Following the recent unveiling of the next Dragon Age game's title—Dragon Age: Dreadwolf—today I’m fully uncovering the project’s development so far, exploring every aspect of the game’s production stages and delving into everything that you need to know about this game’s progression in the recent years.
As a quick foreword, it’s fair to say that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf’s early stages of development have been quite a tumultuous time: from a live service reboot and single-player turnaround to pandemic challenges and key staff departures. Yet, despite those difficulties, the next Dragon Age is currently powering through its production stages, BioWare are creating the next Dragon Age with Anthem’s tools and codebase to save time, their expertise with the Frostbite engine has grown tremendously, the team are not recreating the next Dragon Age from scratch like previous titles, the planned live service and multiplayer elements have been canned for a laser-focused single-player experience, and BioWare’s leadership teams have undergone restructuring to ensure this vision is realised.
As it currently stands, BioWare are taking measures to ensure that the company’s previous mistakes will not be repeated in the development of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. If you know anything about Anthem or Andromeda’s development, you’ll know that they both shared the same patterns and mistakes that ultimately led to each game’s failure. BioWare are trying very hard to avoid falling into those same routines with their next game in the Dragon Age series. And based on Jason Schreier's reports with staff close to the project, it seems like the team have resolved most of those mistakes.
With that prefaced, let’s investigate further and dive into the major production updates of the next Dragon Age specific to each year, analysing what we know so far since the very start of Dragon Age 4’s production in 2015, working our way up to 2022 as the game progresses with significant development updates.
2015:
Following Dragon Age: Inquisition's Trespasser DLC release in 2015, the next chapter of the Dragon Age franchise—now known internally as Project Joplin—began its very early stages of pre-production with veteran Creative Director Mike Laidlaw at the helm.
Before the release of the Trespasser DLC, however, Lead Writer David Gaider was moved from the Dragon Age writing team and on to BioWare’s new I.P—Anthem. As David was shuffled, Patrick Weekes became the new Lead Writer of Dragon Age.
According to developers familiar with Project Joplin, the plans for the next Dragon Age were inspiring. The team had learned from the studio’s previous hiccups and they were using a set of established tools that made developing the game feasible. They also had leaders who said that they were committed to avoiding mistakes made on Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Project Joplin was apparently centred on heists in Tevinter, smaller in scale than Inquisition but larger in player choice, followers, reactivity and depth. A focus was placed on repeat play and reactivity. The goal was to focus as much as possible on choice and consequence, with smaller areas and fewer fetch quests than Inquisition.
While it was still very early, some of the developers had put their best work into it. It was going to be ambitious, and many developers felt excited about the possibilities.
2016:
In 2016, one year after pre-production had started, a major bump in the road occurred. Mass Effect: Andromeda required all hands on deck and so many members of the Dragon Age team were moved to work on it; these developers are credited in the credits of Andromeda as the 'Dragon Age Finalising Team.'
After a year of working on Anthem, David Gaider left BioWare in February 2016 to seek a new challenge. At the time, many developers ridiculed Gaider’s narrative direction for the game; others inside BioWare wanted to tell a different story. Gaider began to feel less keen to play the game he was working on—and with his departure—Anthem’s story was rebooted with new lead writers.
2017:
After the release of Andromeda in March 2017, BioWare turned its attention to developing Joplin for the majority of the Dragon Age staff. Many found it refreshing to work on the next exciting Dragon Age game after so much time on Andromeda, but it wasn't long before BioWare's next big project was being plagued with development troubles. By late 2017, Anthem was in serious trouble and EA decided drastic action was needed.
In October 2017, EA cancelled the development of Joplin and moved the bulk of its 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 had previously worked on the project Joplin, but according to his LinkedIn profile, he left the project in October. His work only extended to Joplin, Mark Darrah later confirmed that his work will not be in the next project.
As most of Joplin's core team went to work on Anthem, a small skeleton crew stuck around to work on a brand-new Dragon Age project under the new codename Morrison. Inquisition’s Art Director Matthew Goldman took over as Creative Director.
Morrison was intended to reboot the next Dragon Age, using technology from Anthem. Yet unlike the Joplin project, which focused on single-player gameplay and was spearheaded by Mike Laidlaw, Morrison was planned to have a live service component, built for long-term gameplay and revenue generation.
Many developers working on Morrison stated that the game will change drastically in the next two years. This has been the case for every Dragon Age game thus far, however. The point was that the project will take many different shapes until it feels like a Dragon Age game. Given Morrison’s single-player turnaround and removal of multiplayer in 2021, we can confirm the validity of this statement.
Nevertheless, a small skeleton team led by a new Creative Director with a live service/multiplayer-focussed vision began early pre-production on the next Dragon Age around the end of 2017. While the bulk of the Dragon Age team like Mark Darrah remained focused on Anthem.
2018:
In December 2018, BioWare teased the next Dragon Age game at The Game Awards. However, unbeknownst to the entire fandom at the time, this title had been rebooted, and therefore we presumed that it would release soon.
In reality, when 'The Dread Wolf Rises' teaser dropped, the next iteration of Dragon Age 4 had only been in very early pre-production with a small team for about a year.
Be that as it may, a few of the lead developers working on the next Dragon Age confirmed that they are creating the next entry with "an eye to what the fans love about Dragon Age, which is easy because they (themselves) love Dragon Age." And, “the team believes they will make a game that does right by the franchise.”
Creative Director Matthew Goldman believed that the next Dragon Age would be the studio’s most epic quest yet.
In hindsight, the announcement trailer for The Dread Wolf Rises wasn’t supposed to act as an official announcement, but more of a message to the fans that something is happening with Dragon Age. And those plans will involve the Dread Wolf, the Red Lyrium Idol and Solas’s scheme as a continuation of Trespasser’s narrative.
2019:
Following the release of Anthem in February 2019, the Dragon Age team—including Executive Producer Mark Darrah—returned to work on the next iteration of Dragon Age. With the Dragon Age team back on the project and operating with a sizeable staff, the studio proceeded with the pre-production stages of Morrison.
At BioWare, pre-production of any project can range between five and sixty people. In this early stage, core concepts, prototypes, and system developments are heavily iterated upon. Considering BioWare creates story-driven games, much time is spent developing 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 team completed a variety of tasks during the pre-production stages. Some examples included voice acting, plenty of concept art, in-engine prototypes, gameplay tests, and an up-rezzed HD TV screen model of Solas that I still yearn for a full answer on. The team also moved to new offices in downtown Edmonton.
In August of 2019, Fernando Melo left BioWare after working on the Dragon Age series for nearly a decade. He said that his work of “guiding the team through EA’s concept and early production phases” had been completed and that he felt it was the least messy time to leave the company.
Even further, Fernando said: “With a great game leadership team in place, a fantastic creative vision, and some of the best devs in the world. Morrison is well underway to becoming the definitive Dragon Age experience - and (he’s) incredibly proud and honoured to have played a part in that. (He’ll) be eagerly awaiting the opportunity to experience the next Dragon Age as a fan this time around.”
Fernando’s departure signalled the beginning of the main production stages for Morrison around the end of 2019 and the start of 2020.
2020:
In March 2020, at the height of the pandemic, BioWare held a team meeting reviewing the story for the next Dragon Age. Lead Producer, Scylla Costa said that everyone was very excited, and the team still believe that they have the opportunity to launch the best story with Morrison. The characters are amazing and many of the developers are dying to say more.
The team had just started the main production stages of Morrison having spent at least two years in pre-production. Throughout the current production stages of Morrison, the team will go 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 will be created with the implementation of newer features. The team starts growing tremendously bigger as the development progresses.
The Dragon Age team commendably have and continued to endure through the pandemic with adaptations and major changes to the communication and development of Morrison, after a few growing pains, production was able to steadily continue throughout the months of 2020.
A few examples of work that indicate the main production of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf have also been revealed online like working-romance scenes, playtesting content, milestone progression, patented mechanics, etc.
BioWare also revealed three teasers and trailers for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf which represented the game's progress at the time. At EA Play 2020, 12 seconds of in-engine footage was shown. Gamescom 2020 revealed an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the pre-production stages, and The Game Awards 2020 featured a cinematic trailer regarding the characters and locations we’ll witness in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.
In November, BioWare confirmed Project Morrison in BioWare’s book of Stories & Secrets from 25 years of Game Development. The book shared that Morrison was being helmed by Executive Producer Mark Darrah, and the game will take players to Tevinter as events of Inquisition and Trespasser threaten to forever change Thedas.
Another major insight this development book unveiled regarded that enigmatic ‘Wolf-Rook’ book that Mark Darrah has teased for half a decade. Apparently, the red book was an internal guide for developer and publisher eyes only that summarised the vision of Joplin. The Joplin project has since been revised to such an extent that its code name changed to Morrison, but the red book still contains plenty of ideas likely to appear in the next Dragon Age.
At the end of November, Gameplay Designer Melissa Janowicz decided to leave BioWare after three years.
In December, just before Dragon Age Day, Mark Darrah and Casey Hudson revealed that they’re both leaving BioWare too. Christian Dailey was shuffled from Anthem Next on to Dragon Age as the new Executive Producer and Gary McKay acted as the interim General Manager.
Casey and Mark both believed they were stepping away from Dragon Age knowing that it would be okay and in safe hands. Mark, in particular, shared a few words about how he’s confident the next Dragon Age will show that BioWare remains committed to this kind of game, and the team has a lot to show us.
The Edmonton Journal reported that Casey Hudson’s final day was December 11th, however, Mark Darrah stayed on until February 2021 to help with Christian Dailey’s Executive Producer transition.
2021:
In February 2021, 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.
Merely a day after Anthem’s cancellation, Jason Schreier reported that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was originally designed with a heavy multiplayer component, however, in the past few months, the game had recently transformed into a single-player-only game.
Jason shared further that during development, some members of BioWare's leadership team fought to pivot the game back to a single-player experience. Now, the planned live service elements and multiplayer components have been removed and reworked from the project. BioWare are adamant about creating the next Dragon Age with a laser-focused single-player experience.
In March, 14-year Narrative Quality Designer Arone Le Bray left the Dragon Age team.
In May, Audio Artist Presley Hynes left the Dragon Age team.
In June, Product Director Gabe Heiland left the Dragon Age team.
Gary McKay was confirmed as BioWare’s Studio General Manager. He was the interim GM since Casey Hudson’s departure in December 2020, however, he was granted the position permanently. Gary remains committed to creating great BioWare games with a laser focus.
A Dragon Age 4 Alpha file was apparently data-mined on the PlayStation Store by a seemingly credible Twitter account PlayStation Game Size. Nothing has since come of this though.
In July, Jeff Grubb via VentureBeat reported that Dragon Age 4 is expected for a 2023 release window. Also, according to Jeff, we’ll start hearing more about the next game in 2022. This report definitely seems accurate.
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.
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.
Associate Quality Designer Scott Chorel left the Dragon Age team.
In November, Creative Director Matthew Goldman suddenly departed the Dragon Age team after a mutual agreement with BioWare and EA leadership to part ways. This bombshell update was revealed in a staff email leaked to Kotaku. The reasoning behind this quick exit is still unknown.
In December on Dragon Age Day 2021, BioWare shared a paragraph about the next Dragon Age. They reassured everyone that the teams are hard at work building the next single-player-focused experience for Dragon Age, and they’re excited to share more in 2022.
2022:
In January, General Manager Gary McKay shared the current state of BioWare. Gary spoke on the continued uncertainty of the pandemic and how it’s changed the studio’s process and working situation, despite that, BioWare continues to adapt to these ever-changing circumstances. The teams have adopted new tools, processes and ways to communicate, they’re balancing personal time and work, and each person is dealing with their own unique situation.
The studio are hard at work on the next iterations of Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Gary has seen some incredible work from both teams, regarding Dragon Age, BioWare has a veteran group of talented developers working on the next iteration of the franchise. They are focused on a single-player experience that is built on choices that matter. The teams can’t wait for everyone to see what they’ve been working on. Gary also explored that the studio feels that they have the right people, the right creative focus, and the support from EA to deliver on their promises.
Alex Calleros announced that he joined the Dragon Age team as a Video Editor.
Sez Young joined BioWare as a Technical Animator.
Senior Designer Graham Scott left the Dragon Age team.
Jeff Grubb reported that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is in very good shape and is still expected for a 2023 release window. The team are hitting their milestones and the game is on schedule. Jeff expects it to release in maybe late 2023 at the earliest.
Andrew Johnson, EA’s Manager of Core Community for Star Wars and BioWare titles left EA.
In February, Narrative Director John Epler announced that he’s the new Creative Director of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf following Matthew Goldman’s departure in November 2021.
David Gaider praised John Epler’s role transition, believing it was a really positive sign and a fantastic development update.
Alongside John Epler’s Creative Director shift. Gary McKay announced that Executive Producer Christain Dailey was leaving the Dragon Age team. Gary stated that a strong leadership team of industry and Dragon Age veterans is in place to carry BioWare through production and beyond. Mac Walters is the Production Director, Corrine Busche is the Game Director, and Benoit Houle is the Director of Product Development.
Regarding his departure, Christian Dailey tweeted that the Dragon Age team are killing it and the game is in amazing hands. Don't fall for the hate. Lots of positivity. He can't wait for when BioWare can share more.
Former Executive Producer Mark Darrah created an insightful YouTube video on why he’s not worried about Dragon Age 4.
Mark Darrah said that Dragon Age 4’s development has many similarities to Dragon Age: Origin’s development, i.e, the team have been working on it for a really long time, the overall project direction has changed a couple of times, some key leadership members have departed and then been replaced - Mark Darrah was potentially the third or fourth Executive Producer on Dragon Age: Origins. And just like Dragon Age 4, the Creative Director of Dragon Age: Origins changed late in development. But despite all of that difficulties, and to the outside perspective—what would seem like a disaster of development, Dragon Age: Origins was fantastic and incredibly successful. Ultimately Mark is very hopeful for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and trusts its team. Mark said that triple-A games aren’t made by individuals, they are made by brilliant vision driving the game to completion, it’s about the collective vision, ideas and creativity of the team. While many have left the project, most of the team know this I.P, most of that team know how to create a great game, Mark believes that they will do just that with Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. And he thinks EA understands that and will give them the time to accomplish that.
In April, QA Analyst Allan Schumacher left BioWare.
BioWare shared a Dragon Age Community Update covering the next game’s progression. The blog shared insights from a few members of the Dragon Age team, showcased community and fan works, and it unveiled a new blog programme called developer stories which introduces many members of the team in great detail, allowing us fans to get a better understanding on who’s creating the next Dragon Age game and what their roles entail.
Since the reveal of this Community Update blog, we’ve received five developer stories: Creative Director John Epler, Technical Director Maciej Kurowski, Director of Product Development Benoit Houle, Game Director Corinne Busche, and Production Director Mac Walters with more on their way.
At the end of April, Story Artist Nick Thornborrow left BioWare and the Dragon Age team after 14.9 years.
In June, Dragon Age Dreadwolf, the official title of Dragon Age 4 was unveiled following new brand material and a small blog.
The blog briefly explored the identity of the Dread Wolf, emphasising that players who haven’t met the next game’s antagonist, don’t need to worry. The Dread Wolf will introduce himself to our new hero when the time is right. The blog shared that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will not release in 2022, however, BioWare will be talking about the game more later this year.
Following this reveal, Former Executive Producer Mark Darrah tweeted a rejected Dragon Age 4 title, sort of, that being Dragon Age: Minrathous Nights, alluding to a game with a heavy focus in Tevinter’s capital city Minrathous.
Jeff Grubb reinforced that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is still more than a year away.
With that, we’re up to speed on the next Dragon Age’s development as of June 2022. The next stages of production for the project will be Alpha, Beta and Launch.
As mentioned previously, the next Dragon Age has an estimated release window of 2023. We will hear more about Dreadwolf later this year, I assume we’ll see a trailer at The Game Awards in December just after Dragon Age Day and around the time the Netflix show Dragon Age: Absolution will air, as this month will be a very exciting time for Dragon Age fans. However, that is just an assumption on my part, we’ll just have to wait and see what BioWare concoct in their own time.
Conclusions:
In conclusion, after going through a tumultuous time with its live service reboot, a single-player turnaround, a cancelled previous iteration and a rework of BioWare’s leadership teams, I’m confident in BioWare’s ability to create a fantastic Dragon Age game. I wholeheartedly trust the entire team, and that’s where the majority of my optimism lies, in the dedicated and passionate people creating this next instalment who know and love this I.P. With that, of course, for all the latest Dragon Age: Dreadwolf updates, you’re already in the right place.
Sources:
How BioWare’s Anthem Went Wrong: https://kotaku.com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964
The Past & Present Of Dragon Age 4:
Big Festival With Scylla Costa:
Casey Hudson & Mark Darrah Departure:
Anthem Next Update:
Dragon Age Single Player Pivot:
Gary McKay Confirmed As GM:
Dragon Age 4 2023 Release Window:
Dragon Age 4 Next Gen Only:
Creative Director Matthew Goldman Departure:
State of BioWare 2022:
Dragon Age Production & Leadership Update:
Mark Darrah, Why I’m Not Worried Video:
Dragon Age 4 Community Update:
Dragon Age Dreadwolf Title Unvieled: