Dragon Age 4 Will Reportedly Not Release Before 2023

I don't know about you, but it's not 2022. Dragon Age fans may want to prepare themselves for a bit of a wait before they can dive back into the fantasy universe.

BioWare's Dragon Age 4 is expected to arrive before its next Mass Effect game, given that it was announced a few years ago and the previous game in the series, Dragon Age Inquisition, is nearly seven years old. However, a new report says it will be at least two more years before we actually get to play the RPG.

According to Jeff Grubb at VentureBeat (and of Giant Bomb's GrubbSnax!) his sources believe the game is "on track" to come out in 2023, meaning that pending any setbacks in the development timeline, that's likely when we can expect to play it. EA, for its part, would not confirm any sort of window when asked about this.

Part of the reason for the long development time likely comes down to a change in direction on the project. Earlier this year, EA reportedly decided to remove all multiplayer from the game and may have ditched live-service elements that were intended to keep players engaged with Dragon Age 4 far after its launch. This came after the failure of Anthem and the success of other single-player EA projects, most notably Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

This would seemingly also fall in line with the development and release philosophy being used on the new Dead Space remake, which will not include microtransactions despite Dead Space 3 making heavy use of them.

Dragon Age 4 will be set in Tevinter, and aside from knowing about a few returning characters, details on the project remain mostly under wraps. It's reportedly still using the Frostbite engine, which has been used for a large number of EA games over the last generation despite originally being designed purely for first-person shooters.