- Dragon Age Dreadwolf will likely be released any time between November 2024 and March 2025.
- The game will finally see a full reveal in the summer, likely at the Summer Games Fest festivities.
- Dreadwolf is expected to be quite different from its predecessors, for a number of mostly bad, but some good, reasons.
We finally have a really good idea when Dragon Age Dreadwolf, the upcoming instalment of the Dragon Age series, will see the light of day after being locked away in development hell for more than six years.
According to publisher EA’s slate of upcoming titles, revealed in its latest financial results, it has two “unannounced titles in FY25; one partner title expected in Q4, and one owned IP title, which is not included in the above table.”
Eurogamer is sure one of these titles is Dragon Age Dreadwolf, the so-called “owned IP title,” and the expected release period of FY25 means that it will launch before the end of the financial year, so before 31st March 2025.
This means any time between now and March 2025 we can expect to finally play Dragon Age Dreadwolf, but we can whittle that down further thanks to the announcements made by Bioware that the game will be revealed in full “during the summer.”
“Summer” is the months of June, July, and August in the United States, our winter, which coincides with “Not E3,” or the Summer Games Fest, when many other developers and publishers will reveal their upcoming games, including Nintendo.
In the past, both Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age Inquisition were released in November, while Dragon Age 2 broke cover in March at the end of the financial year. It is likely that Dragon Age Dreadwolf will be revealed in June, and then see a release date between November 2024 and March 2025.
What we know about Dragon Age Dreadwolf (so far)
Now I can put down my detective hat and tell you what we know so far about the upcoming game from Bioware, who at one point were the Final Boss of computer RPGs.
We know that Dragon Age Dreadwolf will continue the story from where Inquisition left off, we also know that this will feel different to the previous Dragon Age games simply because the people who made those games at Bioware are no longer with the company thanks to years of the studio’s top developers, from lead designers to crucial writers and artists, gradually being fired and or leaving on their own accord.
Delays of Dragon Age Dreadwolf have been blamed on this exodus in the past, and usually when a project sees this kind of instability, it leads to a poor-quality final picture. See the events around Fant4stic (2015) for a better explanation of this phenomenon.
We also understand that the gameplay will be significantly different from previous instalments, as well as the game’s systems. It will play more like a third-person action game than a tactical RPG like the first two games. As far as we have seen from alleged leaks, the gameplay has been casual-ised even further from the already-casual Inquisition
Unfortunately, this decision is part of the old mindset with RPGs, that complex systems lead to poor sales and bored players. But that was before Larian turned the genre on its head with a callback to the classics that absolutely killed this backwards thinking.
In fact, fans are currently thinking that the release of Baldur’s Gate 3 will influence Bioware to rethink that casual approach with Dreadwolf, which could cause further delays. Other internet rumblings we have seen intimate that you play with a set character in Dreadwolf, an elf Grey Warden in the same vein as Shepard from Mass Effect. You won’t get to choose your race anymore, like in previous games.
This could be fine if done properly, and some customisation is included. We loved Dragon Age 2, and in that game, you only get to play as a human.
We’re big fans of Dragon Age, Bioware and the world of Thedas and its denizens. We’re rooting for the developers to pull something special out of the hat because it is what the series deserves. Please don’t Andromeda us, Bioware. We couldn’t take the disappointment.
