Dragon Age 4 was rebooted to save Anthem

Way back in 2017, we first began hearing about BioWare's plans for the next Dragon Age game. In fact, the company had plans set and had begun hiring up for full production, with series veteran, Mike Laidlaw, set to lead the way. What we didn't know at the time was that BioWare was having a lot of trouble getting Anthem sorted, which resulted in a restructure at BioWare and the scrapping of previous plans for the next Dragon Age.

This week, a heavily detailed Kotaku report detailed the troubled development of Anthem. The game was in bad shape, with very little work done thanks to a lack of visionary leadership, in addition to numerous issues with the Frostbite engine. When Casey Hudson returned to BioWare as General Manager, Aaryn Flynn left and the Dragon Age team had to scrap their plans to help out on Anthem. This also led to Mike Laidlaw's departure last year.

Dragon Age 4 was announced at the end of last year. At the time, sources claimed that the game was still ‘years away' and thanks to this recent Kotaku report, we have reason to fully believe that is the case.

Right now, Dragon Age 4's development is starting again from scratch, with pre-production and planning underway. Anthem was in pre-production for six years and a lot of those early ideas had to be thrown out due to the Frostbite engine. This time around, Dragon Age 4 will apparently be brought to life using the Anthem codebase.

KitGuru Says: We've heard horror stories coming out of BioWare following Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem. Perhaps things will go smoother for Dragon Age 4, but the state of Anthem doesn't give me much confidence on that front. 

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