It may come as little surprise, but new reports are emerging that Dragon Age 4 (or whatever the next Dragon Age game is called) isn’t coming to last-gen consoles. GamesBeat’s Jeff Grubb says that the upcoming Dragon Age title is only in development for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S (and PC), without consideration for a cross-gen releases on the likes of PS4 and Xbox One.
Specifically, this comes from a listing for the title on developer Daniel Nordlander’s LinkedIn, listing Dragon Age as a “(PS5/Xbox Series X+S/PC)” game. Nordlander worked as a Lead Player Designer on “Dragon Age” from October 2019 to October 2020. However, Grubb says that he’s also independently confirmed that there is no last-gen version of the title planned, and EA and BioWare are only targeting “new-gen systems” for its release.
Now nearly a year since the launch of PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, it’s expected that we’ll see far fewer games attempting to release on both generations of hardware. Historically, this trend tapers off after about two years, with titles releasing during year three tending to be new-gen exclusive. The fact that Dragon Age 4 is reportedly targeted for release sometime in 2023 (and doesn’t even have an official name yet), more than two years after the new consoles launched, makes it seem almost obvious that last-gen would be left behind at that point. And the constraints of releasing the game on last-gen hardware would limit the next couple years of development.
Backwards compatibility has made the transition a much smoother one, allowing developers to finish up working on last-gen consoles without fear of losing the audiences that have already moved on, but its inevitable that development focus will shift more completely to the strengths that the new generation of consoles offer.
At this point, we’ve seen very little of the next Dragon Age, except confirming that it exists. Developers have released concept art, and some teasery trailers, but we’ve yet to see a proper reveal trailer, let alone gameplay. BioWare and EA also haven’t officially announced the planned platforms for the new release, but it’s a safe bet to say that you’ll want to upgrade to the newer consoles before it releases.
Did you expect Dragon Age 4 to come to last-gen consoles, or is the new-gen report unsurprising to you?
[Source: GamesBeat]
