The Next Dragon Age Will Have “Live” Elements

I’m a Dragon Age fan.

I loved Dragon Age: Origins and I found Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition to be enjoyable, despite flaws I saw in each.

Although I felt Inquisition had a split personality and some disappointing story elements, the Trespasser DLC left me intrigued about where the story might go next.

So I was excited when a report surfaced that BioWare is hard at work on the next Dragon Age game… and wary when Kotaku’s recent article on Anthem mentioned that their sources say development on the next Dragon Age game was rebooted “to implement more ‘live’ elements into the game.”

“Live” elements? What does that mean?

The whole thing sounded disturbingly similiar to EA’s explanation about shutting down Visceral Games and changing direction for their Star Wars game because the market doesn’t want linear, single-player games.

Dragon Age: Inquisition already suffered (in my opinion) from all of its open world elements, and Mass Effect: Andromeda handled it even worse. Watching Dragon Age drift even further in another direction doesn’t appeal to me.

Fortunately, it might not be that bad. BioWare’s Casey Hudson responded to fans by saying the next Dragon Age will still be focused on its story and characters, and that the “live” elements are part of “designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story.”

At first, this just sounds like DLC, but that doesn’t make sense. The previous Dragon Age games continued their stories with post-game DLC. You wouldn’t need to reboot development to allow for post-game DLC, and that’s not a “live” element.

And if it’s continuing the story, it doesn’t sound like multiplayer, either.

After thinking about it, this sounds to me more like the sort of in-game events from MMORPGs brought to a single-player game, like how Final Fantasy XV had the “Assassin’s Festival” event. (That specific event was a crossover, but others wouldn’t have to be.) It’s a story addition added to the game at a certain time, and then it disappears at a certain time. To me, that sounds like a “live” way the story continues.

However, if that’s what they have in mind for Dragon Age, I’m not sure I like it. I didn’t play the Assassin’s Festival event in Final Fantasy XV, but it still bothers me that a story event was added to a single-player game and will be taken away at the end of this month.

But who knows? What do you think the “live” elements in the next Dragon Age game will be like? How do you think they will affect the game?