Lauren spends most of her time lifeless in League of Legends, or equally as lifeless in Valorant. Do not ask her about Vampire: The Masquerade.
Printed: July 28, 2026
In a brand new episode of FRVR’s podcast, BioWare veteran Mark Darrah says that Dragon Age is probably going lifeless. 2024’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard was a industrial failure, at present sitting at a measly 67% constructive on Steam. Dragon Age: Absolution, the considerably middling Netflix anime, hasn’t been renewed, and it was launched 4 years in the past. For all intents and functions, Darrah’s sentiments appear to be right: a shadow has fallen over Thedas.
Darrah locations the blame firmly on EA. Describing the corporate as “a hedge fund with a videogame pastime that it wished it did not spend a lot cash on,” he notes that he has “no idea of who might, would, presumably pitch [a new Dragon Age game] at EA. When you go and resolve you are going to make a [game based on an IP]… the moment you are about to start out, immediately three totally different individuals who assume they management it come out of the woodwork and primarily rip you aside and chew you up and spit you out.”
Damning phrases, however ones that echo fellow Dragon Age veteran, David Gaider’s. The sequence was by no means “a very good match for EA,” he informed me post-Veilguard. “They by no means actually knew what to make of it, or what to do with it,” he says, noting that “the expectation was all the time that it would not do properly.”
In some methods, then, that is why the concept of EA sunsetting Dragon Age would not really feel like a foul factor to me. Is it one thing I might like? No. Is it one thing that I believe can be for the betterment of the franchise? Sure.
The onerous reality is that, post-Dragon Age: Origins, it feels just like the builders have not fairly identified what to do with the sequence. Whereas its stellar world-building and characterization has finished quite a lot of heavy lifting throughout all of its video games, Dragon Age 2 grew to become a tighter, extra action-focused expertise, whereas Inquisition felt extra in keeping with an MMO. The previous shortly grew to become a blur of reused belongings and infinite, oftentimes meaningless fight, whereas the latter feels too grindy for an RPG. The style inconsistencies alone show that EA – and maybe even BioWare – hasn’t fairly discovered the cheat code to what made Origins so magical.
Veilguard, in distinction to each of these, tried to return to extra strategic fight (albeit to not my style), however did not have the strong narrative or deep companionship of earlier video games to prop it up. It misplaced the grit and dirt that made Dragon Age so particular; Veilguard might have been any random fantasy recreation in any random universe. Having performed over 20 hours of it, it is boring, uninspired and soulless – in lots of ways in which’s extra felony than the constantly-switching genres.
All of which means, alongside the way in which, Dragon Age has slowly misplaced its id. From a gritty, Dungeons & Dragons-inspired digital TTRPG to a colourful motion recreation that was constructed for everybody but serves noone; I genuinely do not know what Dragon Age is anymore. Is it a barely extra convoluted courting sim? Is it a glittery, excessive fantasy romp together with your friends? In that case, then that is not the sport I signed up for, neither is it the one which I need.
On that very same token, nevertheless, I ponder if there’s a spot for a brand new Origins-style recreation in 2026. Baldur’s Gate 3 definitely proved that 200-hour RPGs are nonetheless very a lot in vogue, however with the caveat that they must be finished properly. I am unsure that EA – an organization that is hardly synonymous with sprawling, open-world technique video games – can be keen to present an enormous, RTS-heavy Dragon Age recreation the time and respiratory room that it might want. Each developer and their canine desires to imitate the ‘Larian impact,’ however while you’re a triple-An organization that, based on Darrah, has a “sophisticated relationship to delivery video games,” you are by no means going to emulate Larian’s free-flowing, artistic imaginative and prescient, and BG3’s by proxy. And, let’s be actual, cash cannot purchase soul.
It is why, in some ways, I am okay with letting Dragon Age go. Veilguard proved that EA would not perceive what made the franchise nice, and the indecision round what Dragon Age is signifies that, at present, we’ll by no means get a recreation that is totally reflective of that core Origins id. Do not get me mistaken; it sucks the way it’s turned out. As a longtime fan, I might give something to see it return to these glory days. I am simply unsure that it could – at the very least, not proper now.
I will caveat the entire above by stressing that each one of this comes from a spot of affection. I’ve bought little interest in being snarled within the political feuding round Veilguard and its industrial failure. As a substitute, I am only a fan who needed to see certainly one of her favourite franchises return in a blaze of glory; I needed to look at it redefine itself and stamp itself into the historical past books in the identical approach that Baldur’s Gate 3 did. Sadly, that is not what occurred.
In some ways, I see Dragon Age considerably of a TV present second; typically it is okay to let one thing go, we do not want 20 seasons. For now, at the very least, I believe it is okay to place Dragon Age to mattress. Or, dump BioWare and let it do its personal factor; that works, too.
