According to Mark Darrah, BioWare’s former producer, the original concept known as Joplin could have seen the light of day back in 2019 if it had been approved. He explained in a Q&A session what this early version of the fourth Dragon Age would have looked like and why he believes it would have been received more positively than last year’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Darrah, who now has over 200,000 subscribers, recently held a Q&A session on his channel. When asked about Joplin, he shared detailed insight into how this codename project might have been realized if BioWare had gone ahead with it. Joplin represented the first vision for Dragon Age 4, and Darrah said he believes it would likely have been better received than Dragon Age: The Veilguard, released in October 2024.

“I do think that Joplin will live on as a mythological game in many people’s memories. The only way Joplin could have happened is if it had shipped in February 2019. It would’ve taken Anthem’s spot. In that timeline, it’s a game built under a very tight schedule. From the release of Inquisition, more than four, almost five years had passed. But it would still have been a tight timeframe,” Darrah explained.

Jason Schreier first reported on Joplin in April 2019. Development entered pre-production in 2015 after the release of the Inquisition: Trespasser DLC. The project was intended as a smaller but highly reactive experience centered on espionage and heists within the then-uncharted Tevinter Imperium. Work was suspended in 2016 so staff could help with Mass Effect: Andromeda, and in 2017 it was permanently canceled to shift resources toward Anthem. Development of Dragon Age 4 restarted afterward as a live service project under the codename Morrison, before eventually transforming into the single-player Veilguard.

It’s still unclear what Darrah meant when he said Joplin would “take Anthem’s place.” It could have meant that Anthem would have been canceled entirely in favor of Dragon Age 4, or that resources would be split so Anthem was delayed, allowing the smaller-scale Joplin to launch in early 2019. The latter scenario seems more plausible given EA’s enthusiasm for Anthem at the time. Either way, single-player projects weren’t a priority for Electronic Arts in the late 2010s, which left BioWare struggling for attention.

Darrah admitted Joplin would have been a compromise, but he still believes it would have been received better than The Veilguard.

Source: PCGamer