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 larger ups at EA. The concept 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 all the time a concern, and I believe a respectable concern, inside an enormous 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 weight loss program to the purpose the place you can not proceed,” Darrah mentioned 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 folks throughout the EA group to say, ‘Look, we’re doing a Dragon Age. Do not forget that Dragon Age: Inquisition was a brilliant nice recreation that offered tremendous nicely, 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 recreation. This was later cancelled in favour of a dwell 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 thought as to what BioWare was cooking behind the scenes. For starters, we are able to 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 circumstances, 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 mentioned, Darrah admitted that many of those options would have been scrapped even when growth went nicely. The truth is, BioWare was within the means of phasing out heists in 2017. Nevertheless it 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 didn’t reveal the complete content material of the books, he did share the opening he wrote again in 2016:
“Dragon Age: Inquisition has reworked what the franchise is and the way it’s perceived by the general public. As we transfer ahead, we’ve an ideal alternative to proceed the breakout we’ve 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 folks in it who act and react like actual folks. We’ve got a whole lot of work to do, however by no means has a Dragon Age recreation 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 an alternative, 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 avoid wasting BioWare’s work, significantly 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 trade since 2019. She received MCV’s Girls in Video games award in 2025 and adores RPGs. You may observe her on Bluesky at @rhithewitch.