Dragon Age 4is currently in development at BioWare and will very likely continue the story of Thedas as the Dread Wolf attempts to bring down the Veil between the world and the Fade. Of course, it all began when the series launched with the critical success ofDragon Age: Originsback in 2009. However, BioWare’s iconic RPG structure faces a particular problem when it comes to writing sequels, a problem which is compounded as more sequels are released.
There’s an argument to be had thatDragon Age 4should be the final game in the series. If the game is the series' final installment, there are reasons it could make bothDragon Age 4and BioWare itself more likely to reach their full potential as gaming enters the next generation of consoles.
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Dragon Age 4’s Story
Dragon Age 4’s story would likely benefit from being the final chapter in theDragon Ageseries. TheDragon Agegames have increasingly set up sequel hooks that have become more and more central to the plot of the games sinceDragon Age: Origins. There were sequel hooks inOrigins, like theOld God Babyplayers were able to bring into being to avoid dying at the hands of the archdemon. However, story moments like the Old God Baby were also reflections of key decisions in the game’s narrative that had emotional and moral weight regardless of whether the player would see the full consequences play out in future games.
ByDragon Age: Inquisition’s story, there are huge plotlines in the main narrative which feel unresolved for the sake of setting up sequels. The big twist inInquisitionis that the player’s companion Solas is in fact the ancient elven god known as the Dread Wolf. The problem is that this twist not only undermines the impact ofCorypheus asInquisition’s main villain, but is also left unresolved. This risks making the Inquisitor’s story feel like something of a stepping stone on the way to answering more important plotlines.
Plotlines which follow over into sequels might have the potential to work better if theDragon Ageprotagonistwas a single consistent character, but players are instead put in a position where the end of theirInquisitioncharacter’s story is spent setting up the story of a future, unknown protagonist. This makes the end of the Inquisitor’s story feel like less of a send-off and more like a set-up.
The end ofDragon Age: Originshinted at possible plotlines for sequels, but none were so pressing that a sequel seemed necessary to resolve the main events of the game.Dragon Age 2ended with a cutscene revealing that the Inquisition was reforming.Dragon Age: Inquisitionhad a large portion of its final act dedicated to setting up the so-far unresolved Dread Wolf plotline. IfDragon Age 4continues this pattern of increasingly larger portions of the story setting up sequels, not only does the series risk never coming to a satisfying conclusion, but the individual games risk having less narrative closure.
The Future of BioWare
BioWare is relying onDragon Age 4,Mass Effect 5, and theMass Effect: Legendary Editionas its main upcoming releases for the foreseeable future. After the disappointing reception ofMass Effect: Andromedaand the extremely rocky launch ofAnthem, the once-esteemed RPG developer likely needs some sure-fire hits to get itself back on track. However, there is another major lesson which BioWare should take away from the difficulties encountered with bothAndromedaandAnthem.
Andromedashowed the importance of exploring new IPs. The story ofMass Effect: Andromedahad to take place far away in both time and space from the events of the originalMass Effecttrilogy in order to avoid contradictory plot-points. Long-established alien races became necessary to include to keep the game feeling like aMass Effectgame but were less compelling for many players, and there were too few new cultures to explore to keep some fans interested. In short, one ofAndromeda’s biggest limiting factors was that it had to be anotherMass Effectgame.
Anthemdemonstrated some of the problems BioWare has had launching new IPs, butAnthemwas far from a typical BioWare game.Anthemwas a multiplayer shooter, which has its own slew of design challenges. The best path forward for BioWare may be to invest in new IPs, but in the single-player RPG form that made the studio famous.
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New BioWare Projects
The types of games BioWare is best known for flourish when the player’s actions are able to affect the story in a number of ways. This makes creating sequels increasingly difficult, as new installments need to account for player choices while also trying to tell a clear story in and of themselves. No more is this clear than inDragon Age: Inquisitionwhere Leliana fromOriginswill return as a so-far unexplainedlyrium ghostif she died inDragon Age: Origins.
The more games that are released in each single-playerBioWare RPGseries, the more the player impact on the broad strokes of the story has to be reduced or the more isolated the story needs to become from the wider world. This could even be seen inMass Effect 3, which had to deal with the possible deaths of many different squadmates inMass Effect 2’s suicide mission. While the large variation inMass Effect 2’s possible endings made it a satisfying ending to that game, it also left BioWare with the huge challenge of coming up with compelling replacement characters for when those saves were transferred toMass Effect 3. Like Leliana’s return, this made certain choices seem more canonical than others.
Other studios are investing in new single-player RPG IPs. Bethesda is currently working onStarfield, the studio’s first new IP in 25 years. BioWare should follow suit and embrace the creative freedom and player choice that a new RPG IP would allow for.
Dragon Age 4could wrap up many of the big remaining questions in the series, and while some answers are sure to be left behind, the game could make player decisions for the future of Thedas far more impactful than if the series planned to continue. Along with therelease ofMass Effect: Legendary Editionthis could even makeDragon Age 4more likely to be the kind of success needed for the company to recover from a rough few years and to raise enough confidence to embark on a new RPG project.
Dragon Age 4is in development now.
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