Dragon Age: Dreadwolf reaches alpha milestone and confirms we're going to Minrathous

BioWare has provided a development update on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, noting that the devs are now able to play the game from start to finish, and confirming that the RPG will take us to the Tevinter capital Minrathous.

BioWare has just completed the alpha milestone for Dreadwolf, as general manager Gary McKay explains in a blog post. "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."

Now McKay says that the focus moves to improving visual fidelity and adjusting gameplay features, based on feedback from both internal testers and members of the Dragon Age community council. The devs are also working to "evaluate the game's pacing, how relationships evolve over time, and the player’s progression, as well as narrative cohesion."

Much of the blog is pretty vague, but there's one standout detail: players will be visiting "the city of Minrathous, the capital of the Tevinter Empire. We’ve talked about Minrathous in previous games, and now you’ll finally be able to visit! It’s a city built on and fuelled by magic, and the ways in which that has come through in its visual identity, and what that looks like in comparison to previous cities we’ve visited in Dragon Age, are pretty spectacular."

Fans have been pretty certain that Dreadwolf would take us to Minrathous for some time. The neon-glowing city which appeared in early teaser trailers matched descriptions of the city, and both Inquisition DLC and various bits of supplemental material published in the years since have suggested that a trip to Tevinter was impending. Now, it's official.

EA and BioWare have previously noted we'd be seeing more of the new Dragon Age this year, so hopefully we'll continue to get more substantial info in the months to come. Insider reports have suggested that Dreadwolf won't launch any sooner than the second half of 2023, but no official release window has been confirmed.

For more on Dragon Age 4 - now officially titled Dreadwolf - you can follow that link.