Dragon Age 4 Teased With First Trailer

After teasing an announcement coming sometime in December, BioWare took the wraps off of its next Dragon Age game--potentially Dragon Age 4--during The Game Awards. A brief teaser trailer showed some slow pans across artifacts, and a hashtag that likely hints at a central story figure. It read, "The Dread Wolf Rises."

The teaser was so brief it's hard to glean much more from it, but with the announcement official, BioWare is likely to be starting up the promotional cycle and sharing more details. The last Dragon Age game, Dragon Age Inquisition, won the top honor of Game of the Year at 2014's Game Awards. The tagline "The Dread Wolf Rises" is likely a reference to Fen'Harel the elven god of betrayal in the Dragon Age universe.

BioWare had been teasing a Dragon Age related announcement in the lead up to the show and, as of late, had been hinting at the future of the franchises that many of its fans have come to love. Along with Dragon Age, the studio has said it is working on the future of Mass Effect.

In a blog post, executive producer Mark Darrah confirms the new Dragon Age game has been in the works for "quite a while." He said BioWare won't share more details now, but he did confirm the game is being made by some "core" Dragon Age veterans who also worked on Jade Empire and Baldur's Gate. Darrah teased that the team is "hard at work exploring ways to push BioWare's storytelling to the next level."

Game director Matthew Goldman, meanwhile, said in his own statement that BioWare has put together its "strongest team yet" to work on the new Dragon Age. He called it the "most epic quest ever."

"Making players into heroes of their own stories has been my real-life quest since Baldur's Gate," he said. "Over the years I've taken on increasing challenges: building vast living worlds, devising fun party-based combat and illustrating fantastic stories. Now, I’m honored and excited to continue BioWare's rich legacy of colorful companions, romance and epic choices in my favorite fantasy franchise."

BioWare's next major release is Anthem, a sci-fi action RPG in which players take control of Freelancers, equipped with mech suits called Javelins. Anthem is set for release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on February 22, 2019, but there will be two opportunities to play a demo of the game before then. You can find out more about Anthem's upcoming demos here.

There have been a number of other big announcements from the show. You can get caught up on everything by reading our full roundup of all The Game Awards news.