BioWare veteran Mark Darrah has revealed an inside pitch for Dragon Age 4 that was by no means shared with followers.
This pitch was shared within the type of a e book which Darrah says was distributed inside BioWare and to increased ups at EA. The thought behind the e book was to “stay related” with the writer, and to try to safe early funding and new hires for the mission.
“There’s at all times a concern, and I feel a professional concern, inside a giant publishing group that you’re going to get cancelled or in, the in case of EA, you’ll merely be allowed to be to stay on a hunger eating regimen to the purpose the place you can not proceed,” Darrah stated in a new video published to his YouTube channel.
“That is the place finally this e book comes into being,” he continued. “This was made in mid-2016 to be one thing that I may give to the crew, but additionally one thing I may give senior individuals throughout the EA group to say, ‘Look, we’re doing a Dragon Age. Remember that Dragon Age: Inquisition was an excellent nice sport that bought tremendous properly, so that you need one other one, proper?’”
The e book focusses on what was then known as Joplin, the unique plan for a fourth Dragon Age sport. This was later cancelled in favour of a reside service Dragon Age 4, which in flip, was partially scrapped and retooled within the single-player Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
As for Joplin, this e book offers us an concept as to what BioWare was cooking behind the scenes. For starters, we will see that there was a chapter on the sport having a “reactive world.” Nevertheless, in The Veilguard, reactions to choices made in earlier video games had been almost entirely scrapped.
Darrah additionally shared that BioWare envisioned destructable environements, dynamic climate situations, and social interactions that went past the usual BioWare conversations. There’s even a reference to the participant participating in heists, one thing we haven’t seen within the collection earlier than.
With that stated, Darrah admitted that many of those options would have been scrapped even when improvement went properly. In truth, BioWare was within the strategy of phasing out heists in 2017. But it surely does present us the imaginative and prescient BioWare was chasing, with a want to make the collection far more immersive than earlier entries.
Whereas Darrah did not reveal the total content material of the books, he did share the opening he wrote again in 2016:
“Dragon Age: Inquisition has remodeled what the franchise is and the way it’s perceived by the general public. As we transfer ahead, we now have an amazing alternative to proceed the breakout we now have began.
“We stand upon the muse laid by Dragon Age: Inquisition. A basis that lets us see additional. To see issues that did not work and repair them, to see issues that did work and enhance them.
“The Dragon Age crew will create a extra immersive interactive world with individuals in it who act and react like actual individuals. We now have plenty of work to do, however by no means has a Dragon Age sport began in a stronger place. This doc represents our present pondering on the subsequent steps of the franchise.”
Evidently, the builders didn’t get the event cycle they had been hoping for. As a substitute, Joplin was scrapped, and Dragon Age stagnated to make method for Mass Impact: Andromeda and Anthem. The Dragon Age collection was placed on ice after The Veilguard failed to reach EA’s sales targets.
Now, BioWare has been shut down by EA. Many followers are combating to save lots of BioWare’s work, notably the now-cancelled Mass Impact Universe, however we definitely shouldn’t count on any developments within the Dragon Age collection anytime quickly.
Rhiannon (she/her) is a contract journalist who has been within the business since 2019. She gained MCV’s Girls in Video games award in 2025 and adores RPGs. You possibly can observe her on Bluesky at @rhithewitch.