Over the past several days, RPG fans have been talking about a potential modern-day revisit to Thedas. The main reason for this speculation about a remake of Dragon Age: Origins is an errant post on 4chan, which eventually found its way to several other platforms like Reddit and, then, the entire internet.
According to the anonymous leaker, the remake, Dragon Age: Reorigins, is currently in the early stages of development. The same source adds that it will be similar to a recent Electronic Arts remake, Dead Space, focusing on enhancing the gameplay without altering much of the story, save maybe for emphasizing branching paths based on player choices – a hallmaker of a BioWare RPG.
While there’s plenty of reasons to celebrate the potential re-release of the beloved 2009 RPG, if the source is correct, exercising a high degree of skepticism surrounding it is a must. After all, the post comes from 4chan. Not to mention, the financial expectations mentioned seem unrealistic for a relatively niche title like Dragon Age.
If you check out the post, it claims that EA needs Dragon Age: Dreadwolf to sell “dozens of millions” of copies and impress gaming audiences. The latter isn’t too difficult. For all its criticism, Dragon Age: Inquisition still won GOTY at The Game Awards in 2014 and was largely praised by critics and even audiences, and it still sold less than 10 million copies.
Mass Effect 3, widely considered BioWare’s best game ever, didn’t sell anywhere close to a dozen million copies either. Thus, the target appears to be a made-up figure considering the sales figures of previous BioWare outings.
Nevertheless, there’s some weight to the rumors about a remake of the first two Dragon Age games, if only because a remaster is out of the question. Unlike the original Mass Effect trilogy, the game in which all used Unreal Engine 3, Dragon Age: Origins used the now-defunct Eclipse engine, while Dragon Age 2 used the Lycium Engine, and finally, it wasn’t until Dragon Age: Inquisition that BioWare used the Frostbite engine.
It’s only because of this inconsistency in the video game engine used by the games that BioWare might go the remake route instead, starting with Dragon Age: Origins. Otherwise, there’s no other reason why EA would just sit on the idea after the success of Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
In an ideal world, fans would get remasters of the first three Dragon Age games ahead of the release of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, which is encountering its fair share of development problems.
While each Dragon Age game is set in a different part of its known world and deal with different problems or issues, all three Dragon Age entries share plenty of characters. In fact, certain party members from Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 play key roles in Dragon Age: Inquisition, with the player character from Dragon Age 2 even making an appearance.
Considering that the main villain of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is a former party member from Dragon Age: Inquisition, a re-release wouldn’t be the worst idea. Alas, this is much easier said than done.
For now, fans can look forward to the first official reveal of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in Summer 2024.
