'Hey everyone, we have been working on a new Dragon Age game for quite a while now and I am pleased to finally tease the existence of this project,' said Mark Darrah, executive producer on a BioWare blog post. Stay tuned for more information, especially concerning the current version of Dragon Age 4, which is in development at BioWare Edmonton.Despite the fact that the game’s development had long been a very open secret, Dragon Age 4 was only officially announced by BioWare a couple of years ago. Since then, BioWare has kept its cards pretty close to its chest and neither a release date nor a release window has been confirmed.

The entire story is worth a read, if only to hear about what could have been. That explains how executive producer Mark Darrah ultimately became involved with the now-troubled online-focused title.

When it became apparent that Anthem wouldn’t meet its deadline, EA and BioWare cancelled Joplin and moved the majority of its staff over to the looter shooter. Though they would return to Joplin in March 2017 – with several members from Andromeda also part of development – they would have to assist with Anthem later in the same year.

What caused Joplin to ultimately be cancelled? It started with the development team moving over to assist with Mass Effect: Andromeda in late 2016. I’m sad that game will never get made.” Then again, change seems to be a constant with the Dragon Age franchise. “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. One former BioWare developer described working on Joplin as “some of the best work experiences” they ever had. Heists were a core focus, as were systemic narrative mechanics, like having to extort guards. The focus was on areas that would change over time, and on missions branching out into different paths depending on one’s choices. Joplin was about choice and consequence, emphasizing fewer fetch quests and decidedly smaller scale areas. The story was set in Tevinter Imperium in Thedas, a country known for being ruled by Wizards. We know about the departures of veteran developers like creative director Mike Laidlaw, but Dragon Age 4’s first incarnation, Joplin, was meant to be something very unlike Dragon Age: Inquisition. It talks about the original plans for the sequel, which was rebooted in October 2017, and how plans have changed significantly. Following a mammoth exposé on the troubled development of Anthem, Kotaku’s Jason Schreier has published another article on “The Past and Present of Dragon Age 4“.

Dragon age 4 reboot