Dragon Age 4 was at one point “Anthem with dragons,” according to a new report, but the combination of Anthem’s failure and the success of Star Wars: Jedi – Fallen Order as a single-player game has convinced EA to just let BioWare make single-player RPG games again. And there was much rejoicing.
Dragon Age 4 has been retooled into a single-player-only game over the past few months, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Fallen Order’s massive success and Anthem’s resounding failure were both major contributing factors to the decision, though some leading staff at BioWare had already been pushing to swap back to single-player.
According to the report, the new Dragon Age was originally built as a single-player game when it entered development in 2015, though it was rebooted for long-term service hooks in 2017. This decision is reportedly what led to the departure of Mike Laidlaw from BioWare, where he had previously served as creative director on the series.
The single-player focus will be good news for long-time BioWare fans, though it’s not a guarantee of Dragon Age’s success. After all, Mass Effect: Andromeda had plenty of problems with its single-player campaign regardless of the presence of a multiplayer mode. Still, this will hopefully mean BioWare gets to once again focus on what it’s best at.
EA has been more proactively doing things that, well, people like lately. In an interview with IGN earlier this week, chief studios officer Laura Miele that the company has changed its focus to more actively pursue projects that both fans and its studios are passionate about – leading to announcements like Skate 4, the return of college football games, and remasters of titles like Command & Conquer and Mass Effect.
Of course, this might all mean that the Dragon Age 4 release date is going to take even longer to arrive, if the devs need to retool previous work. Here’s hoping the new game proves worth the wait.