BioWare reveals official title of Dragon Age 4

BioWare

Wardens, Inquisitors, Champions, it’s time to break out the whisks. Today, in a surprise announcement, BioWare revealed the name of the next installment in the Dragon Age series: Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.

The reveal pretty clearly establishes what’s been known for a while now; that Solas, one of the companions in Dragon Age: Inquisition, will be the main antagonist of the new game.

If you did not play Dragon Age: Inquisition and have no idea who Solas is or why whenever his name is mentioned people like me start reaching for frying pans and spatulas, let me explain.

Spoilers for Dragon Age: Inquisition follow:

Solas was one of the least interesting of companions in Dragon Age: Inquisition — or the least interesting initially. He was a mage — but not as cool as the necromancer Dorian or the enchantress Vivienne — and an elf, though also not as cool as the archer Sera. He was also a huge dick, constantly making racist jabs at the team’s qunari and dwarven companions, and if you got fed up with him and his passive-aggressive, “holier-than-thou” behavior, the game gave you the option to punch the shit outta him.

Despite his overtly asshole behavior, there was a quiet confidence about him that some players found attractive enough to want to romance him. He’s one of the game’s many romantic partners, although he would only date you if you’re a female elf. If Solas had a Tinder bio, I imagine it’d contain the phrase, “Sorry, it’s just my preference.”

Solas is a lone-wolf (heh) mage obsessed with returning the elves to their former glory as rulers of the lands of Thedas. This is all well and good until you find out exactly how he intends to do that, which is by amassing enough power to commit a magical war crime so massive it will kill every sentient species except elves.

Naturally, the Dragon Age fanbase didn’t like that. Solas, for a lot of players, was an ally, a trusted friend, and even a romantic partner. Then, he betrayed them, helping them save the world only to turn around and promise its destruction for anybody who doesn’t look like him. Because of his perfectly smooth, white, and round bald head, Solas earned the nickname Egg, and because of his sudden, spectacularly executed betrayal, a lot of Dragon Age fans are now in the business of making omelets.

This is why the reveal of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is so exciting for a lot of fans. Dragon Age games, up until this point, haven’t been direct sequels to one another. They’ve always been in different places with separate tangentially connected stories, and Dreadwolf seems to offer a more direct follow-up to Inquisition. And while we probably won’t be able to play as our Inquisitor characters again, I take great, gleeful pleasure in the knowledge that I’ll be able to get some revenge on her behalf.

BioWare stated Dreadwolf would not be released this year but promised to reveal more about the game in the months ahead. Me and my egg recipes continue to wait patiently.