Dragon Age 4: Release date, locations, story, trailers, rumours, leaks, more

Although there have been many game-related leaks over the past several years, the story of Dragon Age 4's development has probably been one of the worst-kept secrets in the gaming industry.

Everyone knew for years that the next Dragon Age game is in development, and yet, EA and BioWare started talking more openly about it just recently.

Still, there's a lot of things that we don't know about the game. The gameplay is yet to be revealed and we don't even know the game's real name.

It has been seven years since Dragon Age: Inquisition and fans are thirsty for any piece of news about the next instalment in their favourite RPG franchise. And while currently there's not much to be said about it, there are still quite a few details we can talk about, based on the current bits of information  Bioware has shared with us.

With all that being said, let's take a look at everything we currently know about Dragon Age 4.

Dragon Age 4 trailers and teasers

The Game Awards 2020 teaser (Picture: Activision)

The main source of the information for everything Dragon Age 4 related are teasers and trailers BioWare has shared.

Currently, there are only three trailers.

The very first announcement trailer was released during The Game Awards 2018, with the hashtag The Dread Wolf Rises, which is probably the current working title of the game.

The trailer is focused on the Lyrium idol, which you might be familiar with if you've played Dragon Age II.

The Lyrium idol is a dwarven artefact discovered by the Champion of Kirkwall during the events of Dragon Age II, and it means bad news, but we won't spoil the story here.

The teaser ends with Solas saying: "So... you've found me at last. I suspect you have questions," which is a reference from Trespasser, the third and final DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition, the last game in the series.

Two years later and we finally have the second teaser for the game, but still without the name or any gameplay.

During Gamescom 2020, BioWare released "Behind the Scenes Teaser Trailer" for the next Dragon Age game, which was focused on the "next-generation technology to bring the world and characters of Dragon Age to life."

There, we've seen some concept art and early screenshots from the game, and we found out that we will see "new things and new places" and "what happens when you don't have power."

Finally, The Game Awards 2020 teaser revealed additional information about the game, including some returning characters, visuals, player's character, and more.

Dragon Age 4 locations and setting

Is the Tevinter Imperium the main location in Dragon Age 4?(Picture: Activision)

Based on several clues revealed over the past years, it seems that the next Dragon Age game is set in the Tevinter Imperium.

That the game will take place in Tevinter is all but confirmed, based on what we know.

Firstly, the last story chapter in the Dragon Age series, Trespasser DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition, ended with the Tevinter Imperium as a place of importance with a cliffhanger.

Secondly, it was reported by Kotaku back in April 2019 that in Dragon Age 4 players will "play as a group of spies in Tevinter Imperium."

Finally, in November 2020 the book called "BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development" has been released.

As spotted by Tom Phillips of Eurogamer, there's basically an official confirmation inside the book about the location.

There's an entry on page 324 called "Tevinter Bound: A sneak peek at the follow-up to Inquisition" which clearly indicates that the next Dragon Age game will be set in the Tevinter Imperium.

It's worth noting that the game went through a few reboots, so it is not exactly sure if the book corresponds with the current state of the game, but everything else suggests so.

Besides Tevinter, there's some other concept art that might point out towards other locations in the game.

"Artwork of a glittering city surrounded by water almost certainly shows Antiva City, the capital of Antiva," Tom wrote. "An area which borders Tevinter to the east."

There's also concept art for The Deep Roads, and there are some images that might be from Nevarra, a region whose citizens are known for mummifying their deceased and which borders Tevinter to the south.

Dragon Age 4 story and plot

Red lyrium will probably have huge importance to the story(Picture: Activision)

From what we know from the trailers and screenshots, the focus of the story will be on "red lyrium," which is a more potent and more addictive form of raw lyrium, and it is known to thin the Veil, allowing spirits and demons to interact with the physical world.

Of course, the pure mention of the Dread Wolf/Solas means that the story will have an important connection with him as well.

As we've mentioned above, in the Gamescom trailer, lead writer Patrick Weekes spoke about the game's story and how it will differ from the story of Dragon Age: Inquisition.

"For the game we're working on now, we want to tell the story of what happens when you don't have power? What happens when the people in charge aren't willing to address the issues?" Weekes explained.

• Read more: New Dragon Age 4 trailer shows the return of Solas

It seems that this time around the player's character will be less important in the grand scheme of things, at least at the beginning.

From The Game Awards 2020 teaser, we know that we will be playing a completely new character(as it was with the previous games as well), with "no magic hand, no ancient prophecy".

The character is described as "the kind of person they'll never see coming" which might suggest a low-born origin story and further cement an idea of "unimportance" of the next player's character.

The relationship with other characters in the game will be very important as well, and John Epler, the game's narrative director, says that stories in the next instalment will "focus on the people around you, and the friends and family you make."

Dragon Age 4 characters

Solas will probably be the main antagonist (or antihero) of Dragon Age 4(Picture: Activision)

We currently know two old characters which will almost certainly make a return to the series with Dragon Age 4.

Solas "The Dread Wolf" will probably be one of the most prominent characters of the game, and given his influence with everything that had happened in the previous games, it will be interesting to see where will the story lead with him in Dragon Age 4.

He was featured in both teaser trailers of the game and his concept art was shown in "Behind the Scenes" trailer.

Another character that will probably return is Varric Tethras, a dwarf companion from Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition. The speculation of him returning is based on the fact that he is the one narrating The Game Awards 2020 teaser trailer, and at one point he says: "I've got your back."

• Read more: New Dragon Age gets a teaser, story details revealed by BioWare

Every other character is currently in the realm of pure speculation, but BioWare is known for its history of reusing characters in Dragon Age games, so we can safely assume that we will see some other familiar faces as well.

Dragon Age: Blue Wraith, a three-issue comic book series, has been released in 2020, so some fans think that this might be a sign that we will see Fenris as the returning character in Dragon Age 4.

Everyone's favourite Alistair has been a returning character in all of the Dragon Age games, so fans are hoping to see him in Dragon Age 4 as well.

Concept art released during Gamescom 2020 shows other familiar faces, like Isabella and Dorian, which might suggest their appearance in the game as well.

Dragon Age 4 gameplay

Details about the gameplay are currently were scarce (Picture: Activision)

Dragon Age games are RPGs, so we can safely say that Dragon Age 4 will be an RPG as well, but beyond that everything else is speculation, because nothing was shared about the gameplay.

From the aforementioned Jason Schreier's report, the original version of the game, codenamed Joplin, was supposed to be heavily focused on heists. 

"A large chunk of Joplin would centre on heists. The developers talked about building systemic narrative mechanics, allowing the player to perform actions like persuading or extorting guards without the writers having to hand-craft every scene," Schreier wrote. "It was all very ambitious and very early, and would have no doubt changed drastically once Joplin entered production, but members of the team say they were thrilled about the possibilities."

• Read more: Dragon Age 4 images shown at EA Play

In the meantime, the Joplin version of the game was completely scrapped, and the current version of the game is codenamed Morrison.

Many things have probably changed since then, especially given that many BioWare's and Dragon Age key people have left the studio, including both BioWare's general manager Casey Hudson and Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah.

So, for now, we will have to wait for the official gameplay reveal to find out more about it.

Dragon Age 4 release date

Dragon Age 4 won't be coming out anytime soon (Picture: Activision)

There's no official release date yet, but it seems that the game is still far from being ready and we aren't expecting it to be released any time soon.

As we've mentioned above, the game saw several iterations and reboots since BioWare started working on it sometime around 2015.

The current iteration of the game is called Morrison, and the pre-production of this version started sometime in 2018.

Based on Anthem's September 2019 Update by Casey Hudson, the next Dragon Age game was still in pre-production at that point.

In Behind the Scenes Teaser Trailer from late August 2020, Hudson talked about the next Dragon Age game and said: "We are still in early production."

During EA's Q2 2020 Earnings Call, Blake Jorgensen, EA's chief operating officer, said that the game will "probably comes after fiscal '22," which means that we should not expect Dragon Age 4 to be released before April 2022,  when the fiscal year 2023 starts.

And there you have it, everything we currently know about Dragon Age 4!

If you are as excited as we are about the game, make sure to return to this article from time to time, we will be updating it with any new information that appears in the meantime!