While the last we heard of BioWare’s Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was on how it has hit its alpha milestone three months ago, more details regarding the action-RPG has leaked online! Short snippets of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf gameplay, screenshot and even gameplay details have been shared, and they seem to be the real dea.
Posted by Reddit user revanchisto, check out combat and more in the gallery below, as well as a host of gameplay details. Note that this is from an early build, and shouldn’t represent the final product.
As for gameplay details, read on for the bulletpoints from the leaker, as well as background on the gameplay shown.
Alright, so now to what is in the video. It’s about 20 minutes of gameplay involving one segment/dungeon. The entire gameplay is set within the the Gray Warden fortress HQ of Weisshaupt. That’s what the location text literally says. Now again, the gameplay is alpha so there isn’t a whole lot of detail and there are missing textures for a lot of elements. Basically, buildings and whatnot are all modeled and textured but the skybox itself is very dark and makes it seem as though the entire fortress is underground, although it is clearly not. I suspect the skybox could contain some giant world event, similar to the Breach, they hadn’t finished.
The player character is an Elvish “Knight” Class (the character screen actually says they are a mid-level Grey Warden), they’ve got a sword and a shield. They also have two party members, another knight dude and a female dwarf rogue. I suspect both models are placeholders and they won’t actually look like they do in the final game. Darkspawn are currently attacking Weisshaupt and there are roots all over the place alongside Red Lyrium popping up here and there. Oddly, the darkspawn also apparently are infused with Red Lyrium and have Red Lyrium attacks and some have red eyes. The objective is to fight through the Darkspawn to get to the library, but as you are doing so there is also a big ass dragon attacking from above. Because, you know, it is Dragon Age. And the dragon creates occasional environmental and traversal hazards. It ends once you reach the library, close the gates, and then come face to face with the dragon. It appears you are then supposed to try and chain the dragon up, but it ends before the player completes that. There is no audio and while there are subtitles, they are mostly glitched and frozen so you can’t tell what people are saying during cutscenes or combat.
Gameplay Details:
- Combat is completely in real-time and similar to a hack and slash. I’m told the guiding reference point was the God of War (2018), and that shows.
- Player has their regular combo attack and then their abilities as well as a special bar which generates allowing you to pull off a special move. I don’t really understand the comparison to FF15’s wheel. It’s standard Dragon Age ability wheel.
- There was no party control demonstrated. I think it’s a safe bet to say you will not be able to directly control your party members in the game. That said, you likely will be able to tell them to execute certain abilities. But apparently that was locked off in the Alpha.
- The most immediate thing you noticed is that animation quality has DRASTICALLY improved. Like, for any other AAA title it’s probably not that big a deal. But we’ve never seen animation quality this good in any BioWare game. I didn’t actually play it, but I can tell it probably feels really good to control your character. No more stiff animations, it’s all very fluid and seems also very responsive.
- Jumping has also been retained. So, rejoice if you enjoyed jumping a lot in DAI.
- As the character was a sword and shield dude, he was able to parry attacks from enemies and follow up with counters. It’s hard to tell their exact abilities, they only had two on hotkeys along with a special. But one appears to basically be a drop kick and the other a charged sword attack. I’m not sure exactly what the special attack does.
- The UI is similar to DAI, but this is also Alpha and UI is the last thing finalized in any game. Character has a chest slot, a helmet slot, a primary weapon slot, and a shield (secondary weapon?) slot. For accessories, one amulet slot, one belt slot, and two ring slots.
- Oh and the player character’s hair looked glorious. I mean, it was clipping right through their helmet. But it was flowing and bouncing as they moved. Finally, no more stiff ass hair. Now, let’s hope we have more than just two black hairstyles.
- Enemies were pretty much just variations of darkspawn, except the dragon, but again they seemed to have Red Lyrium powers.
BioWare (or EA) has not confirmed the gameplay, and as such, treat it with a grain of salt. That said, this looks to be legit. Do remember again that this is from an early build, so don’t judge what you see as the final form of whatever it is we’ll be playing once Dragon Age: Dreadwolf launches.