It’s been a rough go of it lately for Bioware, especially with the news yesterday regarding Anthem NEXT. That’s why the latest news coming out of its next anticipated project Dragon Age 4 will probably make quite a few fans hopeful and happy, though for those who liked this particular aspect of Dragon Age Inquisition will likely be disappointed. According to Bloomberg, EA has made a change to Dragon Age 4, which was originally being designed with a major multiplayer component according to sources. Over the past few months though EA has changed course, with Bioware changing to focus to single-player only, something that Bioware leadership had fought for in the past. That said, two big releases from EA were the main reasons for the pivot.
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EA has very much been on the multiplayer and microtransaction trains, and most if not all of their games have had to adapt something along those lines. That was not the case though for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which was a completely single-player game that won critical acclaim last year and had reached more than 10 million players in its first four months.
It also outperformed EA’s projections for the game, showing that there is indeed plenty of room in the single-player category for growth and success.
On the flip side of that equation was Bioware’s own Anthem, which was a completely multiplayer game from a studio primarily known for its engrossing single-player roleplaying games. Despite the unlikely pairing the game managed to build impressive hype, but released to a poor critical reception and disappointing sales.
Since then a team of 30 was assigned to develop the next big reworking of Anthem, titled Anthem NEXT, but this week that was cancelled. It wasn’t revealed why, but odds are the money needed to continue and the possible returns just didn’t line up, and that team was moved to Dragon Age 4.
Seeing that single-player games can still be profitable and successful in this current gaming space and knowing that the genre is what Bioware does best led to ditching the multiplayer portion of Dragon 4. Bioware also needs a win with their next game for the continued health of the studio, not to mention morale, so this gives them the best chance at both.
That will be a bummer for those that enjoyed Inquisition’s multiplayer, which was admittedly fun when it wasn’t lagging and there were people to actually play with, but it didn’t reach the same success as Mass Effect’s multiplayer in Mass Effect 3.
What do you want to see from Dragon Age 4? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things Dragon Age with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
