Dragon Age 4
Dragon Age 4 story While no concrete details of Dragon Age 4’s story have been revealed, we do know that Alexis Kennedy, founder of Failbetter Games, has been involved in the game’s writing.
Thursday night’s Game Awards offered much in the way of glitz, glam, and game teasers -- including an exclusive look at the fourth installment of BioWare’s blockbuster Dragon Age series. BioWare has been known to offer painstaking amounts of detail in their promo art which, if deciphered correctly, has the potential to unlock oodles of secrets about Thedas, character backstory, lore and more. Remember Inquisition’s character tarot cards?
Sure, maybe we didn’t get anything quite as lush as extensive character art, but Dragon Age fans are hungry. So we’ll take a 60 second trailer.
Even if those 60-seconds are sparse in some ways, they are rich in others. Sure, four seconds are devoted to BioWare’s logo, ten of them are a hashtag, and thirty seconds are spent in a slow pan over an ancient cursed idol.. But those remaining sixteen seconds? Hoo boy. We’re graced with a real doozy of a promo image, coupled with a voiceover from a Dragon Age I major character. Does any of this give a clue into Dragon Age 4? Who is the Dread Wolf and why are they rising? What does it all mean?
Spoilers for all Dragon Age games below!!!!
The Idol
Okay, the thirty-second slow pan over a crumbling relic may have seemed a little gratuitous, but it actually gives us a lot to work with. First of all, it’s very likely that this is the relic the Champion of Kirkwall is tasked with retrieving from the Primeval Thaig in Dragon Age 2’s first act. See the figure? Her horrible hollow face? The red tendrils dripping from the base of the statue? If they’re not the same figure, I’ll eat my hat. So that just leaves us with one burning question: who is this figure?
Here we’ve got to get into a little speculation, but I’m happy to oblige. It’s almost definitely Andraste, the mortal woman who married god, was betrayed by one of her followers, and subsequently burnt at the stake. Andraste has been a major figure in the Dragon Age games, serving as prophet for the Chantry, Thedas’ major religion among humans and Templars. She’s not only central to the core conflict of the games (mages versus Templars) but she was controversially sympathetic to the plight of elves in Tevinter (the game’s metaphor for Bad Fascist Nation). Tevinter versus the Chantry versus Magic is a real looming shadow in the games, and it’s something I hope we see more of in the next one. Maybe DA4 will even be set in Tevinter?
The second core component of this idol is the red vein creeping up its side. If it is indeed the idol from the Primeval Thaig, then that vein is Red Lyrium -- a corrupted physical manifestation of pure magic. Boy, these games are wild, huh? Red lyrium has a nasty history of driving people insane if they’re around it too long (see: Varric’s brother Bartrand, Knight-Commander Meredith), and the stuff started showing up all around Thedas following the opening of the Breach in Inquisition. The fate of the material is unclear at the end of Inquisition, but given its representation of “magic corrupted,” and influence on the Templars, I suspect we’ll be seeing it again in Dragon Age 4.
The Image
So we’ve got several components to this image here: The tree, the figure, the Orb, the idol, and the wolf. Before I even get STARTED here, can I just say that I love we’ve gone back to the tarot-inspired art direction from the previous game? Let’s bring back a couple of them, shall we?
Oh, who’s that in the third card? Why it’s Solas, the dear elven pal we love to hate and hate to love. It is clear, even without Gareth David-Lloyd’s voiceover, that the character we are looking at in this image is Solas. The cloak, the stars, the staff, the ears… I mean, look at the wolf tarot card , which you receive at the end of Inquisition: Solas, cloaked, walking away at night, staff in hand, trailed by a three-eyed wolf. If I have to connect any more pieces for you, I’m worried.
Who is Solas? Well, in the third-act shoe-drop of Inquisition, we learn that Solas is an awakened demigod of the elves, The Dread Wolf, who was responsible for trapping all the elven gods away for millenia in a revolutionary prank act gone wrong. In true BioWare trickery, The Dread Wolf had been hiding in tapestries and lore all since Origins. So the wolf on the right is The Dread Wolf, the figure on the left is Solas himself reckoning with his own past. The crux of it all? Andraste, magic, and the core of Thedas’ social/religious/political structure itself. Yikes!!!
There are a few other components we’re left to scrutinize: What’s with the tree? Aside from the tree imagery in Solas’s tarot from the previous games, it’s likely that this tree represents the vhenadahl, the tree which represents the Elven homeland of Arlathan (the one Solas accidentally cut all future elves off from forever by locking the gods away, oopsie).
The Orb? Aside from Solas’ noted use of an Orb of Destruction to bring about the Breach and the Big Bad in Inquisition (again, oopsie), Solas’ aim was to wake the Elven Gods, or the Evanuris, back up again. Now, the Orbs on Orbs here number seven -- there are eleven gods in the Elven pantheon, so that’s probably not what they represent. However, the Orbs on Orbs are strikingly similar to the Orbs in one of the murals from DA:I DLC, Trespasser, which also number seven.
What does this one mean? Well, as Varric puts it so succinctly: “If it’s like Solas’s paintings, it’s probably depicting how some elf felt real broody about sh*t he wouldn’t talk about.”
#THEDREADWOLFRISES
The final image we’re left with is #TheDreadWolfRises, which, aside from being a catchy hashtag just cinches it for me: This is all about Solas, Fen’Harel, The Dread Wolf, the trickster god who wronged us in Inquisition. My guess? The next game is set in Tevinter, we’re going to learn more about Andraste, the Evanuris, and we’ll be spending quite a lot of time teleporting between Eluvians. Red Lyrium is going to make a comeback, and might even be a weapon wielded by Solas/The Dread Wolf. There’s going to be some major universe-exploding battle between: Tevinter and the rest of Thedas, mages and Templars, elves and everybody else, the Chantry and itself. Or maybe none of this! Who knows! All I can say is: I’ll be along for the ride.
Kat Brewster is a sometimes writer, sometimes Dragon Age Detective, and most-of-the-time academic based out of the University of California, Irvine. You can reach out on Twitter.
As expected, BioWare just dropped a very brief teaser for its next Dragon Age game at The Game Awards 2018.
What was not expected, however, was the confirmation this next Dragon Age game would see the return of Dragon Age: Inquisition character Solas.
If you haven't completed Inquisition, well you won't know the significance of the #DreadWolfRises hashtag at the end of the teaser. But go play it, it's great.
Dragon Age 4 - which will almost certainly not be called that - has been in pre-production on and off for several years. It's taken a backseat while BioWare finishes Anthem, due this coming spring, but has now been formally confirmed as the studio's next project. It's been a long wait!
Dragon Age 4
'We have been working on a new Dragon Age game for quite a while now and I am pleased to finally tease the existence of this project!' executive producer Mark Darrah said in an accompanying BioWare blog post.
'While we won't be sharing any details for now, I can tell you we have been building a new team around a core of Dragon Age veterans, people I've worked with on Dragon Age, Jade Empire, and some of whom I've worked with since the Baldur's Gate days.'
BioWare veteran Matthew Goldman is Dragon Age's new creative director - and in his statement he confirmed companions, romance and big choices will all be returning (which seems aimed directly at criticism of Anthem, which does not have these).
'Making players into heroes of their own stories has been my real-life quest since Baldur's Gate,' Goldman 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.
'We've gathered our strongest team yet and are venturing forth on the most epic quest ever!'
A report earlier this week suggested Dragon Age would not launch for at least another couple of years - something Eurogamer also understands to be true.
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