Dragon Age 4 is Confirmed and May Have "Live Elements"

Sequel was reportedly rebooted at some point in the last year.

News by Kat Bailey, Editor in Chief

Updated on 24 January 2018

BioWare is currently working on Dragon Age 4, and it will have some sort of live online integration, according to reports that emerged today from Kotaku and elsewhere.

While the bulk of BioWare's team has reportedly been pulled to work on Anthem, a small team is said to be putting together the next Dragon Age sequel. According to Kotaku's report, Dragon Age 4 was "rebooted" at some point in the past year.

BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah confirmed Dragon Age 4's development in a tweet earlier today.

Halfway through my trip to Barcelona! I’m here showing Anthem internally to EA. I am EP of BOTH DA and Anthem working with @Bio_Warner as Game Director Anthem’s up next but there are people hard at work on both franchises and I look forward to sharing more in the future
— Mark Darrah (@BioMarkDarrah) January 24, 2018

While Kotaku's sources weren't able to offer any insight into what Dragon Age 4's "live elements" will look like, they track with EA's company-wide push toward such elements. One possible path is Middle-earth: Shadow of War, which features live quests that pop up based on the actions of other players.

Dragon Age 4 was partially confirmed to be in development last year when our sister site Eurogamer spoke with one of BioWare's writers. A few months later, word emerged that Mike Laidlaw, who was one of Dragon Age's driving creative forces, had left BioWare.

BioWare's last foray into the Dragon Age universe was in 2014 with Dragon Age: Inquisition. We liked it quite a bit, but it was criticized in some quarters for shallow combat and a heavy reliance on collect-a-thon fetch quests.

Whatever form Dragon Age 4 ultimately takes, don't expect it any time soon. With BioWare pressing hard to get Anthem on the door, DA4 appears firmly on the backburner. It will likely be out in 2020 at the absolute earliest.

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Kat Bailey

Editor in Chief

Kat Bailey is a former freelance writer and contributor to publications including 1UP, IGN, GameSpot, GamesRadar, and EGM. Her fondest memories as a journalist are at GamePro, where she hosted RolePlayer's Realm and had legal access to the term "Protip." She is USgamer's resident mecha enthusiast, Pokemon Master, and Minnesota Vikings nut (skol).