While we haven’t seen any gameplay yet of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, BioWare has announced that it has hit a major mark today, as the studio announced that the upcoming entry has hit its alpha milestone, and can be completed from beginning to end.

Here’s what studio GM Gary McKay had to say about hitting alpha:

Up to this point, we’ve been working hard on the various parts of the game, but it’s 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, this doesn’t mean the game is nearing its development end,  but hitting alpha means the studio can now focus on bringing “visual fidelity to its final form and iterating on gameplay features.” 

The big question now is, “Where do we focus our efforts?” 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 player’s progression, as well as narrative cohesion—essentially how the story comes together. We can take the story we’ve written and see if we’re expressing it well through the characters, dialogue, cinematics, and ultimately, the player’s 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.

McKay adds that they want to continue this development transparency with the community, and guarantees we’ll hear more about it in the future.

As for BioWare’s other major project, the next Mass Effect game, it’s still in development. With next month ushering in N7 day, we might get something from the studio outside of your usual celebrations and whatnot. 

Source: EA