News for Dragon Age 4 is taking the drip-feed approach at the moment. To tide fans over until BioWare is ready to announce something more substantial, the developer’s Executive Producer Christian Dailey dropped a single piece of concept art showing off a mysterious new character with a fancy hat.
No details were provided with the artwork, but the character’s outfit and ornate staff suggest she’s a mage, although she has a darker gothic appearance more befitting of Tevinter, the location for the new game according to the BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development book. Tevinter is home to the Tevinter Imperium, Thedas’ oldest surviving human nation. Powerful mages rule over the area and the governing party’s members are known as Magisters. The Imperium is led by the Imperial Archon, a position usually handed down through generations or apprenticeships if no blood relation exists. Whether this new character fits into this hierarchy remains to be seen.
Dragon Age‘s Creative Director Matthew Goldman later responded to the artwork with a simple “Meet me in Minrathous!” comment, suggesting this is where the mage is based. Minrathous is the capital of Tevinter, and many people now believe this is the city on show during the trailer shown off at The Game Awards 2020. The skyline within the image is extremely similar to the dark foreboding city that makes an appearance for a few brief seconds and it looks like an interesting place to explore.
The new Dragon Age title has had a rocky development so far and it’s not surprising BioWare is keeping things under wraps for now. The game was in development for two years before EA decided to reboot it to allow for live-service monetization, a move that has reportedly been cancelled thanks to the failure of Anthem; now the game is assumed to be a single-player RPG. Announced during The Game Awards in 2018, only brief teasers and concept art have been shown off between then and the aforementioned trailer two years later. Hopefully we won’t have to wait until 2022 for another glimpse at the title.
