Dragon Age: Dreadwolf - Now in Alpha

[Silver]

A game update from EA announces that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is now in Alpha.

Hello,

In my last blog, back in February, I talked about the next Dragon Age(tm) game entering the production phase. Well, we've come a very long way since then, and the team is incredibly happy to announce a huge step forward in the development of the game you now know as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf(tm): We have just completed our Alpha milestone!

Up to this point, we've been working hard on the various parts of the game, but it's not until the Alpha milestone that a game all comes together. Now, for the first time, we can experience the entire game, from the opening scenes of the first mission to the very end. We can see, hear, feel, and play everything as a cohesive experience.

NOW WHAT?

Of course, the game is not finished by any means, but Alpha is one of the most important game development milestones for a number of reasons. First and foremost, we can now turn our sights toward bringing the visual fidelity to its final form and iterating on gameplay features. The big question now is, "Where do we focus our efforts?" To answer that, we solicit feedback from a number of sources, including our Community Council members who each have unique perspectives and experiences, our quality verification team, and extensive internal playtesting. Gathering feedback from multiple sources gives us the greatest insight on where we need to spend more time improving the experience.

Additionally, we can now evaluate the game's pacing, how relationships evolve over time, and the player's progression, as well as narrative cohesion--essentially how the story comes together. We can take the story we've written and see if we're expressing it well through the characters, dialogue, cinematics, and ultimately, the player's journey. Now that we have the ability to do a complete playthrough, we can iterate and polish on the things that matter most to our fans.

Hitting Alpha was the culmination of so much effort from the entire team and we used this milestone as an opportunity to come together and celebrate. We held a hybrid-style event with people onsite while others joined remotely and the team showcased their work to everyone at BioWare. We even took some time to do something fun and non-work related--a virtual escape room where we had to work together to help someone on camera find their way out. It was a really great time, and no matter where our devs are, it's important to share these types of moments together.

START TO FINISH

Now that we're finally able to experience the entire game, for me, my favorite part is the characters. Whether followers, allies, or villains, they're woven into the game in ways that take a concept that's always been a part of the Dragon Age DNA--stories about people--and push it further than ever before. The characters help contextualize the world and the stakes, and I can't wait until we're able to start really discussing them in depth.

It's also exciting to finally be able to bring our fans to parts of the world that we've previously hinted at, but never been able to fully explore--like the city of Minrathous, the capital of the Tevinter Empire. We've talked about Minrathous in previous games, and now you'll finally be able to visit! It's a city built on and fuelled by magic, and the ways in which that has come through in its visual identity, and what that looks like in comparison to previous cities we've visited in Dragon Age, are pretty spectacular.

As I mentioned earlier, the Alpha milestone is an extremely important one for us, but there's more work to be done. We also want to continue being transparent with you, our community, and keep you up to date on what we're crafting. Hopefully you've been enjoying our development updates on Dreadwolf this year as we'll be looking to share more in the future.

IN CLOSING

Of course, Dreadwolf isn't the only thing happening here at BioWare(tm)! We have a team hard at work envisioning what the future holds for a new single-player Mass Effect(tm) game. And we look forward to celebrating our community on N7 Day next month. The SWTOR team also continues to work on their next update, so keep an eye on SWTOR.com and their social media accounts for any and all details on the coming game update.

It's an incredible time at BioWare! We have so many cool things to show you in the future. Until then, thanks for being part of our community. We couldn't do this without you.

Stay well,

Gary McKay

General Manager

More information.

 

[JDR13]

So, it's an Alpha wolf?

C'mon...someone was going to say it.

 

[Giovanni1983]

Let's see how this looks and plays. Inquisition has some decent and some very rough parts but it was so "cliché" that made me cringe really hard.

 

[lackblogger]

8 years in pre-alpha, I should hope they have got something vaguely sorted by now

 

[NFLed]

I enjoyed Inquisition a whole lot, one of my 10 favorite games of all time which I replayed for the first time a year or so ago. I'm looking forward to Dreadwolf as well as the next Mass Effect game.

 

[bkrueger]

They could rename it to Dragon Age: Forever.

 

[Odrid]

They could rename it to Dragon Age: Forever.

"Forever" is already trademarked by Bethesda for the next Elder Scrolls

 

[danutz_plusplus]

I'm surprised it's only hitting Alpha now. But it also depends on what their definition of Alpha is. For some studios Alpha is basically an unpolished but mostly content complete. For others it's barely hanging on.

Interestingly, I had seen an interview between a few a few ex Blizzard guys, working on Diablo 1, 2 and 3. And interestingly, especially for 2 and 3, they said that from a certain early moment in the game's development Blizzard pretty much enforces a policy of having the game always playable by the team. So they rush to a technically running state so that they get as much exposure of the mechanics and gameplay, so they can get as much feedback on that as possible. They said that in other studios, everything comes together to a running and stable game very late, and by that point there's really no time to redesign things that don't work.

 

[Ripper]

Yeah, the term alpha can mean very different things to different studios, so it's hard to infer the significance of the milestone. From the books I've read, it generally used to mean that a game was essentially content complete and playable start to finish - but it could be in a very rough state, with placeholder graphics, temp audio, bugs up the wazoo, etc. Particularly for a AAA game, there could still be a ton of work to be done after that stage.

 

[elkston]

Yeah, the term alpha can mean very different things to different studios, so it's hard to infer the significance of the milestone. From the books I've read, it generally used to mean that a game was essentially content complete and playable start to finish - but it could be in a very rough state, with placeholder graphics, temp audio, bugs up the wazoo, etc. Particularly for a AAA game, there could still be a ton of work to be done after that stage.

Yep. I interpret alpha as "Feature Complete but not Polished and not Optmizied".
And to me Feature Complete means the real assets for the most part. No placeholders. Now maybe they have to make some fine changes to those assets, but it shouldn't be in cases where there are "?" for textures/models.

 

[Silver]

An EA Alpha, if we go by other projects under the EA banner, is barely held together with sticky tape and prone to crashing and poor performance. Oh wait, thats the Release candidate.

 

[notdart]

An EA Alpha, if we go by other projects under the EA banner, is barely held together with sticky tape and prone to crashing and poor performance. Oh wait, thats the Release candidate.

I sense a lack of optimism Either that or boredom.

 

[mat9813004]

Well, I will probably buy it. I mean I bought Anthem, so I will buy probably anything with a Bioware label. Except medical equipment. Which reminds me, I should probably use YouTube to look up Npc interactions. Tallyho.

 

[Greygore]

Looking forward to this. I actually just completed Dragon Age Origins again this week (working on Awakening now). Sounds like I should have time to complete II and Inquisition again still before this gets released.

 

[Couchpotato]

Ah yes only took eight years and multiple re-boots to reach this stage. As an old time BioWare fan I would like to say I'm hyped but I'm not. As the old BioWare is long gone.

Also concept art and early concept footage showed it might be influenced by Dark Souls.

 

[Andrew23]

Ah yes only took eight years and multiple re-boots to reach this stage. As an old time BioWare fan I would like to say I'm hyped but I'm not. As the old BioWare is long gone.

Also concept art and early concept footage showed it mighre be influenced by Dark Souls.

Yes, times when I eagerly anticipated every Bioware game are long gone.

 

[bkrueger]

"Forever" is already trademarked by Bethesda for the next Elder Scrolls

I hope Duke Nukem doesn't sue them!
Anyway, in that case I modify my suggestion: Dragon Age: Alpha Protocol.

 

[JDR13]

I sense a lack of optimism Either that or boredom.

Well, DA2 and Inquisition were pretty boring for a lot of people, so I can understand the lack of hype here.

 

[Gwydden]

Well, DA2 and Inquisition were pretty boring for a lot of people, so I can understand the lack of hype here.

DA2 was okay. Surprisingly so in light of how quickly it was made, but all that saves it from being utterly forgettable is its association with DA:O. Inquisition I hated so, so much. But it has been so long and there has been so much movement into and out of the studio that I honestly have no idea how the next game will turn out. Could be good, could be terrible, could be mediocre; any way the wind blows, I doubt it will resemble the rest of the series much at all.

 

[forgottenlor]

Well, DA2 and Inquisition were pretty boring for a lot of people, so I can understand the lack of hype here.

Yeah, I played DA2, DAO, ME3, and MEA, but they all sort of blend together in a sea of mediocrity. They were good enough for me to finish, but not good enough that I find them memorable or have any desire to replay them.