When Will DA4 be released?/ Bioware's release strategy.

I'm just going to repost this from a similar discussion we had on the Twitter Thread...

Despite the time between releases, you have to look at where they are in the development cycle. DA4 hasn't started full production yet, but they may be just starting to ramp up. We've had hints in the last few days they might be starting to get the DA Writers' Pit together. Right now though, the bulk of their team is split between ME:A and the Secret IP. So while it's a safe bet that the DA team helping out ME will move over to DA soon, it's a little nebulous what happens when over half your team is still on the Secret IP. Do they wait until the Secret IP finishes or do they semi-ramp up until Secret IP wraps up? At any rate, that potentially draws out production time.

Now you have to think, even if you had a full team, it would likely take at least 2... probably 3... ish years of full production time to produce the next game, depending on how ambitious they are.

I admit, it is entirely possible they could go with a shorter production cycle on this, but my gut tells me it's likely going to be on the longer side. And that's because of the bar that has been set by the Witcher 3 (which took 3.5 years to develop). Whether you love it, hate it, or in-between - it is now the measuring stick by which gaming journalists and the majority of fans will judge future RPGs. Dragon Age most especially.

So, my feeling is that they're really gonna try to nail every aspect of the next game as solidly as they can. And that'll take time.

Late 2019/Early 2020 would be my guess.

This is an amazing perspective! I do think DA will benefit a lot from an extended pre-production. Here's to hope that EA does not put too much pressure on the release date. 

I went first half 2019, because I know ME:A comes out this year, and the Secret IP is 'further along ' than they thought it would be, so I'm saying that is H1 2018 leaving early 2019 as the earliest feasible date.

And I'm not a monster crushing DA lovers souls like Hrungr

I remember Bethesda saying they have 2 ambitious games they plan to put out before getting back to ES. Todd hinted that the technology they want to use for the next ES doesn't even exist yet. He then made a joke that Skyrim came out in 11/11/11, so the next one would be 22/22/22. But let's be honest, 2022 probably is close to the mark.

I think that's the way Bioware is heading. It was too late to un-announce MEA, but it seems the way they're going with their next games. Secret IP is supposed to come out before March 2018, and we know basically nothing about it except that it exists and isn't an RPG. Mike Laidlaw also had this to say on twitter:

Da1AnOnlyCrazy ‏@da1anonlycraz
hypothetically if some one were to announce say a open world fantasy RPG when will be a good time to do so?

Mike Laidlaw @mike_Laidlaw
6 months before it’s in stores, if Fallout 4 is any indication. 

Personally, I think 2019 is the earliest possible time for DA4 to come out, and 2020 a more realistic date. 

I think DA4 production is going to be a tiny bit rushed and it's going to be a smaller scale game than say DAI.
Now I'm not betting my first born on it of course but...I really don't think DA is as successful as Skyrim or Witcher 3. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's not a successful franchise but it's probably falling short of a couple of millions of sales. The simple fact that Bioware new games aren't distributed on Steam probably hurt their sales somewhat.

Then there is the fact that DAI and MEA release date were both pushed back. Dragon Age multiplayer probably also wasn't as successful as ME multiplayer.
Last time they had a game production dragging on and on, it was DAO and the direct result was DAO DLC , DAO expansion Awakening and DA2 were all rushed out the door (Ah those days when DA stuff were raining down like candies every couple of months...)

DAI "excuse" for taking so long was in part because it was supposed to be Frostbite crash test dummy.Now that a bank of Frosbite reusable asset is growing (and you can totally see DAI stuff in MEA)games should take less time to make .
That was the whole goal of having Frostbite all over the board for EA , so assets could be shared so things could be cheaper and quicker .

The new Ip is probably an Overwatch type of game banking on the success of ME3 Mp.

Anyway I would not be that surprised if we get some DA news next year.

Not soon enough.

But I'm biased because I dgaf about the new IP and I'm not particularly invested in Andromeda, so everything just feels like it's in the way of the one game I actually care about.

edit: I voted for the first part of 2020. Worse than the delay, though, is the idea that they're going to hold off announcing ANYTHING about it until a few months before release. Hell, it might even be like ME:A, where we're one month away and we know next to nothing about prominent characters. Absolutely, positively not interested in repeating that experience with DA.

anytime after tomorrow

I would guess 2019. March or November

That was a very different time indeed. ME did not see a single year without content. I think that helped a lot in keeping the story fresh in people's minds. And that's partly why they could tell one person'a story across multiple games.

Going tangent: I see a lot of DA Dark Horse comics popping up lately. Have u seen any news on a potential DA novel? I heard about one that DG was working on a long time ago, but now that he's gone, is the novel gone as well?