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Your bird is back with another Dragon Age 4 News Update! 🐦

For the first time this year, I’m doing a massive monthly news recap of everything we learned about Dragon Age 4 going forward (JUST) in the month of March, because slap my arse and call me Andraste, this month was huge for Dragon Age 4 updates, we’ve got a lot of exciting info to get into!

(Romance Tweets)

Calling all romance fans, you can bank on Dragon Age 4 to fulfil all of your intimate desires, perhaps even more so than the previous games. Jon Renish, Foundation Programming Area Director working on the next Dragon Age had a few things to say whilst watching a romance scene script read through:

“Don’t want to alarm anyone, but I’m starting to think ‘Dragon Age’ games might be a bit randy.” (March 3rd)

‘Randy’, according to the Oxford Dictionary, means ‘sexually arousing’ and ‘exciting.’ So, we can prepare for that, whatever that is! Jon continues his tweet thread with:

“Well now it’s all sad and sweet and emotional. I was not prepared for this rollercoaster.”

In true BioWare fashion, we’re going to have a lot of sexy times, however, brought together with moving and character developing moments – y’know, the ups and downs of the romance as the relationship builds and grows throughout the entire game experience.

“Oh, nothing like that. Just watching a script read through.”

Jon confirms that this was indeed a script read through, as we can tell reviewing a potential romance scene. As a romance advocate myself, I am very interested in the direction romances will be going in for Dragon Age 4. That is something that I will especially be keeping my eyes on.

(E3/EA Play 2020 Update)

EA Play and E3 2020 are generally the most expected places to see a new Dragon Age 4 reveal trailer.

E3 2020 has been cancelled due to the current outbreak, however, we’ve yet to be updated on the status of EA Play 2020. Of course, it is most certainly cancelled since the tickets for the show were supposed to drop this March. But, we still don’t know what will replace the show.

The teams behind E3 2020 are supposedly working on a digital showcase to display new announcements that would’ve been revealed on stage. We can only assume that EA will follow suite and do the same for EA Play, making it a digital show, like Nintendo’s Direct conferences.

Regardless, this is something that we’re going to have to wait and see until EA speak out, and when they do, I’ll be sure to cover that in a news update. I feel we could have a Dragon Age 4 reveal, with an expected release of 2022/2023, but with everyone hectic right now, I’m unsure.

(C Virus Update)

Speaking of hectic… with the current outbreak, EA have spoken and shared a statement about health and safety during these times:

(March 13th) “These are challenging times for everyone. We’re working to look after our employees and their families, and make sure we’re doing the right and responsible things to fight this pandemic illness.”

Thankfully, everyone working at BioWare have been asked to work from home. Justin Masse, Experience Designer working on the next Dragon Age tweeted he’s “working from home until April 1st", confirming the length of this situation.

According to Crystal McCord, Associate Producer of Performance Capture and VO, working at home has been very productive for the team at BioWare as they have “exceeded all expectations.”

So, it’s great knowing that despite the crazy situation in the world right now, BioWare developers are staying safe, working from home and progressing hugely on the next Dragon Age title!

(Slack Server)

(March 13th) While Mark Darrah was working from home, he tweeted a picture regarding his tiling progression, as he’s currently redesigning aspects of his home. However, in the very corner of Darrah’s picture lies a laptop screen with a Slack Server revealing many Dragon Age development secrets!

The server shows plenty of channels for the BioWare developers regarding specific work notes on all aspects of progression. A large amount of the channels are abbreviated to “MOR_” - which is most certainly shortened from ‘Morrison’, Dragon Age 4’s current project title as we know.

This list of the channels are endless, and I could spend forever looking into what exactly they all refer to regarding the production of the next Dragon Age game. We have one channel called ‘mor_announcement’ - does this hint at a new trailer to soon be showed off, or is it an old channel since The Dread Wolf Rises teaser? Are they planning an upcoming announcement? Surely, they would be right? Is that anytime soon?

Another channel is called ‘mor_da_week’ which from what I can assume stands for Dragon Age week? We have a Dragon Age Day created by the fans and made offical by BioWare, but a Dragon Age week, that’s something I’ve never heard of…

And there’s just plenty of channels referring to Dragon Age 4’s current development, there’s even a bad design ideas thread, an ask Mark anything chat, approvals on key aspects of the game, marketing assets, and so on!

It’s a gold mine of tidbits, orchestrated by none other than Mark Darrah, the Executive Producer on Dragon Age. He has once more tweeted a cheeky little tease that may appear mundane, passing a blind eye to it, however, when you take some time and actually look at what he’s posted, it reveals a nug-ton of info we can speculate on.

(New Associate Producer / Jobs)

Illustrator and Creative Professional “Mad Bee” has returned to work at BioWare, they previously worked on Anthem as an Art Quality Analyst. However, this time around, they are an Associate Producer, most likely working on Dragon Age 4.

And, following that, BioWare are currently hiring! I’ve seen this news piece get quite the few news articles, but I figured I could break this one down better, rest in peace PC Gamer.

So, indeed BioWare are hiring for many roles at the company, the most prominent role is a ‘Technical Director’ for ‘the next major title in one of BioWare’s most prestigious franchises.’

Considering Mike Gamble, the new project lead for the next Mass Effect game tweeted this hiring out, I’d assume this position is needed for the Mass Effect team who are also in Edmonton, opposite the Dragon Age team.

What’s most concerning about this job listing relating to the future of Mass Effect is that, according to the job requirements, the applicant needs to have experience ‘developing, debugging and optimizing AAA multiplayer games on PC or console.’

To throw away my suspicion that Mass Effect or Dragon Age are going to have a heavy multiplayer experience, I looked at the other job listings located at Edmonton’s studio and I discovered other job listings, like an Engine Programmer which require the same experience of developing and debugging games, however, without the multiplayer element.

So, perhaps BioWare have two teams, one working on the main single player element and the other working on the much smaller multiplayer aspect? I’d be naive to not reiterate the fact that future BioWare games are going to be live service, however, we still don’t know to what extent that will look like.

(Tevinter Nights)

Patrick Weekes teased that Dragon Age 4 is most certainly in Tevinter following there Tevinter Nights Book plug, however, Patrick still calls the next Dragon Age game an unannounced project? Which I don’t understand because The Dread Wolf Rises teaser trailer at The Game Awards 2018 most certainly confirmed that a new Dragon Age game is currently in production and has been announced.

Unless Patrick is calling it ‘still-unannounced’ because they’re planning an announcement soon…

I feel like Patrick is just joking at the fact that the next game is most certainly set in Tevinter, considering PC Gamer made an article a while back stating that Dragon Age 4 is set in Tevinter based on the Tevinter Nights book reveal, it made plenty of the BioWare staff and community laugh at their credulous Journalism. So, it could just be that.

Anyhow, March has actually been an amazing month to be a Dragon Age fan! We had the final issue of Blue Wraith and the release of the anthological Tevinter Nights!

Tevinter Nights dropped plenty of story hints for the future of Dragon Age. I was lucky enough to receive an early copy, as of which, I’ve created plenty of content regarding all of the story threads uncovered in the novel that you should check out once you’ve read the book for yourself, I’ve still got more to content to come from Tevinter Nights too!

However, if you have not read it and very much care about the future of Dragon Age, which if you’re watching this video, you most likely do. So, you should go and read this book because we learn A LOT going forward for the future narrative of Dragon Age. The book is a huge spring board for the next game, so go and read it!

(Blue Wraith)

The final issue of Blue Wraith launched and as much as I enjoyed it, the comic ended on a cliff-hanger!

The lead writers Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir are hopeful for another comic to come, stating:

The two also spoke in a comic-centred interview by Deconstructing Comics about the direction of their entire Dragon Age comics. That since Knight Errant, their comics are created to prepare for a hypothetical Dragon Age 4, but not as a prologue or a plot for the next game. Nunzio suggested that fans should instead look at Tevinter Nights.

Nunzio shared on BSN Forums that hopefully the wait for the next comic won’t be as long as last time. Dragon Age: Deception came out through October – December of 2018, whereas Blue Wraith came out through January – March of 2020. So, perhaps the next comic run could come mid-2021.

(Future Books/Comics)

Speaking of future books and comics, just after I finished Blue Wraith and Tevinter Nights, I was asking myself what’s next to look forward to regarding Dragon Age content. However, on March 23rd we got not one, but two book announcements coming later this year.

Dropping on the 13th of October, BioWare are revealing a new development book, charting the legendary game studio’s first 25 years in a massive retrospective hardcover book at $39.99. Perhaps we’ll learn more about Dragon Age 4’s previous iteration, project Joplin?

Following that, on October 27th, the five Dragon Age graphic novels are being put into a massive collection for $29.99.

This book collects Dragon Age: The Silent Grove #1-6, Dragon Age: Those Who Speak #1-3, Dragon Age: Until We Sleep #1-3, Dragon Age: Magekiller #1-5, and Dragon Age: Knight Errant #1-5.

But not Deception & Blue Wraith? Potentially they’ve left these two out because Dark Horse wish to progress with these comics, foreshadowing more comics in the future to come?

(Reddit Leak)

Moving on to a slightly weird, and most certainly fake-but-take-it-as-you-will-update… we have a reddit leak showing many upcoming games release dates, with some actually being accurate. Dragon Age 4 is listed here, and according to this leak, it’s releasing the 15th of November, 2020. Again, most certainly fake, but take it as you will.

Speaking of fake leaks, a 2018 leak for Dragon Age 4’s contents has resurfaced, and oh boy is this thing fake. I feel like dissecting this thing as a separate video just for a laugh, but tell me down below if that’s a good idea or not.

With that, that’s all the updates we had in March! We’re three, almost four months into 2020, as crazy as this year has been so far. I’ve already created plenty previous news updates, so if you need to be caught up to date, or you’ve missed an update, or you’re just stuck inside and need something to put your mind at ease - I have a news playlist with every single major update regarding Dragon Age 4’s development, so be sure to check that out.

I hope you all are holding up okay and staying safe, distract yourself by telling me some of your own hopes for the next Dragon Age game, it can be anything you’d like to see! Personally, I’d love to see Vaea make any appearance in DA4!

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