#Jason hasn’t updated the software in a while and it shows

[ghost-bxrd]

Jaytim spite fic:

Me: hm, how much innuendo can I fit in here without Jason catching on?

Brain: y e s

[cdevroe]

Diversions #4: Tree branches and LLMs

Diversions is the central hub for news about the membership, behind-the-scenes details of my personal projects, as well as a wide variety of links to people, places, and things that inspire me.

A bit of housekeeping: I’m turning Diversions public. While a fair number of people have signed up for both free and paid memberships (thank you!), my analytics show that not everyone logs back in to read each edition. Perhaps it is a bit too much friction? So, I’ll be turning the free membership into a more newslettery type subscription and the paid membership I’ll reserve for more exclusive content and still as a way to support my projects. Stay tuned.

I could bore you with excuses as to why there hasn’t been a Diversions since early June and that I plan to publish more regularly, but that would be breaking my very first tip for blogging – “Don’t post about what you will do, post about what you’ve already done.”

Summertime is moving at breakneck speed. As Anh put it in a recent, and lovely designed, weeknotes post “It’s July, and the passage of time continues to be disorienting.” Well, it is August and I only read that post today and so that just reenforces the point. I’m not sure if it is age, busyness, or *waves arms gesturing at everything* but disorienting is a great way to describe how time seems to be moving.

Since the last Diversions was published, we’ve had family reunions, building permits and variants filing, glamping trips, dinner parties (with us hosting 25 people

), blueberry picking, trees falling, software updates shipping, and lots of customers. There was a week that felt like far too much. I need to be more careful with my scheduling.

That being said, things are good.

Spending 8-10 hours cutting a felled tree led to some meditations on lessons learned from the experience. This was a tree we knew would eventually come down. Fortunately, the only thing injured was a relatively new pear tree. But the amount of work to clean up after something like this was not expected. Trees are bigger when they are laying flat in your yard and you don’t want them there.

One lesson that was reinforced was to take large projects and make them into many small ones. We’ve had a hot summer so working in the afternoons would have been extremely unpleasant – so, I woke up early each day and got a little more of the tree taken care of. Steady progress made me happy and I also didn’t totally wear myself out. There is still a bit left to do.

Another lesson is that even though a less-than-great thing happened, I did get a few years worth of campfire wood stacked in the backyard. Each windstorm usually snaps enough limbs to give me a fair amount of sticks and branches to have some nice fires. But this new bounty means that I likely won’t need to go get fire wood for our fire pit for many summers. And it was free!

I’m using LLMs a lot lately. I continue to use them as an accelerator. And they’ve grown more capable and I’m able to run them locally (both to cut costs and to get more familiar with how they work).

I’m using Simon Willison’s LLM command line tool to install and interact with models locally (and, online). The command line isn’t the best interface for interacting with these chatbots – a web UI allows for dragging and dropping, easier copying and pasting, and other tools built on top of the chatbots. However, it is a great way to do quick prompts right from where I am in my project. I’m looking forward to seeing how local models progress.

Some links for your edification:

Jordan Stone on TikTok – If you would like to trip on acid without harmful drugs getting into your spinal fluid, here is your chance.

Aegir Hallmundur’s blog – A fun blog where each post has its own style. It reminds me of Jason Santa Maria‘s blog “back in the day”. Particularly V4.

Zellyn Hunter Recreates Schotter by George Nees – Don’t miss the multiple parts. I cannot skip a blog post recreating analog generative art.

The Nook by Isaac French – Yes please.

Solstice 2024 – Ian Giffin shares a pinhole solargraph showing the path of the sun on the shortest day of the year.

Meredith Frampton – Extraordinary work.

[jackdawyt]

ICYMI: As my last video/post for 2019, I figured we should have a reflection on Dragon Age 4’s major news updates and uncover what we know about Dragon Age 4 throughout this year and beyond!  So, we can go into 2020 with the right expectations and understanding of the game’s development!

The Dread Wolf Rises:

To boot of this year - we had the most exciting announcement from The Game Awards in December - the official confirmation of the next Dragon Age project with the current given title: #TheDreadWolfRises.

The trailer, while enigmatic, showcased the next Dragon Age centring on the Solas’s plan to rise up and destroy the veil, fulfilling the Dread Wolf’s prophecy. At least that’s one interpretation of it.

The trailer seemingly was made for the fanbase of Dragon Age with the given title, because if you didn’t know what Dragon Age was, or anything about The Dread Wolf, you could totally pass up that trailer as a different game entirely. So, it was more of an ode to the fans that the next Dragon Age game is in the works.

Alongside the release of the trailer, the Dragon Age website was updated for #TheDreadWolfRises with Mark Darrah, Executive Producer & Matthew Goldman, Creative Director sharing a few words on the production of the next Dragon Age.

TLDR: Mark is excited to show more and Matthew states that this is the strongest team yet and they’re venturing forth on the most epic quest ever.

In a September blog post, Casey Hudson wrote that ‘I can confirm that indeed the Dread Wolf rises,’ alluding to the narrative and production of Dragon Age 4. Before we delve into the current development of Dragon Age 4, we’ve got to talk about the two initial iterations of Dragon Age 4.

Project Joplin:

Based on Jason Schreier’s expose’ into the past and present developments of Dragon Age 4 - the previous iteration of Dragon Age 4 was known as ‘Joplin’, like Janis Joplin.

Janis Joplin was one of the biggest female rock stars of her era, she revolutionized her genre of music for the next generation – clearly, this is something the devs were going for with the original Dragon Age 4 project – to revolutionize the Role-Playing Game genre.

The developers on Joplin were committed to avoiding the mistakes they’d made on Dragon Age: Inquisition. Veteran Mike Laidlaw was the creative director of ‘Joplin’ until the project was canned and reworked so ‘live service elements’ could be added. After the decided rework of Dragon Age 4, Mike left the studio in late 2017.

Project Joplin’s initial concept followed the next protagonist ‘playing as a group of spies in Tevinter, a large chunk of the narrative centred on heists. The goal was to focus as much as possible on choice and consequence.’

There was an emphasis on this ‘hugely reactive game, smaller in scope than Dragon Age: Inquisition but much larger in player choice, followers, reactivity, and depth.’

The developers talked about building systemic narrative mechanics, allowing the player to perform actions like persuading or extorting guards without the writers having to hand-craft every scene.

It was very ambitious and plenty of the developers were excited, stating that they put some of their best work into this project.

However, Anthem was in real trouble, and there was a concern that it might never be finished unless the studio did something drastic. EA and BioWare took that drastic action, cancelling Joplin and moving the bulk of its staff, including executive producer Mark Darrah, onto Anthem.

Project Joplin was reworked into Project Morrison with a skeleton team building the very foundations of the next Dragon Age.

Project Morrison:

The latest iteration of Dragon Age 4 that is currently in the works is known as ‘Morrison’, like ‘James Morrison’ – the lead singer of the rock band ‘The Doors’.

Jim Morrison is regarded by music critics and fans as one of the most iconic and influential frontmen in rock history. (Wikipedia).

Morrison is being built on Anthem’s tools and codebase of the Frostbite Engine, this will save time as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Dragon Age: Inquisition and Anthem were each built from scratch. With a pre-set already there, Morrison’s development can save a lot of time.

This new version of the fourth Dragon Age is planned with a live service component, built for long-term gameplay and revenue. It’s not clear how much of Joplin’s vision will shape Morrison.

Matt Goldman, art director on Dragon Age: Inquisition and then Joplin, took over as creative director for Morrison.

Many of the BioWare developers “know it’s going to change like five times in the next two years.”

Morrison will change its shape multiple times. However, “Dragon Age games shift more than other games.” So, it’s not uncanny for a Dragon Age project to undergo drastic changes in its development.

Live Service/Multiplayer:

It has been confirmed on LinkedIn that BioWare has hired a software engineer to work on a multiplayer component for Dragon Age 4, however, it’s unsure what exactly this multiplayer could look like.

Jason Schreier stated that “he heard some ideas for Morrison’s multiplayer include companions that can be controlled by multiple players via drop-in/drop-out co-op, similar to old-school BioWare RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, and quests that could change based not just on one player’s decisions, but on the choices of players across the globe.”

In 2018, Casey Hudson tweeted a statement on live service: “Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you’ll be relieved to see what the team is working on,” he wrote on Twitter. “Story & character-focused. Too early to talk details, but when we talk about ‘live’ it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story.”

It’s still unclear how much of this game will focus on live-service elements and multiplayer, it could follow something as simple as Dragon Age: Inquisition’s separate multiplayer mode, or it could transform the game completely. Take note that Morrison is still early in the works and it will change multiple times until release. That is for sure.

Production:

Now we get to the tea - The past and present developments of Dragon Age 4’s new iteration.

So, Project Joplin was canned in late 2017, with Project Morrison rebooting sometime after that with an essential, small team. The rest of the Dragon Age team that worked on Joplin, went to fix Anthem during its troubled development. Even Mark Darrah, the Executive Producer of Dragon Age was shuffled to Anthem’s production. All the while, Morrison lay low in very early pre-production stages.

In 2018, the majority of the news we got on Dragon Age 4 came out in January, with Joplin’s initial codename and Anthem’s reshuffling. However, with Morrison in deep pre-production, nothing substantial - production-wise - was heard on this project until The Dread Wolf Rises teaser launched at The Game Awards eleven months later in December. Of course, this trailer was hype hype hype!

In early 2019, BioWare resumed their focus on Anthem and its release date. After Anthem was released in February 2019 - according to comicbook.com - the core Edmonton team working on Anthem, returned to work on Dragon Age 4 in full-scale development following the reworks of Morrison.

Built on Anthem’s codebase and its pre-sets of the Frostbite engine, following a very enigmatic live service model – Dragon Age 4 entered its pre-production stages with a full-team. As Casey Hudson later confirmed in September:

“We have several other big projects in the works.  I wish I could tell you more about them, but they’re mostly super-secret right now.  I can say however that one of our projects has a large and growing team in Edmonton working through pre-production, and based on the progress I’m seeing, I can confirm that indeed the Dread Wolf rises.”

Key processes during the pre-production stages include:

Concept Art

Storyboarding

Level Design

Mechanic Design

Around June, an IGN Greece article resurfaced again, according to said article ‘an anonymous BioWare employee had given clues Dragon Age 4. Stating that the game will be released in 2020 and that the voices of the characters are already being recorded, which indicates an advanced stage of development.’

This article initially launched in 2018 and has many rebuttals, the first being the release date.

This 2020 expected release date has been debunked because according to EA’s 2019 earnings call, the new release window for Dragon Age 4 is at least April 2022, and any time after that. Perhaps Joplin’s initial release window was 2020, and the developer may have shared that, but as far as Morrison is concerned, the project is 3 years away.

However, voice work being in the works could be plausible at this stage. Alix Wilton Reagan has teased a few seasons of her in full mocap mentioning NDA’s and #dragonage and #inquisitor, this could just Alix teasing us, or using social media to its full advantage, or it could be something Dragon Age-related.

Surely the Inquisitor will make a cameo appearance and that could justify why Alix could be doing VO?

On top of both Alix’s tease and IGN Greece’s article, very recently Jo Berry, a writer at BioWare tweeted about voice over work coming in and it being fantastic, however, they have to remove the goofy robot text to speech which is awkward and funny to listen to.  

“When VO is coming in and it’s fan-tastic, but it means saying goodbye to that goofy robot text-to-speech that makes you all laugh.”

So, indeed voice work does seem to be going on for Dragon Age 4’s development at this stage.

In jest, BioWare hasn’t replied to my request for voice acting a character in Dragon Age 4, so I think because of that, we can assume that they haven’t started the majority of the main character’s voice work just yet, right?

Moving on…Throughout the months of August and September, BioWare moved to a new office space in downtown Edmonton. Once they had settled in, a few very interesting Dragon Age 4 titbits came to light.

Emily (Domino) Taylor posted a picture on Twitter, showcasing a post artboard for Dragon Age 4, as we can assume it’s Dragon Age! There’s a Grey Warden and their Griffon-friend showcased in the picture.

Griffons and Grey Warden’s confirmed for Dragon Age 4? It’s not too much of a stretch considering the drama at Weisshaupt and Last Flight’s ending, but alas, as we can see BioWare’s art division are getting ready to line up concept artwork for further production and development. Probably for 3D model creation and animation stages.

Regardless, it’s very exciting to see the start of official artwork developing for Dragon Age 4, I’ll be keeping an eye out to see how this board develops further.  

Another huge titbit that was revealed with BioWare’s office move, was when the mayor of Edmonton decided to visit and congratulate BioWare at their new offices. On one of the photos the mayor and his team took, there was a shot of an HD version of Solas on a TV Screen.

I personally believe that this is a shot from Dragon Age 4 or the prototype version of Morrison showing off Solas. There’s been no confirmation of where this shot comes from, and I’ve spent an entire video dissecting it. However, my point is, I don’t think this comes from Dragon Age: Inquisition, it’s way to HD, look at his face, the fur on his outfit, the outside environment. It’s very distinct, and I believe it’s the first shot of Dragon Age 4 revealed.

I’ve not seen any rebuttals to this, and I’ve openly asked multiple times online, however, no one has come up with anything. So, even towards the end of 2019, it remains a mystery. I think this is a Dragon Age 4 shot, let me know if you think otherwise!

Around the same time, Matt Rhodes, an Art Director, posted a short story on his Instagram stating that he’s “more excited working on Dragon Age 4 than any other project so far.”

Just after BioWare moved offices, Fernando Melo, a senior producer on The Dread Wolf Rises left the studio after 12 years.

As stated on his LinkedIn profile, a lot of Fernando’s job on Dragon Age 4 surrounded “help[ing] establish the vision for the game. Guid[ing] the team through EA’s concept and early production phases. Prov[ing] out the core concept and key innovations of the game”.

He signed off with an email sent to everyone on the Dragon Age team, stating that he left at the “least disruptive timing as it would likely get.”

Considering that Fernando’s job was ensuring the pre-production stages were completed efficiently, and with his departure being at a time where it’d be least hectic for the development of Dragon Age 4, it’s safe to say that the pre-production processes are wrapping up and the team can begin to enter full production.

Fernando said that “with a great game leadership team in place, a fantastic creative vision, and some of the best devs in the world. Morrison is well underway to becoming the definitive Dragon Age experience - and I’m incredibly proud and honored to have played a part in that. I’ll be eagerly awaiting the opportunity to experience the next DA as a fan this time around.”

So, with Fernando’s send off via email, the entire Dragon Age team has moved on from the initial pre-production stages to the main development of the project with an estimated release window of any time after April 2022.

Mark Darrah Major Hints & Teases:

Now we get to the most divisive news topics - the teases from Executive Producer Mark Darrah!

Mark has actually been teasing us since the beginning of 2017, when he dropped a video of an artbook that collated a plethora of Dragon Age concept characters, with many mysterious and ominous photos showcasing potential concept art and character designs.

A logo of a wolf, on fire encased in a tower, was all we had on Dragon Age 4 at the time. However, considering Project Joplin was canned at the end of that same year, I think it’s safe to assume this work went alongside that project, whether it will remain, we’ll uncover in-time.

At E3 2018, in a video interview with Game Informer, Mark Darrah said that Dragon Age 4 was going ‘swell’ with a cheeky grin.

At Pax West 2018, Dragon Age 4 was officially confirmed again since it’s reboot in development, the Triforce Quartet played Dragon Age: Inquisition’s theme as Mark Darrah confirmed that the next instalment is in the works… again.

Towards the end of November, Mark Darrah teased the entirety of Twitter with his Dragon Age remarks. Having tweeted the single words “Dragon Age”, he had PC Gamer and many other onion articles writing up on his huge Dragon Age 4 tease.

However, to be fair, Mark dropped an image that resembles Dragon Age, only we’ve never seen anything quite like it before.

Midnight snow, rocks, forests, a completely different landscape to any of the maps in Dragon Age: Inquisition, yet very familiar with its Frostbite Engine aesthetic… is this a shot of Tevinter, more than likely taken on Mark Darrah’s phone?

Well, I think so. It doesn’t resemble any location I can recall in Dragon Age: Inquisition… But you might say “there’s snow in Tevinter, which is the opposite end of Thedas’s Equator, that doesn’t make sense lore-wise.”  

Well, Mark Darrah replied to someone questioning if and why there would be snow in Tevinter, he sent them a link to this article that explains how there can be snow on the equator, meaning that Tevinter can have snow.

So, is this our second or first look of Dragon Age 4? Well, depending on if the Solas shot is viable, I’d say definitely, but I’ll let you make your own mind up on that. Speaking of Tevinter, Mark Darrah also teased that the working plot title of Dragon Age 4 is titled “Tevinter of Our Discontent”, which is a huge story reference that I’ll touch upon in a separate category.

However, back to the picture teases, and Mark Darrah also posted another photo…

A sun blinding a knight, very ominous, I don’t even know where to start with this one… I mean it could have some subliminal message about how Solas may destroy the veil, or it could have a rather obscure context that fits to Dragon Age 4’s narrative, but I honestly just don’t even know what this is…

On Dragon Age Day, Again, Mark Darrah posted another screenshot of Dragon Age 4 with everything redacted other than a pixel in the corner.

And, erm, yep. That’s super. Thanks for that, Mark.

If you’d like to see more Dragon Age 4 teases that may or may not make sense and will most likely leave you frustrated and clueless, why not give Mark Darrah a follow-on Twitter. He’s one to keep an eye out.

Story:

The next narrative surrounds the Dread Wolf rising and attempting to destroy the veil, it’ll most likely be our next protagonist’s goal to stop Solas from achieving this.

We will have a new protagonist, like every other Dragon Age game. It’s been confirmed copious times by many developers old and new that the Hero of Ferelden will never return in the future, so stop asking. And even if they did return, Patrick Weekes is in charge now.

Dragon Age 4 will be set in the Tevinter Imperium, if Trespasser’s ending wasn’t a good enough clue for you, Project Joplin was also set in Tevinter. Alternatively, according to PC Gamer, it was the newly announced Tevinter Nights book that confirmed Tevinter to be Dragon Age 4’s setting.

Mark Darrah confirmed and teased on Twitter that the working plot title of Dragon Age 4 is Tevinter of our Discontent, derived from Shakespeare’s “The Winter of our Discontent” which is the opening lines from the play - Richard III (3rd).

As a TLDR: the words lay the groundwork for the portrayal of Richard as a discontented man who is unhappy in a world that hates him. However, since his family were victorious in the war, they reign the nation once more, and so as winter dies, glorious summer is upon them.

There are plenty of references we can make to Solas and his scheme to destroy the veil, he’s woken up to a world that despises his name and people that revoke his actions as evil. He wants to correct this world and restore his ‘family’ so to speak. Perhaps, like Richard the 3rd, Solas’s glorious summer is what awaits him in the next game.

So, we have plenty of plot potential with this given title and I do have a separate video for even more thorough speculation on this topic. However, based on Shakespeare’s work being the main inspiration for Dragon Age 4’s narrative, we should expect tragedy to be one of the main themes of the plot.

According to Video Gamer, in 2017, Alexis Kennedy was writing freelance for BioWare, ‘working on a whole chunk of lore and backstory for the faction in the game that you would think of if you were thinking big old goth. You know, if you were interested in death.’

Instantly what comes to mind is Nevarra’s Mortalitasi – Death Mages that’s responsible for the mummification process of the dead in Nevarran culture. However, we’re not sure how much of his work went into the cancelled Joplin, considering the timing at which he worked on Dragon Age 4.  

According to Alexis’s LinkedIn page, he worked freelance at BioWare from February – August 2017. The end of 2017 was the same time Joplin was canned, and Mike Laidlaw left the company, so there’s a huge possibility that Alexis’s work has been shelved.

Even if Alexis’s work wasn’t shelved at the time, given his recent allegations and controversy, Mark Darrah confirmed on Twitter that BioWare no longer has a working relationship with him, so his work seemingly has been scrapped.

According to Dark Horse writers Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir who’re creating the comics. In a comicbook.com interview, they shared the collaboration with the BioWare writers, it’s a case of sharing notes on where the narrative is going, and how the comics can help reach that point for Dragon Age 4’s narrative.

So, if you want to see where Dragon Age 4’s narrative may go, or which characters could turn up, read the comics as they’re pushing the narrative forward.

According to Chelsea Fariello, Assistant Animator at BioWare, it seems we could have a Mabari War Hound companion, or at least NPC in Dragon Age 4, as she stated on Twitter that she was interested in what interactions people would want to see for a dog-like creature in a video game. With the hashtag Dragon Age. Perhaps Mabari War Hound, or even a Griffon? “What interactions would people want to be able to do with a dog like creature in a video game? I need to know…for reasons… #DragonAge “

The “creature” part in that tweet is what makes me think it could be a small griffon? If it’s a Mabari then it’s just a dog, however, if it’s a small griffon then that could make sense. That’s just my hot take.

On Dragon Age Day, Arby’s expressed their interest in opening a new branch in Thedas, could we see a new type of cuisine in Tevinter? It’s hard to say, other than the fact that John Epler loves Arby’s, not Wendy’s though. Don’t mention Wendy’s!

Weekes’s Tweets:

Adding to the story category, we have plenty of tweets by Patrick Weekes that hint at future elements for Dragon Age 4.

Patrick Weekes responded to Autumn Witch when asked on Twitter ‘to pick one character from Dragon Age that has never been a companion or advisor that you would like to see as a companion in DA-4? (For the sake of this post, Lace Harding is also not available.)’

Patrick said: “Oh that’s obvious, I’d go with (Reads parenthetical) THIS IS RIGGED.”

So, Scout Harding as a Dragon Age 4 Companion teased? I freaking hope so.

Patrick Weekes posted on Twitter that they just teared up reading a scene, so unless they’re cutting onions while writing, we should expect tears to be shed in Dragon Age 4. If I were to guess, I mean Solas is walking the Din’anshiral. Which means there is only death on this journey…

Weekes was asked about non-binary lingo & representation and if the players would have the option to not identify as a male or female in the next Dragon Age. They replied saying:

“No guarantees (it’s something that is very difficult in romance languages we get translated into), but our team is always looking for better ways to let players see themselves in our games.”

Other Dragon Age Projects:

According to EA’s 2019 Earnings Call, “there are plans for not only Dragon Age 4, but other Dragon Age products too.”

At a guess, this ‘other product’ could simply be a mobile companion app to coincide with Dragon Age 4’s launch. Or it could be the rumoured tactics game that we haven’t heard about since Mark Darrah’s tease in 2017.

On top of that, at a guess, it could also be an extension to the Dragon Age Keep.

Expectations:

There’s still a couple of years yet with an expected release window at any point after April 2022. However, that doesn’t mean the news will not be coming, just look at all the tidbits I’ve uncovered from developer tweets on the side.

Not to mention that BioWare generally start the marketing phases of their upcoming games two years prior to release, so if Dragon Age 4 were to release in 2022, we could actually see something in 2020. I’m not banking on that, but just for the doubters out there, we’ll easily hear something regarding this game in 2020, whether that’s a trailer or small tweet trials of news, we’ll be sure to get something, and I’ll be sure to stay on track of that.

if you have anyone saying there’s no news for Dragon Age 4, just gently send them my way and share this video in their dm’s!

[jackdawyt]

As my last video/post for 2019, I figured we should have a reflection on Dragon Age 4's major news updates and uncover what we know about Dragon Age 4 throughout this year and beyond!  So, we can go into 2020 with the right expectations and understanding of the game's development!

The Dread Wolf Rises:

To boot of this year - we had the most exciting announcement from The Game Awards in December - the official confirmation of the next Dragon Age project with the current given title: #TheDreadWolfRises.

The trailer, while enigmatic, showcased the next Dragon Age centring on the Solas’s plan to rise up and destroy the veil, fulfilling the Dread Wolf’s prophecy. At least that’s one interpretation of it.

The trailer seemingly was made for the fanbase of Dragon Age with the given title, because if you didn’t know what Dragon Age was, or anything about The Dread Wolf, you could totally pass up that trailer as a different game entirely. So, it was more of an ode to the fans that the next Dragon Age game is in the works.

Alongside the release of the trailer, the Dragon Age website was updated for #TheDreadWolfRises with Mark Darrah, Executive Producer & Matthew Goldman, Creative Director sharing a few words on the production of the next Dragon Age.

TLDR: Mark is excited to show more and Matthew states that this is the strongest team yet and they’re venturing forth on the most epic quest ever.

In a September blog post, Casey Hudson wrote that ‘I can confirm that indeed the Dread Wolf rises,’ alluding to the narrative and production of Dragon Age 4. Before we delve into the current development of Dragon Age 4, we’ve got to talk about the two initial iterations of Dragon Age 4.

Project Joplin:

Based on Jason Schreier’s expose’ into the past and present developments of Dragon Age 4 - the previous iteration of Dragon Age 4 was known as ‘Joplin’, like Janis Joplin.

Janis Joplin was one of the biggest female rock stars of her era, she revolutionized her genre of music for the next generation – clearly, this is something the devs were going for with the original Dragon Age 4 project – to revolutionize the Role-Playing Game genre.

The developers on Joplin were committed to avoiding the mistakes they’d made on Dragon Age: Inquisition. Veteran Mike Laidlaw was the creative director of ‘Joplin’ until the project was canned and reworked so ‘live service elements’ could be added. After the decided rework of Dragon Age 4, Mike left the studio in late 2017.

Project Joplin’s initial concept followed the next protagonist ‘playing as a group of spies in Tevinter, a large chunk of the narrative centred on heists. The goal was to focus as much as possible on choice and consequence.’

There was an emphasis on this ‘hugely reactive game, smaller in scope than Dragon Age: Inquisition but much larger in player choice, followers, reactivity, and depth.’

The developers talked about building systemic narrative mechanics, allowing the player to perform actions like persuading or extorting guards without the writers having to hand-craft every scene.

It was very ambitious and plenty of the developers were excited, stating that they put some of their best work into this project.

However, Anthem was in real trouble, and there was a concern that it might never be finished unless the studio did something drastic. EA and BioWare took that drastic action, cancelling Joplin and moving the bulk of its staff, including executive producer Mark Darrah, onto Anthem.

Project Joplin was reworked into Project Morrison with a skeleton team building the very foundations of the next Dragon Age.

Project Morrison:

The latest iteration of Dragon Age 4 that is currently in the works is known as ‘Morrison’, like ‘James Morrison’ – the lead singer of the rock band ‘The Doors’.

Jim Morrison is regarded by music critics and fans as one of the most iconic and influential frontmen in rock history. (Wikipedia).

Morrison is being built on Anthem’s tools and codebase of the Frostbite Engine, this will save time as Mass Effect: Andromeda, Dragon Age: Inquisition and Anthem were each built from scratch. With a pre-set already there, Morrison’s development can save a lot of time.

This new version of the fourth Dragon Age is planned with a live service component, built for long-term gameplay and revenue. It’s not clear how much of Joplin’s vision will shape Morrison.

Matt Goldman, art director on Dragon Age: Inquisition and then Joplin, took over as creative director for Morrison.

Many of the BioWare developers “know it’s going to change like five times in the next two years.”

Morrison will change its shape multiple times. However, “Dragon Age games shift more than other games.” So, it’s not uncanny for a Dragon Age project to undergo drastic changes in its development.

Live Service/Multiplayer:

It has been confirmed on LinkedIn that BioWare has hired a software engineer to work on a multiplayer component for Dragon Age 4, however, it’s unsure what exactly this multiplayer could look like.

Jason Schreier stated that “he heard some ideas for Morrison’s multiplayer include companions that can be controlled by multiple players via drop-in/drop-out co-op, similar to old-school BioWare RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, and quests that could change based not just on one player’s decisions, but on the choices of players across the globe.”

In 2018, Casey Hudson tweeted a statement on live service: “Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you’ll be relieved to see what the team is working on,” he wrote on Twitter. “Story & character-focused. Too early to talk details, but when we talk about ‘live’ it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story.”

It’s still unclear how much of this game will focus on live-service elements and multiplayer, it could follow something as simple as Dragon Age: Inquisition’s separate multiplayer mode, or it could transform the game completely. Take note that Morrison is still early in the works and it will change multiple times until release. That is for sure.

Production:

Now we get to the tea - The past and present developments of Dragon Age 4’s new iteration.

So, Project Joplin was canned in late 2017, with Project Morrison rebooting sometime after that with an essential, small team. The rest of the Dragon Age team that worked on Joplin, went to fix Anthem during its troubled development. Even Mark Darrah, the Executive Producer of Dragon Age was shuffled to Anthem’s production. All the while, Morrison lay low in very early pre-production stages.

In 2018, the majority of the news we got on Dragon Age 4 came out in January, with Joplin’s initial codename and Anthem’s reshuffling. However, with Morrison in deep pre-production, nothing substantial - production-wise - was heard on this project until The Dread Wolf Rises teaser launched at The Game Awards eleven months later in December. Of course, this trailer was hype hype hype!

In early 2019, BioWare resumed their focus on Anthem and its release date. After Anthem was released in February 2019 - according to comicbook.com - the core Edmonton team working on Anthem, returned to work on Dragon Age 4 in full-scale development following the reworks of Morrison.

Built on Anthem’s codebase and its pre-sets of the Frostbite engine, following a very enigmatic live service model – Dragon Age 4 entered its pre-production stages with a full-team. As Casey Hudson later confirmed in September:

"We have several other big projects in the works.  I wish I could tell you more about them, but they’re mostly super-secret right now.  I can say however that one of our projects has a large and growing team in Edmonton working through pre-production, and based on the progress I’m seeing, I can confirm that indeed the Dread Wolf rises."

Key processes during the pre-production stages include:

Concept Art

Storyboarding

Level Design

Mechanic Design

Around June, an IGN Greece article resurfaced again, according to said article ‘an anonymous BioWare employee had given clues Dragon Age 4. Stating that the game will be released in 2020 and that the voices of the characters are already being recorded, which indicates an advanced stage of development.’

This article initially launched in 2018 and has many rebuttals, the first being the release date.

This 2020 expected release date has been debunked because according to EA’s 2019 earnings call, the new release window for Dragon Age 4 is at least April 2022, and any time after that. Perhaps Joplin’s initial release window was 2020, and the developer may have shared that, but as far as Morrison is concerned, the project is 3 years away.

However, voice work being in the works could be plausible at this stage. Alix Wilton Reagan has teased a few seasons of her in full mocap mentioning NDA’s and #dragonage and #inquisitor, this could just Alix teasing us, or using social media to its full advantage, or it could be something Dragon Age-related.

Surely the Inquisitor will make a cameo appearance and that could justify why Alix could be doing VO?

On top of both Alix’s tease and IGN Greece’s article, very recently Jo Berry, a writer at BioWare tweeted about voice over work coming in and it being fantastic, however, they have to remove the goofy robot text to speech which is awkward and funny to listen to.  

"When VO is coming in and it's fan-tastic, but it means saying goodbye to that goofy robot text-to-speech that makes you all laugh."

So, indeed voice work does seem to be going on for Dragon Age 4’s development at this stage.

In jest, BioWare hasn’t replied to my request for voice acting a character in Dragon Age 4, so I think because of that, we can assume that they haven’t started the majority of the main character’s voice work just yet, right?

Moving on…Throughout the months of August and September, BioWare moved to a new office space in downtown Edmonton. Once they had settled in, a few very interesting Dragon Age 4 titbits came to light.

Emily (Domino) Taylor posted a picture on Twitter, showcasing a post artboard for Dragon Age 4, as we can assume it’s Dragon Age! There’s a Grey Warden and their Griffon-friend showcased in the picture.

Griffons and Grey Warden’s confirmed for Dragon Age 4? It’s not too much of a stretch considering the drama at Weisshaupt and Last Flight’s ending, but alas, as we can see BioWare’s art division are getting ready to line up concept artwork for further production and development. Probably for 3D model creation and animation stages.

Regardless, it’s very exciting to see the start of official artwork developing for Dragon Age 4, I’ll be keeping an eye out to see how this board develops further.  

Another huge titbit that was revealed with BioWare’s office move, was when the mayor of Edmonton decided to visit and congratulate BioWare at their new offices. On one of the photos the mayor and his team took, there was a shot of an HD version of Solas on a TV Screen.

I personally believe that this is a shot from Dragon Age 4 or the prototype version of Morrison showing off Solas. There’s been no confirmation of where this shot comes from, and I’ve spent an entire video dissecting it. However, my point is, I don’t think this comes from Dragon Age: Inquisition, it’s way to HD, look at his face, the fur on his outfit, the outside environment. It’s very distinct, and I believe it’s the first shot of Dragon Age 4 revealed.

I’ve not seen any rebuttals to this, and I’ve openly asked multiple times online, however, no one has come up with anything. So, even towards the end of 2019, it remains a mystery. I think this is a Dragon Age 4 shot, let me know if you think otherwise!

Around the same time, Matt Rhodes, an Art Director, posted a short story on his Instagram stating that he’s “more excited working on Dragon Age 4 than any other project so far.”

Just after BioWare moved offices, Fernando Melo, a senior producer on The Dread Wolf Rises left the studio after 12 years.

As stated on his LinkedIn profile, a lot of Fernando’s job on Dragon Age 4 surrounded “help[ing] establish the vision for the game. Guid[ing] the team through EA’s concept and early production phases. Prov[ing] out the core concept and key innovations of the game”.

He signed off with an email sent to everyone on the Dragon Age team, stating that he left at the “least disruptive timing as it would likely get.”

Considering that Fernando’s job was ensuring the pre-production stages were completed efficiently, and with his departure being at a time where it’d be least hectic for the development of Dragon Age 4, it’s safe to say that the pre-production processes are wrapping up and the team can begin to enter full production.

Fernando said that “with a great game leadership team in place, a fantastic creative vision, and some of the best devs in the world. Morrison is well underway to becoming the definitive Dragon Age experience - and I'm incredibly proud and honored to have played a part in that. I'll be eagerly awaiting the opportunity to experience the next DA as a fan this time around.”

So, with Fernando’s send off via email, the entire Dragon Age team has moved on from the initial pre-production stages to the main development of the project with an estimated release window of any time after April 2022.

Mark Darrah Major Hints & Teases:

Now we get to the most divisive news topics - the teases from Executive Producer Mark Darrah!

Mark has actually been teasing us since the beginning of 2017, when he dropped a video of an artbook that collated a plethora of Dragon Age concept characters, with many mysterious and ominous photos showcasing potential concept art and character designs.

A logo of a wolf, on fire encased in a tower, was all we had on Dragon Age 4 at the time. However, considering Project Joplin was canned at the end of that same year, I think it’s safe to assume this work went alongside that project, whether it will remain, we’ll uncover in-time.

At E3 2018, in a video interview with Game Informer, Mark Darrah said that Dragon Age 4 was going ‘swell’ with a cheeky grin.

At Pax West 2018, Dragon Age 4 was officially confirmed again since it’s reboot in development, the Triforce Quartet played Dragon Age: Inquisition’s theme as Mark Darrah confirmed that the next instalment is in the works… again.

Towards the end of November, Mark Darrah teased the entirety of Twitter with his Dragon Age remarks. Having tweeted the single words “Dragon Age”, he had PC Gamer and many other onion articles writing up on his huge Dragon Age 4 tease.

However, to be fair, Mark dropped an image that resembles Dragon Age, only we’ve never seen anything quite like it before.

Midnight snow, rocks, forests, a completely different landscape to any of the maps in Dragon Age: Inquisition, yet very familiar with its Frostbite Engine aesthetic… is this a shot of Tevinter, more than likely taken on Mark Darrah’s phone?

Well, I think so. It doesn’t resemble any location I can recall in Dragon Age: Inquisition… But you might say “there’s snow in Tevinter, which is the opposite end of Thedas’s Equator, that doesn’t make sense lore-wise.”  

Well, Mark Darrah replied to someone questioning if and why there would be snow in Tevinter, he sent them a link to this article that explains how there can be snow on the equator, meaning that Tevinter can have snow.

So, is this our second or first look of Dragon Age 4? Well, depending on if the Solas shot is viable, I’d say definitely, but I’ll let you make your own mind up on that. Speaking of Tevinter, Mark Darrah also teased that the working plot title of Dragon Age 4 is titled “Tevinter of Our Discontent”, which is a huge story reference that I’ll touch upon in a separate category.

However, back to the picture teases, and Mark Darrah also posted another photo…

A sun blinding a knight, very ominous, I don’t even know where to start with this one… I mean it could have some subliminal message about how Solas may destroy the veil, or it could have a rather obscure context that fits to Dragon Age 4’s narrative, but I honestly just don’t even know what this is…

On Dragon Age Day, Again, Mark Darrah posted another screenshot of Dragon Age 4 with everything redacted other than a pixel in the corner.

And, erm, yep. That’s super. Thanks for that, Mark.

If you’d like to see more Dragon Age 4 teases that may or may not make sense and will most likely leave you frustrated and clueless, why not give Mark Darrah a follow-on Twitter. He’s one to keep an eye out.

Story:

The next narrative surrounds the Dread Wolf rising and attempting to destroy the veil, it’ll most likely be our next protagonist’s goal to stop Solas from achieving this.

We will have a new protagonist, like every other Dragon Age game. It’s been confirmed copious times by many developers old and new that the Hero of Ferelden will never return in the future, so stop asking. And even if they did return, Patrick Weekes is in charge now.

Dragon Age 4 will be set in the Tevinter Imperium, if Trespasser’s ending wasn’t a good enough clue for you, Project Joplin was also set in Tevinter. Alternatively, according to PC Gamer, it was the newly announced Tevinter Nights book that confirmed Tevinter to be Dragon Age 4’s setting.

Mark Darrah confirmed and teased on Twitter that the working plot title of Dragon Age 4 is Tevinter of our Discontent, derived from Shakespeare’s “The Winter of our Discontent” which is the opening lines from the play - Richard III (3rd).

As a TLDR: the words lay the groundwork for the portrayal of Richard as a discontented man who is unhappy in a world that hates him. However, since his family were victorious in the war, they reign the nation once more, and so as winter dies, glorious summer is upon them.

There are plenty of references we can make to Solas and his scheme to destroy the veil, he’s woken up to a world that despises his name and people that revoke his actions as evil. He wants to correct this world and restore his ‘family’ so to speak. Perhaps, like Richard the 3rd, Solas’s glorious summer is what awaits him in the next game.

So, we have plenty of plot potential with this given title and I do have a separate video for even more thorough speculation on this topic. However, based on Shakespeare’s work being the main inspiration for Dragon Age 4’s narrative, we should expect tragedy to be one of the main themes of the plot.

According to Video Gamer, in 2017, Alexis Kennedy was writing freelance for BioWare, ‘working on a whole chunk of lore and backstory for the faction in the game that you would think of if you were thinking big old goth. You know, if you were interested in death.'

Instantly what comes to mind is Nevarra's Mortalitasi – Death Mages that's responsible for the mummification process of the dead in Nevarran culture. However, we’re not sure how much of his work went into the cancelled Joplin, considering the timing at which he worked on Dragon Age 4.  

According to Alexis’s LinkedIn page, he worked freelance at BioWare from February – August 2017. The end of 2017 was the same time Joplin was canned, and Mike Laidlaw left the company, so there’s a huge possibility that Alexis’s work has been shelved.

Even if Alexis’s work wasn’t shelved at the time, given his recent allegations and controversy, Mark Darrah confirmed on Twitter that BioWare no longer has a working relationship with him, so his work seemingly has been scrapped.

According to Dark Horse writers Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir who’re creating the comics. In a comicbook.com interview, they shared the collaboration with the BioWare writers, it’s a case of sharing notes on where the narrative is going, and how the comics can help reach that point for Dragon Age 4’s narrative.

So, if you want to see where Dragon Age 4’s narrative may go, or which characters could turn up, read the comics as they’re pushing the narrative forward.

According to Chelsea Fariello, Assistant Animator at BioWare, it seems we could have a Mabari War Hound companion, or at least NPC in Dragon Age 4, as she stated on Twitter that she was interested in what interactions people would want to see for a dog-like creature in a video game. With the hashtag Dragon Age. Perhaps Mabari War Hound, or even a Griffon? “What interactions would people want to be able to do with a dog like creature in a video game? I need to know...for reasons... #DragonAge “

The “creature” part in that tweet is what makes me think it could be a small griffon? If it’s a Mabari then it’s just a dog, however, if it’s a small griffon then that could make sense. That’s just my hot take.

On Dragon Age Day, Arby’s expressed their interest in opening a new branch in Thedas, could we see a new type of cuisine in Tevinter? It’s hard to say, other than the fact that John Epler loves Arby’s, not Wendy’s though. Don’t mention Wendy’s!

Weekes’s Tweets:

Adding to the story category, we have plenty of tweets by Patrick Weekes that hint at future elements for Dragon Age 4.

Patrick Weekes responded to Autumn Witch when asked on Twitter ‘to pick one character from Dragon Age that has never been a companion or advisor that you would like to see as a companion in DA-4? (For the sake of this post, Lace Harding is also not available.)’

Patrick said: “Oh that’s obvious, I’d go with (Reads parenthetical) THIS IS RIGGED.”

So, Scout Harding as a Dragon Age 4 Companion teased? I freaking hope so.

Patrick Weekes posted on Twitter that they just teared up reading a scene, so unless they’re cutting onions while writing, we should expect tears to be shed in Dragon Age 4. If I were to guess, I mean Solas is walking the Din’anshiral. Which means there is only death on this journey…

Weekes was asked about non-binary lingo & representation and if the players would have the option to not identify as a male or female in the next Dragon Age. They replied saying:

“No guarantees (it's something that is very difficult in romance languages we get translated into), but our team is always looking for better ways to let players see themselves in our games.”

Other Dragon Age Projects:

According to EA’s 2019 Earnings Call, “there are plans for not only Dragon Age 4, but other Dragon Age products too.”

At a guess, this ‘other product’ could simply be a mobile companion app to coincide with Dragon Age 4’s launch. Or it could be the rumoured tactics game that we haven’t heard about since Mark Darrah’s tease in 2017.

On top of that, at a guess, it could also be an extension to the Dragon Age Keep.

Expectations:

There’s still a couple of years yet with an expected release window at any point after April 2022. However, that doesn’t mean the news will not be coming, just look at all the tidbits I’ve uncovered from developer tweets on the side.

Not to mention that BioWare generally start the marketing phases of their upcoming games two years prior to release, so if Dragon Age 4 were to release in 2022, we could actually see something in 2020. I’m not banking on that, but just for the doubters out there, we’ll easily hear something regarding this game in 2020, whether that’s a trailer or small tweet trials of news, we’ll be sure to get something, and I’ll be sure to stay on track of that.

if you have anyone saying there’s no news for Dragon Age 4, just gently send them my way and share this video in their dm’s!