Another day, another leak – this time, it’s from Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.
While the links to the screengrabs and the video itself have been removed from Reddit — though they can be found elsewhere online without much effort — the original post describing the 20-minute gameplay video remains accessible.
There may be spoilers ahead, so please don’t proceed unless you’re happy to be spoiled!
“A kind playtester shared recorded gameplay of DA4 that was in early Alpha at that stage,” explains the OP. “I saw what they recorded before they mixed it into another project. No, I will not share the video as the person in question asked me to. And until I get their permission, it will remain private. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, so they need to let me know that it’s okay and nothing in the video will answer them.”
As for what the footage itself reveals? Apparently, the entire clip takes place in the “Gray Warden Fortress HQ of Weisshaupt”. Combat is said to be “real-time and similar to a hack-and-slash”, with God of War (2018) as a “guidance benchmark”.
In addition to their normal combos, players can also use abilities, thanks to a “special line it creates, allowing you to perform a special move.” Interestingly, the OP doesn’t “get the comparison to Final Fantasy 15’s wheel – it seems more like a “standard Dragon Age skill wheel” to them.
The OP also says that no party control has been proven and “thinks it’s a safe bet […] you won’t be able to directly control your party members in the game”. Since this is early alpha hardware, though, this feature might just not be implemented yet. We’ll have to wait and see on that one, I guess.
“The most immediate thing you’ll notice is that the animation quality has been DRASTICALLY improved,” the poster adds. “Like, for any other AAA title, it’s probably not that big of a deal. But we’ve never seen such good animation quality in any BioWare game. I haven’t actually played it, but I can say that it’s really good to control your character . No more stiff animations, it’s all very fluid and looks very responsive too.”
Jumping is also available – news that’s likely to make many DA fans jump for joy – and “the player character’s hair looks great”. In this case, they were playing as a “Knight” Elf Class that boasts a sword and shield.
BioWare’s sequel to Dragon Age Inquisition has been in some form of development since at least 2017, when an early draft of its story was written. As Tom recently briefed us, work on BioWare’s next big Dragon Age game is well underway and is expected to be released next year.
Early last year, reports began ruling out a 2022 release for the new Dragon Age, even though it was originally on the cards. That’s because there were many failures and restarts as personnel changed and the vision for the project returned to its single-player role-playing game roots after the failure of Anthem’s online multiplayer experiment.
ICYMI, last December BioWare released a new “in-game cinematic” from Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.