Dragon Age: Dreadwolf — Everything We Know

The whimsical world of Dragon Age is about to flutter its wings and adopt a whole new set of scales; furry scales that are genetically leaps and bounds apart from their winged cousins, no less. Point is, the EA and BioWare IP is on the verge of bringing something fresh to the table, and if the so-called Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is even half the product its creators claim it is, the we’re certainly in for a treat with this one.

“Of course, the game is not finished by any means,” BioWare wrote in a recent blog post. “…But Alpha is one of the most important game development milestones for a number of reasons. First and foremost, we can now turn our sights toward bringing the visual fidelity to its final form and iterating on gameplay features. The big question now is, “Where do we focus our efforts?” To answer that, we solicit feedback from a number of sources, including our Community Council members who each have unique perspectives and experiences, our quality verification team, and extensive internal playtesting. Gathering feedback from multiple sources gives us the greatest insight on where we need to spend more time improving the experience.”

So, if it isn’t quite ready yet, then when are we likely to see it hit the shelves? Well, here’s what we’ve been able to collect on the subject since first hearing of its existence a couple of years or so back. Dragon Age: Dreadwolf — what is it, and how will it look to move on from Inquisition?

What Is Dragon Age: Dreadwolf?

Let’s jump right in. What is Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, and why has it decided to make an appearance now of all times? Well, to put it short, Dreadwolf is an upcoming action-RPG, as well as the fourth mainline installment in the award-winning Dragon Age series. As a standalone adventure with no major connection to 2015’s Inquisition, BioWare has made it clear that the next game will be open to both newcomers and veterans alike. What they mean is, players won’t need any prior knowledge of Dragon Age to be able to gel with what’s to come. So there’s that.

Story

Dragon Age 4 will be taking players to the world of Tevinter, a country ruled my grand mages of both old and new. It’ll also feature none other than Solas—the apparent Dread Wolf who made a formal debut back in 2015’s Dragon Age: Inquisition. But as for what this connection between Tevinter and the returning antagonist will develop into is still unknown. Apparently, though, players won’t need to know of the events that happened prior to Dreadwolf, and that Solas himself will “properly introduce himself when the time is right.” So don’t sweat it about having to shovel through the first three games in anticipation of the fourth, basically.

Anyway, from what’s been said, Dreadwolf won’t be focusing on an up-and-coming hero, but someone with far less power and influence over the realms. “For the game we’re working on now, we want to tell the story of, ‘What happens when you don’t have power?” BioWare added. “What happens when the people in charge aren’t willing to address the issues?”

Gameplay

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is an RPG at heart, so we can definitely expect to see our fair share of combat, quests, and customizable features. What’s more, as it’ll be a traditional Dragon Age game, it’ll also include an open world setting, which will introduce several points of interest to both visit and explore. And of course, there’ll be a nonlinear skill tree system, which will allow players to get creative with their characters and the corresponding classes.

In spite of Electronic Arts’ attempt to nudge Dragon Age 4 towards being a live-service game, BioWare did confirm last year that it would be abandoning all multiplayer efforts in favor of a single-player story. That’s sure to come as good news for most, what with its original plans being met with rather negative feedback from series die-hards.

Development

It’s certainly been a long time coming, a fourth entry in the Dragon Age universe. And it’s been in the works for several years, too, with BioWare first teasing it way back in 2018. Since then, the sequel has pretty much been under the warm glow of the heated spotlight on a year-round basis. It was only in 2022, of course, that the devs finally announced that the game had reached its Alpha milestone, and that work on all the extra features was about to begin. In other words, a few additional coats of polish were in order.

“As I mentioned earlier, the Alpha milestone is an extremely important one for us, but there’s more work to be done,” the blog post continued. “We also want to continue being transparent with you, our community, and keep you up to date on what we’re crafting. Hopefully you’ve been enjoying our development updates on Dreadwolf this year as we’ll be looking to share more in the future.”

Right now, we can’t say for certain when the next chapter in the Dragon Age series will launch. If we’re lucky, though, then we’ll get to see a lot more of it over the next several months. Needless to say though that, with the project still in active development, the chances of it releasing anytime soon are highly unlikely. But more on that shortly.

Trailer

Yes, there is a trailer! And not just the one trailer, but several full-fat trailers, as it goes. But for the sake of keeping it compact and to-the-point, we’ve gone ahead attached the debut preview that was teased during The Game Awards 2020 above.

Release Date, Platforms & Editions

As it currently stands, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf isn’t listed in Electronic Arts’ projects for the current fiscal year, which is scheduled to end in April 2024. In other words, it won’t be arriving on consoles or PC in 2023, so we can go ahead and scratch that idea straight from the board. More or less, though, the likelihood of seeing it arrive in the latter half of 2024 is becoming increasingly high — more so now that BioWare has announced its Alpha milestone. But who knows? Either way, we’d suggest keeping a 2025 window open all the same.

From the looks of it, Dragon Age 4 will be gearing up for a launch on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC. Does this technically mean it won’t be heading to older consoles? At the moment, yes. And it’s unlikely that such hardware will receive the same attention at any point in the future either, what with Microsoft and Sony both looking to make a permanent move away from Xbox One and PlayStation 4. But again, who knows? Maybe it’ll do so well that BioWare will have no choice but to port it? Doubtful, though.

Whatever the case, BioWare clearly has a lot of data on the matter stowed away in its official blog. So, if you’re interested in staying up to date with the sequel, then be sure to check in with the team either via their blog, or on the social feed here. If anything happens to change ahead of its hopeful 2024 launch, we’ll be sure to fill you in on all the key details right here on gaming.net.

So, what’s your take? Will you be getting your hands on a copy of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf when it drops? Let us know your thoughts over on our socials here.