With the holiday season fast approaching, many companies are presenting their best and brightest for the gift giving season. Making their way back into the holiday fray is the newest entry of the Dragon Age series, ‘Inquisition’. As a fan of the series, I was anxious to see how the third entry was going to fare given how drastically different the first two games were. After sitting down to a few hours with ‘Inquisition’, many of my fears were tempered and I am looking forward to getting more time with this one.
The Dragon Age franchise has been a big win for EA and Bioware as the series has been hugely successful. A solid action-RPG, ‘Dragon Age: Origins’ also had in-depth characters, relationships and tactical battle systems. The second one shied away from ‘Origins’, leaning in the opposite direction, bringing about a rather divisive second entry with ‘Dragon Age 2’. With ‘Dragon Age: Inquisition’, EA and Bioware have taken the strengths from both games and created what they believe to not only be the best ‘Dragon Age’ game yet but also the game they’ve always wanted the franchise to be.
‘Inquisition’ is ambitious right from the start. Boasting more than 80000 lines of dialogue, more than the first two games combined, ‘Inquisition’ is a huge undertaking. Bigger than both earlier games in map size, scope and story, ‘Inquisition’ looks to build on the first two chapters in the series and keep growing.
“Dragon Age 2 was experimental in a lot of things,” says Mark Darrah, Executive Producer on ‘Inquisition’. “[Inquisition] has the bones of ‘Origins’ with a bit of the makeup of Two”.
The character creation alone shows how they are utilizing the new hardware to maximize content. While you do get the classic choices of Warrior, Mage or Rogue, there are dozens of options for each aspect of your characters appearance. You can play with the color of the inner and outer parts of your irises, choose from dozens of beards or even change the size of your nostrils to give you character a distinct and unique look.
You get thrown right into the mix as you start the game and you get to see how the battle system has changed but also how they’ve drawn from the earlier games to forge the new system.
“There was a lot of learning from the first two,” says Darrah. “Origins is a very tactical game but it’s a little slow… with [Dragon Age] Two, we pushed a bit too far in the other direction. With [Inquisition], we start from a base of [being] responsive and reactive but still tactical and we build on top of that.”
They’ve brought the squad control back to the forefront, giving you total control over each battle, if you choose to do so. You can position your archers/mages on the outside while your warriors run amok in melee. You can switch into the tactical screen at any point to augment your plan of attack to ensure none of your team gets caught in an unfavorable position. The system isn’t perfect on the control aspect as you have to toggle with the D-pad while using the sticks for control, which can be bothersome and takes some getting used to. ‘Inquisition’ has more of the chaotic feel of ‘Origins’ but with a quicker and cleaner version of that battle system that is an overall improvement.
In addition to that, the maps are enormous in comparison to the previous games. While it is still more or less the linear progression you follow in the rest of the series, the wide open spaces you find yourself in are much more expansive and leave a lot more room to run around. I spent most of my time in an area called The Hinterlands which was comprised of several different maps that you can unlock and explore. In order to find enough upgrades to unlock the second area of the Hinterlands, I played about two hours in the first area and I still wasn’t quite done with everything there. It’s a big game.
Bioware also spent a good deal of time fleshing out their characters, one of the things I like best about these games. In the first few hours I had multiple conversations with multiple characters as I built up or wrecked and tried to repair my relationships with them. Darrah also felt that character development was one of their strong suits.
“I would say that Bioware’s strongest point is its characters, I would say it’s stronger than our storytelling. We have characters you can have an emotional attachment to, as well as an interesting story to tell”.
With ‘Inquisition’, EA and Bioware are getting back to the roots of the ‘Dragon Age’ series. They’ve learned from the previous games, took what was working and adding some fancy new bells and whistles to make it shine. While I still need to explore much of the game, the first few hours were enjoyable enough that my faith in the series was revitalized and I’m genuinely looking forward to getting much deeper into the game.
