BioWare game Dragon Age 4 has been in development hell since 2015. The last game in the series, Dragon Age: Inquisition, was released way back in 2014. Sticking to a two to three-year development cycle for the series up to that point. In an update on the development of the game on BioWare’s blog, the developer wrote that they are “hard at work on building the next single-played focused experience for Dragon Age”. That shouldn’t really come as a surprise but after the tumultuous development, it’s a welcome reassurance.
The development issues with the game during the first few years were out of the hands of the developers working on the game. Mass Effect: Andromeda launched in 2017 to scathing reviews and many of the Dragon Age developers were shifted over to damage control on that game. In 2019, the disastrous launch of Anthem reportedly led to the same dropping of tools for the Dragon Age team while EA and BioWare tried to fix that mess.
During that time, not only have developers been shifted off the Dragon Age 4 project, but the direction of the game has changed multiple times. Originally, back in 2015, Dragon Age 4 was supposed to be a smaller, narrative-focused game. EA then canceled that version because there was no room for a live-service component to facilitate micro-transactions. The development of the game was then restarted and based, in part, on the code for Anthem. The failure of Anthem and eventual shutting down of development on that game earlier this year led to EA scrapping the multiplayer, monetized aspect of Dragon Age 4 altogether.
Fans of the BioWare Dragon Age series also have Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order to thank for the change of direction. Because of the success of Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, a single-player game with no microtransactions, EA decided once again to re-focus on single-player for Dragon Age 4. Fans of the franchise will hopefully be reassured by BioWare’s new confirmation that Dragon Age 4 will indeed be a single-player-focused title.