EA is set to shut down servers for BioWare’s beloved Dragon Age: Inquisition later this month on PlayStation 3.
A message on EA’s service update website shows that Inquisition’s PS3 servers will go dark on April 28, more than 11 years on from the game’s 2014 arrival. However, it looks like servers will remain online (for now) on PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox.
While it’s sad to see any older game get its functionality depreciated, it’s perhaps surprising that Inquisition’s PS3 multiplayer mode lasted this long — through two console generations, and the arrival (and shutdown) of BioWare’s big live-service attempt Anthem.
Multiplayer, of course, was not the main focus of Inquisition — BioWare’s sprawling fantasy RPG threequel that remains the company’s best-selling game. Fans look back on Inquisition now as the game where we met our favorite elven frenemy Solas, got horny with Iron Bull, and stayed too long in the Hinterlands.
However, following the success of Mass Effect 3’s own multiplayer portion, BioWare was keen to experiment with a similar offering in Dragon Age. Another PVE affair where players used various races and classes to tackle enemies from the game’s campaign, the mode was supported for a little while with new maps and loadouts. Alas, the idea never took off as Mass Effect’s own multiplayer offering had — and it didn’t return at all for Dragon Age: The Veilguard (which, after a spell as a live-service game, ultimately launched as fully single-player).
Is BioWare done with multiplayer gaming for good, especially after the failure of Anthem? While the company is known to be working on Mass Effect 5 (release date: still unknown) there has been no mention made of another multiplayer offering there. Indeed, after EA’s recent cuts to slim down the studio, anything not critical to ensuring the Mass Effect franchise’s future seems unlikely to come into fruition.
Speaking of Mass Effect, according to a report earlier this month, Amazon’s Mass Effect TV series is now on “the verge” of a series order, although the boss of Amazon TV has allegedly requested rewrites to make it “more appealing to non-gamers.”
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
