The Dragon Age series is getting close to a decade in between releases, so it’s good we’re finally seeing more and more about the apparent new release in the series, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. According to the latest leaks on Reddit, Dreadwolf will feature a revamped combat system, and will take place in a previously unvisited part of Thedas.
The leaks are relatively sparse, consisting of only an eight second video, and a single screenshot of an inventory screen. However, despite the brevity of content, there’s a good amount to unpack here. The video, though only short, shows how much work has been put into the new Dragon Age game since the last release in 2014. Combat is much more focused around real-time skills, rather than pausing and issuing commands, and showcases a lot more hack and slash. According to the Reddit poster behind the leak, Revanchisto, God of War (2018) was a strong influence on the combat style of Dreadwolf, and that shows in the gameplay we see.
In the video, the player character -- an elven knight with a sword and shield -- faces off against a number of Darkspawn, dodging strikes from one before dropkicking another, and charging his sword for a power attack. This fight takes place in the Gray Warden fortress of Weisshaupt, near Anderfels and Tevinter, the previously confirmed setting for Dreadwolf. While it looks like an underground area, according to the original poster, that isn’t the case, and it’s simply that the skybox hasn’t been finished yet and is very dark -- hence the dark look.
In fact, it sounds as if the game is still in a fairly loose state. The post states there are still a lot of character models acting as stand-ins for the final artwork, and as mentioned, the skybox simply isn’t ready. However, even with that taken into account, the polished look of the combat speaks for itself, and it’s clear quite how much effort and emphasis has been placed on getting the fighting to look and feel right. If this video is anywhere near representative of the final quality, then it seems as if Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is on to a very good start, and will be worth keeping a close eye on.