EA Play Live was… underwhelming, to put it lightly. The show’s major highlight was the announcement that Skate is coming back (at some point, no gameplay or logo or anything else shown), followed by the Star Wars: Squadrons gameplay reveal. The rest of the show didn’t deliver on fans’ biggest demands of seeing a return of Mass Effect or Dead Space, although it did give Dragon Age fans a glimpse of Dragon Age 4…maybe.
Near the end of the presentation, EA showed a sizzle reel of next-gen projects narrated by EA Chief Studios Officer Laura Miele. The entire segment lasted less than two minutes (with maybe half of that being shots of games), and none of the game’s shown were explicitly named. Rather, they were alluded to by calling attention to the studios behind them. Take a look at the quick teaser segment in the video below:
Criterion was up first, and we got some impressive looking renderings of cars, most likely for the next Need for Speed. At about the 32-second mark, Miele says “BioWare” accompanied by an image of a dead tree in snowfall. The tree is followed be some shots of hands working on computers. Then a quick glance at some ruins. Then some bizarre red tendrils and what looks like it could be an egg of some kind? And by 45 seconds, Miele has moved onto talking about DICE and showing what many assume to be a new Battlefield Bad Company game. Finally, Motive’s new game was teased, some kind of builder/shooter/third-person craziness apparently only possible with next-gen technology.
Of all the next-gen games shown, we saw and learned the least about the BioWare title, most likely Dragon Age 4, though unconfirmed since EA made the bizarre decision to barely talk about next-gen at all. Still, it’s three quick environmental shots of the BioWare game that we didn’t have before. What that realistically means for a release date is anyone’s guess at this point, but I wouldn’t bet on it being available within the first couple years of next-gen, at least. Reports say not to expect it before 2022, even if it was first revealed back at The Game Awards at the end of 2018. Apparently it wasn’t even supposed to have been part of that show.
With next-gen just months away and Sony and Microsoft already starting to lay their cards on the table showing off next-gen gameplay, it feels a bit strange that EA wasn’t able to muster up more than a minute of what amounts to next-gen development footage. Many of its late-gen releases for this generation of consoles will most likely be forward compatible with the new hardware, but its curious that the publisher doesn’t seem to have anything in the pipeline specifically for next-generation launch windows.
Enjoy the brief Dragon Age 4 teaser. It’s due out whenever BioWare finally finishes it. Just don’t expect it to be anytime soon.
