Dragon Age News Thread

Stop you all, I'm going to cry ... I was only thinking this meant there was no way DA4 would be ready in 2018 and trying to assume it was going to be 2019... but 2020??? six years after DAI??? I hate the new IP already

DAI was reportedly "fast-tracked", though.  Considering that there were 3½ years on the "fast-tracked" game, a 5-6 year wait isn't all that surprising.  Also, I don't know that it's a safe assumption that the "red book" has anything to do with DA4.  Most of the concept art and such looks more like early Inquisition concepts; I'd expect if anything it's more of a supplemental things they're working on, ala the World of Thedas books.  Even without the Seekrit IP, I've pretty much figured 2019 at the earliest for DA4 anyway (a major reason why I dislike how many plot threads Inquisition deliberately left hanging...cliffhangers just don't sustain for that long).  We got an announcement for Andromeda about 6 months after Inquisition hit, and it's slated to come out in a couple months, about 2 years after the announcement.  A similar time span would've been another 2½ years, or late 2019, but we've known about the Seekrit IP for a while now, so dropping in 2020 isn't all that shocking, if a bit disappointing.

I want to hold out hope that the Seekrit IP will be worthwhile, though.  I've not played any BW games I haven't liked.  The mini-press release does unsettle me a little with regards to the possibility of it being a multiplayer-focused game: I worry they learned some of the "wrong" lessons from the Old Republic if they go the MMO route and if it's not an RPG, eh, I'm mostly kind of an RPG-head, so that's harder to justify...but I'mma try to remain optimistic about it for the most part, as long as Andromeda also pans out.

So far, it's nothing really all that new. We've seen literally nothing of the Secret (ssshhhh!) IP so I don't think anyone was expecting it to come out this year. So next year is, actually, nothing that new (other than they haven't canceled it).

Regarding DA coming out in 2020... maybe. I still say there's a shot for 2019 as Bioware learns to walk and chew bubble-gum at the same time and the next DA will not be an experience in pushing random buttons in the Frostbite engine and asking (hey! What happened when I did that?) midnight tea has pointed out, correctly I think, that the next Dragon Age will be a faster, better, stronger production experience for Bioware.

This is a point always worth remembering.

Eh, why was that the consensus? Pardon me if I'm incorrect in this but - we've seen absolutely nothing from the game. Nada. We saw more about Andromeda soon after ME3 came out (I remember the vague images from production videos) than this Secret IP (sssshhhhhh!!!!)

2020 for a plausible DA4? Hope I'm still breathing by then.

The DA team split between helping out MEA and Secret IP? Yeah, that comes straight from Mike Laidlaw and a number of other Devs have reiterated that. They actually gave us what percent of their team was on each of those projects, but I can't remember the exact numbers... 40/60 split or something.

And shinobi's comment very carefully states March 2018 is a maximum date, "by the end of." It could still ship for Christmas this year. I'm not sure if they care about the holiday sales cycle or not. They timed DAI for the cycle, but not MEA. Although I guess MEA was originally scheduled for holiday 2016, but then slipped.

I coulda sworn the original claim for ME:A was Q2 2016.  Although since their fiscal apparently starts in April, I guess that if that was the meaning, it still sorta fits in the "Holiday 2016" range.

Well THAT is just way too far away. 

_*sniffle*

To be honest, the very spare description sounds almost like an Overwatch-type of game.

They're talking about "bring[ing] players together in exciting new ways," that it will be "something fun and new for you to enjoy with your friends," and that the "game has the potential to fundamentally disrupt the way people think about an action title, bringing friends together to play in exhilarating new ways."

That they are "crafting a new universe full of new characters, stories" doesn't really mean anything in terms of game type. Overwatch has its own unique characters, universe, lore, and all of the game supporting background information. It just so happens that the core of the game is competitive multiplayer where all of that background doesn't have any meaning in the game itself. All of the Overwatch story components are found outside of the actual game in comics and short videos and such.


I am so not interested in any way shape or form. It's disappointing.