Dragon Age: Dreadwolf

[radiofloyd]

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-12-07-bioware-teases-dragon-age-4-with-a-major-returning-character

[DANGERMAN]

might be a stupid question, is that Robert Carlyle? It reminded me of Gabriel from Castlevania which he played

[radiofloyd]

 

https://www.gematsu.com/2020/12/next-dragon-age-the-game-awards-2020-teaser-trailer
 

Announced with a teaser in December 2018 and...the same again two years later.

[radiofloyd]

Interesting article about the development of the game, dropping the multiplayer component, and how it was influenced by the success of Jedi: Fallen Order.

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-02-25-report-says-next-dragon-age-will-now-be-single-player-only-due-to-anthems-fortunes-reversing-eas-original-plans

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[shinymcshine]

So, EA can't make their mind up either whether it's "Dreadwolf" or "Dread Wolf".....

[DisturbedSwan]

Bioware: A New Milestone for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf

 

Quote

 

In my last blog, back in February, I talked about the next Dragon Age™ game entering the production phase. Well, we've come a very long way since then, and the team is incredibly happy to announce a huge step forward in the development of the game you now know as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf™: We have just completed our Alpha milestone!

Up to this point, we've been working hard on the various parts of the game, but it's not until the Alpha milestone that a game all comes together. Now, for the first time, we can experience the entire game, from the opening scenes of the first mission to the very end. We can see, hear, feel, and play everything as a cohesive experience.

 

NOW WHAT?

Of course, the game is not finished by any means, 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.

Additionally, we can now evaluate the game's pacing, how relationships evolve over time, and the player's progression, as well as narrative cohesion—essentially how the story comes together. We can take the story we've written and see if we're expressing it well through the characters, dialogue, cinematics, and ultimately, the player's journey. Now that we have the ability to do a complete playthrough, we can iterate and polish on the things that matter most to our fans.

Hitting Alpha was the culmination of so much effort from the entire team and we used this milestone as an opportunity to come together and celebrate. We held a hybrid-style event with people onsite while others joined remotely and the team showcased their work to everyone at BioWare. We even took some time to do something fun and non-work related—a virtual escape room where we had to work together to help someone on camera find their way out. It was a really great time, and no matter where our devs are, it's important to share these types of moments together.

 

START TO FINISH

Now that we're finally able to experience the entire game, for me, my favorite part is the characters. Whether followers, allies, or villains, they're woven into the game in ways that take a concept that's always been a part of the Dragon Age DNA—stories about people—and push it further than ever before. The characters help contextualize the world and the stakes, and I can't wait until we're able to start really discussing them in depth.

It's also exciting to finally be able to bring our fans to parts of the world that we've previously hinted at, but never been able to fully explore—like the city of Minrathous, the capital of the Tevinter Empire. We've talked about Minrathous in previous games, and now you'll finally be able to visit! It's a city built on and fuelled by magic, and the ways in which that has come through in its visual identity, and what that looks like in comparison to previous cities we've visited in Dragon Age, are pretty spectacular.

As I mentioned earlier, the Alpha milestone is an extremely important one for us, but there's more work to be done. 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.

 

 

[Maryokutai]

https://www.eurogamer.net/bioware-lays-off-50-employees-as-part-of-shift-towards-a-more-agile-and-more-focused-studio

 

Not quite sure where to put this, but amidst the news overkill of BG3, AC6, Starfield and Gamescom, EA sneakily put out the info that they fired 50 employees from BioWare in an effort to 'shift towards a more agile and more focused studio', which is PR speak for 'Andrew Wilson needs another Porsche, so let's get rid of some people'. It's not just some newbies and lower-positioned developers they let go, too, as among those 50 there are some with significant BioWare history going back to Dragon Age: Origins and even the very first Baldur's Gate.

 

My crystal ball prediction at this point is that Dreadfall will still come out, it'll be okay, but nothing more, it'll sell okay, but nothing more, and after that ME4 gets cancelled and BioWare shut down. There's just no way this is how EA treats a studio they want to keep around to build two AAA games at a time.

[DANGERMAN]

Yeah, I reckon Bioware won't be a full blown studio in 10 years 

[one-armed dwarf]

Man, wonder if Larian are hiring. They are spinning up a bunch of projects after BG3 iirc

[Maryokutai]

Here's the real trailer with pink-purple text for today.

 

 

[shinymcshine]

Honestly - this is what the last couple of console generations have come to - a trailer for a future trailer showing zero gameplay, for a game  that's likely at least another 18 months away.

 

FFS.

[DisturbedSwan]

With this and Mass Effect 5 it seems Bioware just constantly put out teaser trailers for years on end with no games at this point really.

 

Games take a long time to develop nowadays, yes they are revealed too early but in this case it's probably more letting people know they're still working on it and it's still shaping up rather than cancelled etc. as it was announced 5 years ago lol.

 

There's a lot of rumours about Bioware that this and ME5 have been rebooted quite a few times which explains the constant teaser trailers without any meaningful gameplay afterwards.

[Maryokutai]

I have some sympathy in this case as well, the studio has been in turmoil for the best part of a decade. They're coming off a generation with three games that got a very lukewarm reception (never mind Inquisition's GOTY award, nobody remembers that game fondly), they very recently lost a not insignificant bunch of their workforce, lots of leader figures have jumped ship in the last few years etc. I can see why there might have been internal and external pressure to put something out, even at the cost of making very premature game announcements. It's not unlike what Nintendo did after announcing the Switch and throwing names like Bayo 3 and Prime 4 in the ring, despite being well aware that development had barely started. It's an indirect apologetic PR move to make people forget about a prior shitshow. I hope BioWare will be able to eventually turn it around, but there has not been a single reassuring report come out of that studio since Anthem.

[mmmark]

I can’t imagine a summer nevermind a year ending 24, and that’s just to see a trailer omg. 

[shinymcshine]

What I'd really like is for it to go back to the strategy & tactics of DA:O as each sequel stripped away the turn based (action/pause) dynamics of the combat, where DA:I felt a bit too much like it was trying to be an offline MMORPG.

 

Hopefully they'll take notice of what has made DOS and BG popular and add more of those elements back into the game.