Did BioWare Just Reveal A Dragon Age 4 Companion?
It feels like Dragon Age 4 has been in development forever, and any news is good news. Fans may be happy to know that BioWare Executive Producer Christian Dailey tweeted a seemingly innocuous New Year's post this morning — which contained concept art from the upcoming Dragon Age 4. The art features a helmed archer with a magic bow composed of floating stones.
Dailey offered no explanation of the character, but he did use very specific emojis to accompany his tweet, including hearts and arrows. While nothing can be confirmed yet, it's possible that the hearts hint that this NPC can be romanced by the protagonist. Dailey also wrote in the tweet, "Here's to new beginnings...," which may further suggests romantic possibilities with the dashing archer. Regardless, this concept art reveal may mean that the masked archer plays an important role in the game, as a companion or other NPC.
In the Dragon Age series, companions can join the protagonist on their adventure, fighting alongside them and providing dialogue that furthers their characterization. Companions also offer romantic prospects to the protagonist through sidequests and cutscenes. Some companions are not romanceable, much to some players' dismay. For example, Varric remains one of the most desired non-romanceable companions in the series.
The Dragon Age 4 official cinematic trailer, which debuted at The Game Awards 2020, showed an archer firing a magic arrow from a bow very similar to the one in the new concept art, leading some sources to speculate that the two characters are in fact the same person.
A few months ago, Christian Dailey left work on Anthem to work on the latest Dragon Age game. While fans are worried about Anthem's future, Dailey's move to work on Dragon Age presents exciting possibilities for what the latest game could be. One commenter on Dailey's tweet seemingly felt that Dailey was being disrespectful to Anthem fans, arguing that even though Anthem isn't the first thing on Dailey's plate, he should still mention it from time to time.
Dragon Age 4's development has been a rollercoaster, to say the least, but the newly released concept art gives fans something to look forward to. One excited commenter asked Dailey, "The real question is: do I get to be the archer, date the archer, or kill the archer?" Perhaps the answer is all three. All fans can do is hope, wait for more information, and dream about the mysterious archer.