The next entry in the Dragon Age universe will ship without a multiplayer portion after publisher Electronic Arts allowed the game"s development to pivot towards a single-player-only track as per a new report. This is according to Bloomberg"s Jason Schreier, who had spoken to persons familiar with the project"s development.
Announced in 2018, the still-name-less Dragon Age game had apparently been under development with a large multiplayer portion and a push for long-term live service monetization. However, in recent months, the multiplayer side has been removed altogether from the project, goes on the report, something BioWare leadership had apparently fought to accomplish.
The reasonings behind EA"s pivot are given as the success of Respawn Entertainment"s single-player title Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order that had outperformed the publisher"s sales expectations, and the failure of BioWare"s multiplayer-focused action RPG Anthem. The around 30 people who were working on the Anthem gameplay rework project - which was canceled yesterday - are now engaged on the Dragon Age game, the report adds.
According to Schreier, this Dragon Age entry entered development in 2015 but got rebooted in 2017 to implement the now-scrapped multiplayer components. Creative director Mike Laidlaw"s departure from the studio in 2017 reportedly stemmed from this decision, with employees going so far as to call the rebooted project "Anthem with dragons" back then.
The new Dragon Age game does not have a launch window attached to it just yet, but if the report turns out to be accurate, fans of the RPG franchise may not mind the wait that much. BioWare is also working on a brand new Mass Effect entry.
Source: Bloomberg