What's Going on With Dragon Age 4?

It’s nearly been five years since the release of 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition. Fans have been anticipating the fourth entry to the RPG fantasy series since and only got their first real teaser at the 2018 Game Awards in December. With the amount of time between entries, fans are left wondering just why it has taken so long for an announcement to be made and why is it that DA4 is only in early development?

Thanks to a recent report from Kotaku we now have answers.

In late 2015, work began on DA’s next entry under the code-name of Joplin. In the early build of Joplin, it was planned that the player would play as a spy in the wizard-governed country of Tevinter. Instead of overwhelmingly large maps and countless fetch quests that plagued Inquisition, Joplin would return the focus to the story, characters and those all-important player choices found in DA’s early days with Origins. One developer in a Kotaku interview stated that certain areas in the map would be drastically altered by a choice that the player may or may not have made. Joplin sounds great, no?

It’s sad to say that this version of Dragon Age 4 will never see the light of day.

In the latter half of 2016, Joplin’s development was brought to a standstill when it became apparent to the heads at BioWare that Mass Effect: Andromeda was in big trouble and was in desperate need of all hands on deck. The developers working on Joplin were moved onto the ME:A teams to try and help scramble together a semi-decent project before its March 2017 release.

Once the panic and terrible crunch period was over, it was back to Joplin for the Dragon Age team who were pleased to be back working on something they were so passionate about.

It didn’t last.

In late 2017, EA cancelled Joplin and pushed a majority of BioWare’s staff onto the disastrous Anthem.

It’s also heavily expected that EA themselves weren’t happy with the single-player, story-based Joplin. You see, EA prefer ‘live services’: Games that are mainly multiplayer focused and can be heavily monetized for years after release. EA love live service games because it makes them heaps and heaps of cash from microtransactions and loot boxes. EA are no longer interested in engaging, polished single player games because, no matter how well they sell, a half-baked multiplayer game will always reap more monetary rewards.

A handful of developers stuck around to work on a brand new version of Dragon Age 4. Its code-name is Morrison.

Sadly, it seems like EA got their way as Morrison is planned with a live-service component to ensure maximum revenue. It will even be built upon Anthem’s codebase.

It’s unknown just how much inspiration for Morrison will take from Joplin, if any at all. Shortly after the reboot, many senior Dragon Age staff, including creative director Mike Laidlaw, left BioWare. It’s up for debate if the walkouts were due to frustrations with how the project was being handled or if the company’s stress and anxiety inducing work environments are to blame.

Since all of this information was revealed, fans have become nervous. An online Dragon Age is the last thing anyone wants. Rumours have been swirling for years now that Dragon Age 4 will be nothing more than “Anthem with dragons.” Some developers have argued that this will not be the case. But fans are growing increasingly sceptical as time marches on.