• Leaked footage of what is claimed to be Dragon Age: Dreadwolf gameplay shows off a very different combat system to the previous game.
• If the leaks are genuine, the game is still very unfinished and clearly takes inspiration from God of War (2018) and Destiny 2.
• New details emerged last week about changes coming to the game, including less control over your squad.

Unfortunately for the development team at Bioware, what is claimed to be footage of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in an alpha stage has leaked. The original post from Reddit user u/revanchisto, which details 20-minutes of gameplay, only contained an 8 second clip and a series of screenshots.

These can be seen in tweets embedded below:

The small clip and the screenshots are of purported gameplay from a “kind playtester” taking place in Weisshaupt Fortress, the headquarters of the Grey Wardens located in the Anderfels region.

According to the leaker, the level the footage captures is very large, but the skybox was incomplete at the time. There is still a chance the game takes place in an open world with smaller dungeons throughout but this has neither been confirmed or denied by Bioware.

There is a chance that the footage and screenshots are an elaborate hoax and were created in Blender or similar software by fans. But missing elements like UI icons and placeholder text point, as well as janky animations, point to something quite unfinished.

Further intricate details, like the gryphon motifs everywhere (Grey Wardens once rode gryphons to battle before they went extinct, don’t you know…), and a blurb attached to a weapon referencing Nevarran death mages, do make the footage seem legitimate.

This is further corroborated by the fact that the combat shown in the leak is similar to “hack and slash” games, a change in gameplay direction first shared by anonymous developers in an interview with Insider Gaming last week.

According to the devs who spoke to Insider Gaming, Dragon Age Dreadwolf feels “a bit like Destiny with a central hub where players could probably regroup before heading into the next mission” through mirror portals or Eluvian.

Many people who have seen the leaks immediately say that the new inventory screen looks like something out of Destiny 2 as well, but this may be the case of Dragon Age’s UI, turning towards the minimal and geometric since Dragon Age 2, finally reaching its cleanest zenith.

But the more one looks, the more one sees similarities.

Compare the two below:

The 8-second clip sees the player character from an over the shoulder style third person camera, with the ability wheel in the lower left of the screen and below that there is a God of War (2018) style double joystick ultra ability toggle a la Spartan Rage.

According to the leaker, God of War was a guiding point of reference for the developers of Dreadwolf, and the hack and slash elements are plain to see, along with an insane dropkick which would be almost impossible in the plate armour the main character is wearing.

The footage doesn’t show any party gameplay, which apparently has been drawn back in the latest Bioware RPG to be more akin to Mass Effect-style squad commands.

Instead of direct control, the crew that you recruit will begin filling your hub as your progress through the game’s story. Here you will be able to adjust their equipment and the like.

So it seems that other than the combat, the gameplay loop will remain the same from previous iterations. Gather your party, earn their trust and defeat the big bad at the end.

The game isn’t expected to be released any time soon, with Insider Gaming stating that it will probably only be out in 2024. Last year we noted that an early 2023 release was out of the question anyway.

According to the latest blog post from Bioware general manager Gary McKay, the game is playable from the opening cinematic to the end credits within its current alpha built.

For now, Bioware is focusing on the story beats and heavy duty polishing.