Bioware’s announcement that Mass Effect 3 would contain multiplayer was greeted by a horde of angry fans wielding the mighty Keyboards of Rage Comments. But now it seems that Bioware might want to barricade the windows as Kotaku, purveyors of rumours everywhere, have claimed that an inside source has told them of plans to bring multiplayer to the Dragon Age series.

The source says that they don’t know whether the multiplayer will be coming via a full retail release, such as Dragon Age 3, or whether it would be a downloadable title, presumably coming to Xbox Live Arcade. However, he/she did claim that it would be running on DICE’s now legendary Frostbite 2 engine, which is responsible for the likes of Battlefield 3 and Need for Speed: The Run, and that the game already looks amazing. Bold claims indeed.

He or she goes on to claim that the multiplayer will be arena based and will contain Player vs Environment and Player vs Player elements. Kotaku also claim that players will be able to take control of dragons and engage in aerial battles with each other, though the source only actually seems to say that there will be human vs dragon action.

At this point it’s too early to draw conclusions, and without information on whether there will be any links to singleplayer or storyline to the multiplayer it’s hard to judge whether it sounds like it will be part of a sequel or downloadable title, although I would hazard a guess at downloadable title at this point, based off of the descriptions. Until some concrete details I reserve judgement on this matter, because while many will start throwing poo at Bioware this very instance, the fact that they’ve had multiplayer components since the likes of Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s gate gives me faith, as does the unique way they’ve handled multiplayer in Mass Effect 3. We’ve also seen that despite what fans might say multiplayer can work in games, as shown by Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, which received much flak for its decision but still delivered a stellar multiplayer that soon had a hardcore following.

And, of course, whenever Kotaku posts a rumour it should always be taken with a pinch of salt and a chuckle.