Fans still know relatively little about the upcoming Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. BioWare’s confirmed that it at least partially takes place in Dragon Age’s Tevinter Imperium, and fans can make some broad assumptions about the story and gameplay. However, many questions remain.
Among them is whether Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will feature a semi-open world like its predecessor. And while that may or may not be a sure thing, there are many ways that Dreadwolf could improve upon Dragon Age: Inquisition’s open-world gameplay.
Criticisms of Inquisition
Many Dragon Age: Inquisition players will remember the phrase “get out of the Hinterlands.” The Hinterlands in Dragon Age: Inquisition is the first open-world zone players explored and exemplifies several problems with its open world. It’s one of the game’s largest and most densely packed areas, making it a common source of early game burnout. The Hinterlands can also be a brutal experience for low-level players.This was partially because Dragon Age: Inquisition’s developers intended players to leave and return later when they were at a higher level. However, BioWare did not clearly signpost which areas were and were not meant for low-level players.
Furthermore, many quests will begin in lower-level areas but lead players into fights they are not ready for. Regions like Hafter’s Woods and Redcliff Farms were notorious for this. Dragon Age: Inquisition also featured multiple side quests that felt like they should have been part of the main story. While the Inquisition comes to the Hinterlands to rescue a high-ranking member of Dragon Age’s Chantry, the organization quickly tasks itself with restoring order to the region. Helping the Refugees, pushing back the Mages and Templars, and making a deal with Redcliff’s Horsemaster are all supposed to be short-term priorities of the Inquisition. However, the game mechanics don’t treat these as significantly more important than finding a farmer’s lost ring or collecting rocks for a geological survey.
This stems from Dragon Age: Inquisition’s much-maligned Power system. Players collect Power by finishing side quests and completing world activities like Inquisition’s Fade Rifts and Astrariums. Players then spend Power to unlock new Story Missions and areas on the world map. This is supposed to let the player choose which quests they want to engage in, but it also encourages players to treat side quests as a means of gathering Power rather than interesting optional content. The fact that interchangeable fetch quests outnumber Dragon Age: Inquisition’s more interesting side stories doesn't help.
In short, while Dragon Age: Inquisition’s world could be very beautiful, it was poorly structured, poorly integrated into the story, and let down by an abundance of shallow side quests. These are all problems that BioWare should address going into Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.
Progression and Signposting
While this is not the case with every area, many of Inquisition’s regions have clear geographical boundaries between their sub-areas. For example, the much more difficult Hafter’s Woods is separated from the lower-level parts of the Hinterlands by a broken wall on one side and a narrow path through the cliffs on the other. However, nothing about these landmarks indicates the recommended level for each area.
One solution to this problem is simply blocking off part of the map until players do something specific to unlock it. Inquisition has multiple examples of locking areas behind certain quests or War Table Operations. The flooded portion of Crestwood and sulfur pits in the Western Approach are great examples. Dragon Age: Dreadwolf’s developers could use something similar to segregate higher and lower-level parts of the same map. BioWare could also introduce quests later in the game that takes players to previously inaccessible parts of an earlier area.
Power and Quest Structure
Speaking of quests, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf needs to do something about Inquisition’s Power resource. Of course, a simple solution to the problem of Power is removing the mechanic. This might have happened, as the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf trailer from the 2020 Game Awards indicated that the new protagonist won’t have anything like the Inquisition backing them up. Therefore, it seems unlikely that BioWare will recycle Inquisition’s Power system for Dreadwolf.
However, BioWare may still want to give players a degree of freedom regarding how they progress in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf’s story. One option might be to have a Power equivalent tied to each region. For example, perhaps each area could have something called “Dreadwolf’s Influence,” “Qunari Infiltration,” or “Red Lyrium Corruption” that players need to reduce before unlocking the next story quest in each region.
Performing world actions and completing specific quests in Dragon Age Dreadwolf would reduce these scores by various amounts, with more elaborate quests contributing more. Dreadwolf players shouldn’t have to complete everything to advance the story, though that can still be an option for players who want to see all the content they can. Additionally, having at least one main story quest in each area would make Dreadwolf’s regions seem more important than some of Inquisition’s.
Not every side quest needs to contribute to story progression. However, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf should also focus on a smaller number of unique side quests instead of many similar ones. To use examples of quests from Dragon Age: Inquisition, the haunted mansion in the Emerald Graves would probably make the cut, but the many versions of “Take Item X to Location Y” most likely would not.
Dreadwolf’s Story Quests
Finally, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf should find a way to incorporate more of its essential story quests into the existing open-world environments. While Inquisition had a few story quests set in its open-world, most took place in otherwise inaccessible zones unique to that quest. This begs the question of why Inquisition even had open-world maps in the first place.
This isn’t to say that all Dragon Age: Dreadwolf’s main story quests must take place in the game’s open world, but a greater number should. Furthermore, making sure that the main quest’s locations are at least visible from the open-world maps would make Dreadwolf’s world feel more connected than Inquisition’s. BioWare may already be heading in some of these directions, assuming Inquisition’s Jaws of Hakkon DLC is any indication.
Of course, given that The Descent and Trespasser DLCs were dungeon crawls with hub towns, one might wonder if Dreadwolf will have an open world at all. However, if it does, these were just some of the ways that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf could improve on Inquisition.
Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is in development.