Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is no more. No, EA haven’t once again taken Dragon Age 4 back to the drawing board; instead, they’ve just changed its name. The next entry in their trad-fantasy RPG series is now called Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and we’ll get a “first look at gameplay” next week.
Without wishing to spoil anything, the name “Dreadwolf” refers to one of Dragon Age’s antagonists. According to a blog post from Gary McKay, Dragon Age’s executive producer, the name change is designed to reflect that “you and your companions – not your enemies – are the heart of this new experience.” There are apparently seven companions you’ll be bringing together over the course of the game to form the titular Veilguard.
The now-former name Dreadwolf was announced back in 2022, but Dragon Age 4 has been in development since shortly after the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014. The blog post makes reference to this long development history, framing it as “an incredible opportunity”.
“We brought everything to the table which, yes, even included a multiplayer concept. The time we spent experimenting and iterating gradually taught us a lot. This work, and the amazing support from EA, helped us re-focus on creating an incredible single player game, with all the choices, characters and world building you’d expect from us.”
I suppose that, in an industry that regularly death-marches developers to release a multiplayer game they’re ill-prepared to produce, then shuts them down when the game is predictably flawed, it is ultimately to EA’s credit that the swung back to letting BioWare make a singleplayer game. In this one instance.
We’ll finally get a proper look at Dragon Age: The Veilguard on June 11th at 8am PT/4pm BST when a fifteen minute trailer is released via the Dragon Age YouTube channel.
