BioWare shares Dragon Age: Dreadwolf codex entries
Something to sink your teeth into.
Dragon Age developer BioWare has shared a few new snippets from the upcoming and long-awaited Dreadwolf, in the form of a few fresh codex entries.
These tidbits are not meant to tease any particular storyline from Dreadwolf, but are included in a blog post detailing how BioWare's writing team works together to build Dragon Age's expansive world.
The first codex entry presented here comes from a character's diary - someone who, if we had to guess, is likely one of your new companions.
"Misconeptions about the Necropolis", below, comments rather pointedly on how some have misconstrued the burial (or rather, mummification) process common in the Dragon Age region of Nevarra - a region mentioned but yet to be visited in the series proper.
Does this suggest we'll be visiting Nevarra ourselves in Dreadwolf? Or simply that we'll meet and befriend a character from there? BioWare, for now, is not saying.
Other entries discuss a dragon named Vinsomer - whose appearance, diet and behaviour are detailed, suggesting we'll get to meet them ourselves.
Finally, there's a fresh entry from The Randy Dowager Quarterly - a bawdy magazine whose entries you could also find as codex entries in Dragon Age Inquisition.
BioWare fans will find the whole blog post worth a read. In particular, I found its discussion on the challenge of balancing context for die-hard fans and newcomers interesting.
"Unlike the vast galaxies we explore in our other franchises, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf returns us to Thedas, where we can revisit friends and places that are familiar," narrative editor Ryan Cormier wrote.
"Some fans haven't spent time with Dragon Age since the 2014 release of Inquisition, while others have read every comic and story published since. Others never played a Dragon Age game at all and have no idea who the bald guy is (he's Solas).
"It's a varied audience, and development for Dreadwolf has included conversations about how the team can simultaneously reward our returning fans and welcome new ones."
BioWare's follow-up to Dragon Age Inquisition has been in some form of development since at least 2017, when an early draft of its story was being written. But the game has had several setbacks and reboots as staff changed, and as the vision for the project settled back into its single-player role-playing game roots following the failure of online multiplayer experiment Anthem.
For more on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, we previously analysed BioWare's recent anniversary artbook to reveal a number of locations we can expect to see in the game.