BioWare have announced that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf has hit its Alpha Milestone, a huge step forward in the game's development [source].
A blog post by BioWare General Manager Gary McKay reads:
A New Milestone for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf
Moving closer and closer to completion.
Hello,
In myΒ last blog, back in February, I talked about the nextΒ Dragon Ageβ’game entering the production phase. Well, weβve come a very long way since then, and the team is incredibly happy to announce a huge step forward in the development of the game you now know asΒ Dragon Age: Dreadwolfβ’:Β We have just completed our Alpha milestone!
Up to this point, weβve been working hard on the various parts of the game, but itβs not until the Alpha milestone that a game all comes together. Now, for the first time, we can experience the entire game, from the opening scenes of the first mission to the very end. We can see, hear, feel, and play everything as a cohesive experience.
Of course, the game is not finished by any means, but Alpha is one of the most important game development milestones for a number of reasons. First and foremost, we can now turn our sights toward bringing the visual fidelity to its final form and iterating on gameplay features. The big question now is, βWhere do we focus our efforts?β To answer that, we solicit feedback from a number of sources, including our Community Council members who each have unique perspectives and experiences, our quality verification team, and extensive internal playtesting. Gathering feedback from multiple sources gives us the greatest insight on where we need to spend more time improving the experience.
Additionally, we can now evaluate the game's pacing, how relationships evolve over time, and the playerβs progression, as well as narrative cohesionβessentially how the story comes together. We can take the story weβve written and see if weβre expressing it well through the characters, dialogue, cinematics, and ultimately, the playerβs journey. Now that we have the ability to do a complete playthrough, we can iterate and polish on the things that matter most to our fans.
Hitting Alpha was the culmination of so much effort from the entire team and we used this milestone as an opportunity to come together and celebrate. We held a hybrid-style event with people onsite while others joined remotely and the team showcased their work to everyone at BioWare. We even took some time to do something fun and non-work relatedβa virtual escape room where we had to work together to help someone on camera find their way out. It was a really great time, and no matter where our devs are, it's important to share these types of moments together.
Now that weβre finally able to experience the entire game, for me, my favorite part is the characters. Whether followers, allies, or villains, theyβre woven into the game in ways that take a concept thatβs always been a part of theΒ Dragon AgeΒ DNAβstories aboutΒ peopleβand push it further than ever before. The characters help contextualize the world and the stakes, and I canβt wait until weβre able to start really discussing them in depth.
Itβs also exciting to finally be able to bring our fans to parts of the world that weβve previously hinted at, but never been able to fully exploreβlike the city of Minrathous, the capital of the Tevinter Empire. Weβve talked about Minrathous in previous games, and now youβll finally be able to visit! Itβs a city built on and fuelled by magic, and the ways in which that has come through in its visual identity, and what that looks like in comparison to previous cities weβve visited inΒ Dragon Age, are pretty spectacular.
As I mentioned earlier, the Alpha milestone is an extremely important one for us, but thereβs more work to be done. We also want to continue being transparent with you, our community, and keep you up to date on what weβre crafting. Hopefully youβve been enjoying our development updates onΒ DreadwolfΒ this year as weβll be looking to share more in the future.
Of course, Dreadwolf isnβt the only thing happening here at BioWareβ’! We have a team hard at work envisioning what the future holds for a new single-playerΒ Mass Effectβ’ game. And we look forward to celebrating our community on N7 Day next month. The SWTOR team also continues to work on their next update, so keep an eye onΒ SWTOR.comΒ and their social media accounts for any and all details on the coming game update.
Itβs an incredible time at BioWare! We have so many cool things to show you in the future. Until then, thanks for being part of our community. We couldnβt do this without you.
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