent 23 years at the company. I know I speak for the fandom when I say that we deeply appreciate all the time, energy and love spent on Dragon Age, and we’re all wishing Mark well in his future.
March:
In March, user sandwichtern on the BioWare Social Network requested more accessibility options for the next Dragon Age title.
Luke Barrett, who is working on RPG/Progression for Dragon Age said, “Accessibility is very important here at BioWare. We have a team internally and at EA focused on features and improvements in this area. You should be covered but just in case I can pass along any specific requests. Can't say for sure whether they'll be included or not but it doesn't hurt to check!”
At the end of March, 14-year Narrative Quality Designer Arone Le Bray left BioWare, seeking a change. Arone is now a Principal Narrative Designer at The Chinese Room - I wish him all the best on his future endeavours. I really enjoyed Arone’s short story in Tevinter Nights, he wrote “An Old Crow’s Old Tricks” - and with that as an example of his work, BioWare are surely at a loss without him.
April:
In April, BioWare revealed the brand-new Grey Warden concept art piece, however, that was really it, things were relatively quiet in April.
May:
In May, Audio Artist Presley Hynes left the Dragon Age team, she said that it’s been bittersweet, to say the least.
In the middle of May, EA had another earnings call focusing on the immediate future of 2022 with titles like Battlefield, Apex Legends and EA Sports outlined. There was no word on the next Dragon Age, other than BioWare have a new title coming out in the future, which clarifies that the next game will not be released next year, and will most likely be a 2023+ release.
June:
In June, Gary McKay, the former Interim General Manager of BioWare following Casey Hudson’s departure, was confirmed as the studio’s permanent General Manager. In a BioWare Blog Post, Gary shared a bit about his history and his plans for BioWare.
Gary started his career in the games industry with EA back in 1998, (which is when I was born). He said it was so exciting to see BioWare and EA grow in the early days. He spent the next seven years with EA before moving on. But now you could say he’s come full circle.
BioWare has been at the top of Gary’s bucket list of studios he’s wanted to work with, he believes that BioWare are unique because the studio has an incredible history of building critically successful games and universes that are truly beloved by so many fans. He thinks success for BioWare in the future is all about rebuilding that reputation and delivering on that promise of quality.
Ultimately, Gary shared that with his direction, EA are laser-focused on releasing the types of games BioWare has built a reputation on. Those being high-quality console, PC, and online RPG games with rich stories, unforgettable characters, and vast worlds. The teams continue to work on the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect — and this is a milestone year being the 10th anniversary with more to come from Star Wars: The Old Republic.
In the opposite direction, Product Director Gabe Heiland left the Dragon Age team in June.
According to Gabe’s LinkedIn, her role at BioWare included representing the Product Management discipline in the Game Leadership team, guiding best practices in Live Service design, KPI implementation and use, business decisions, and building Product Management discipline on the development side.
A Dragon Age 4 Alpha file was apparently data-mined on the PlayStation Store by a seemingly credible Twitter account PlayStation Game Size.
The tweet suggested that the PlayStation Store updated with a Dragon Age 4 related file in July before EA Play, however, the contents of this file was quite elusive. At the time, many gaming sites like GamesRadar and VG247 seemed to believe that this alpha file was related to a new trailer reveal at EA Play 2021, or it was new art or a proper store listing for the next Dragon Age.
To this date, we still don’t know the contents of this alpha file - it’s still a mystery. However, it didn’t relate to a new trailer reveal, so at least we know that now for future reference.
July:
In July, BioWare kindly revealed a brand new Antivan Crow concept art piece to make up for their lack of presence at EA Play 2021.
Jeff Grubb via VentureBeat reported that Dragon Age 4 is expected for a 2023 release window. Even further, according to Jeff, we’ll start hearing more about the next game in 2022. Let’s crack into the scoop on this one, I’ll share my thoughts after going through the article.
Jeff Grubb shared that sources familiar with the next Dragon Age have confirmed that the game is on track for a release in 2023. When Jeff reached out to EA about the release date, a spokesperson said the company hasn't announced the date and has no plans to share it yet. Holding back during EA Play 2021 was about enabling the publisher to get the game into position to begin marketing it in earnest. That will likely start in 2022.
“Sources familiar with the fantasy role-playing adventure confirm the game is on track for release in 2023. When I reached out to EA about the release date, a spokesperson says the company hasn’t announced the date and has no plans to share it yet. Holding back during this EA Play is just about enabling the publisher to get the game into position to begin marketing it in earnest. That will likely start in 2022.”
Jeff continued with his expectations for the next Dragon Age and shared that BioWare are building the next Dragon Age as a single-player narrative adventure, just like the previous entries in the series. Of course, that doesn’t mean the game won’t have any online multiplayer. That was one of the major features of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
“And what should we expect from the game itself? Well, don’t worry about EA trying to bring the connected, online live-service model to Dragon Age. BioWare is building the next Dragon Age as a single-player narrative adventure, just like the previous entries in the series. Of course, that doesn’t mean the games wouldn’t have any online multiplayer. That was one of the major features of Dragon Age: Inquisition.”
Jeff ended his article on the notion that BioWare first announced Dragon Age 4 in 2018. At that time, he reported the game was at least three years away. If it is now out by 2023, that will make it five years since its reveal.
The more time the next Dragon Age spends in its production stages where the bulk of development happens, surely the better the game could be.
August:
In August, nothing ground-breaking on the production of the next Dragon Age came out.
September:
In September, Principal UX Designer Asa Roos’ left the team.
Gaby Soto joined BioWare as a new Lighting Artist.
Derek Wilks joined the Dragon Age team as a Cinematic Designer.
Dragon Age Producer Scylla Costa replied to someone manifesting diverse body sliders for Dragon Age 4, Scylla said, “Taking notes.”
Writer Jay Watamaniuk tweeted, “Work rewrites this week. Getting closer.”
October:
In October, Jeff Grubb via Venturebeat revealed that Dragon Age 4 is heading to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S without cross-gen releases, the game will be next-gen exclusive.
Jeff confirmed this via a LinkedIn profile of a Lead Player Designer working on the next Dragon Age, so it’s pretty solid evidence to support this claim.
Dragon Age developer Jill Harrington tweeted, “You should see the fun places I've been making hair grow out of lately.”
Animation Director Mike Jungbluth tweeted a job posting with the caption, “Come help us bring to life diverse characters to smooch & wild creatures to pet!”
Also, in October, Associate Quality Designer Scott Chorel left the Dragon Age team. According to Scott’s LinkedIn, he worked predominantly on Mass Effect Legendary Edition, however, he did work on the latest Dragon Age focusing on Performance and Automated Tools in a similar capacity.
October wrapped up with the spooky, Halloween concept art piece.
November:
In November, Animation Director Mike Jungbluth tweeted, “Finishing off the work week with an absolutely inspiring animation flight presentation from TheSigularity to the animation team. There are few things better in this life than having people more expert than you sharing their knowledge and passion.”
In a rather bombshell moment, it was revealed via Kotaku that Matthew Goldman, the Creative Director on the next Dragon Age project has suddenly left the Dragon Age team after a mutual agreement with BioWare and EA leadership to part ways.
Revealed in a rather cold email, Matthew Goldman has since left BioWare. The studio has not released any follow-up statement, or farewell to Matthew for his hardwork and dedication over the years. To this date, we still don’t know who the Creative Director currently is on the next Dragon Age, hopefully in the new year, BioWare will reveal who’s helming this ship from here on out.
December:
In December, the fantastic Dragon Age Day team celebrated everything to do with Dragon Age via streams, interviews, giveaways and so much more, with donations made to the AbleGamers Charity - an American nonprofit organization dedicated to improving accessibility in the video game space, enabling more people with disabilities to be able to play video games.
BioWare celebrated the day with a small blog post praising the team behind Dragon Age Day. Last year, on Dragon Age Day, the Dragon Age website was updated with four new short stories, each with a beautiful art piece. The story titles were: The Next One, Ruins of Reality, The Wake, & Minrathous Shadows. In that same fashion, BioWare revealed two brand new stories: The Flame Eternal & Won’t Know When.
The Flame Eternal offers an incredible insight on the timing of the next game, the story was set thirty years ago in 9:22 Dragon. This means the current present would be 9:52 Dragon, eight years after Trespasser’s events. For the sake of this video's length, I’ll save this conversation for another time, but this 9:52 Dragon potential timing could be very interesting…
Also on Dragon Age Day 2021, BioWare shared a paragraph about the next Dragon Age:
“Speaking of building new worlds and stories for you to explore, we want to let you all know that we're still hard at work on building the next single-player focused experience for Dragon Age. We're excited for next year when we can talk more about what we're working on. Until then, we’ll leave you with two new short stories from the world of Dragon Age! Thank you all for continuing to take this journey with us.”
So, 2022 is going to our year folks, BioWare are going to start talking about the next Dragon Age - it’s definitely an exciting notion to think about, we’re going to know a lot more about this next game! Let’s move on to another major news story of 2021, the Dragon Age team’s departures since 2020.
Team Departures:
Since November 2020, there have been ten departures from the Dragon Age team in a variety of departments.
Melissa Janowicz (Gameplay Designer), Casey Hudson (General Manager), Mark Darrah (Executive Producer), Justin Masse (Experience Designer), Arone Le Bray (Narrative Quality Lead), Presley Hynes (Audio Artist), Gabe Heiland (Lead Product Director), Asa Roos’ (Principal UX Designer), Scott Chorel (Associate Quality Designer), & Matthew Goldman (Creative Director).
I’ve spoken on this topic repeatedly throughout this year. At the end of the day, there’s an entire 300+ team of talented developers who’re working every single weekday to ensure the next Dragon Age releases. I have hope in them. And I trust their talent and ambitions, however, I am incredibly wary of EA’s executives and their vision for the next game.
We started this year on a great note with Dragon Age 4’s single-player pivot, that the developers were able to take control of the project since EA witnessed Anthem’s downfall, and I’m honestly sceptical if BioWare does have full control of this project. Only time will tell, unfortunately.
Netflix Show & Future Media:
While the next game is currently in development, Giant Freakin Robot have shared that there’s a Dragon Age Netflix show in the works. The news site’s official stance is that they’ve received an exclusive, trusted and proven source that Dragon Age is getting a series on Netflix and the show is in active development right now.
Also, while there’s been no confirmation, Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir have shared many times that they would love to continue writing more Dragon Age comics since Dark Fortress wrapped up earlier this year. I can only hope BioWare and Dark Horse have heard our prayers for more fantastic Dragon Age comics from the pair.
My Expectations:
So, 2021 has been decent for Dragon Age content, we’ve at least had a few things to be grateful for, as evident in the major new stories of this year. What’s most exciting is, as 2021 closes, 2022 will start, we’re much closer than we’ve ever been to more Dragon Age news, especially with the confirmation that BioWare are going to be talking more about the next game. Exciting times are ahead, but to reminisce about this year, I just want to say thank you to each of you who’ve supported and watched my videos, your time and care are the reasons why I create videos like this. Thank you so much for taking the time to endorse my content.