The next game will be called Dragon Age III: Inquisition.
We won’t be talking about the story of the game today. Though you can make some guesses from the title.
This game is being made by a lot of the same team that has been working on Dragon Age since Dragon Age: Origins. It’s composed of both experienced BioWare veterans and talented new developers.
We are working on a new engine, which we believe will allow us to deliver a more expansive world, better visuals, more reactivity to player choices, and more customization. At PAX East, we talked about armor and followers… Yeah, that kind of customization. We’ve started with Frostbite 2 from DICE as a foundation to accomplish this.
There’s much more to talk about, of course, but it will have to wait until it’s ready for the prime time.
We are going to be as open as we can. We will continue to have a dialogue with you and answer what questions we can. Keep providing us with your feedback. I’m excited about what we are working on and I hope that you will be too. I know this is going to be hard to believe, but it is just as hard for me not to tell you stuff as it is for you to wait.
It will have improved level design over Dragon Age II. During the Dragon Age presentation at PAX East, the team announced in no uncertain terms that they had heard and understood the feedback about recycled environments from DA2, and would be avoiding a repeat.
Players will be visiting at least one city or other location in Orlais, Dragon Age’s equivalent of France. In the game’s lore, it’s the home base of the Divine, who is more or less the reigning papal figure of Thedas — and who, as head of the Chantry, of which both the Seekers and Templars are branches, may well be highly involved in the plot.
Players will be able to customize their companion characters’ gear. BioWare have detailed at length, both in the PAX East presentation and on their blog, the way that they plan to blend unified, thematic visual appearances in the manner of DA2 with the armor customization from DA:O. Players may also be able to mess around with textiles and dyes.
Player decisions from the first two games will carry forward, creative director Mike Laidlaw confirmed at the same PAX East panel. Dragon Age II let players import a save from Dragon Age: Origins. If players didn’t import, then at new game creation, they chose one of three possible predetermined sets of outcomes from the first game. Whether or not DA3 actually has save-game imports is still up in the air, but it seems likely to.
There will be an online or multiplayer component. No specifics have bubbled up yet, but Dragon Age III is guaranteed to have some kind of online or multiplayer element. Not only is EA actively and publicly putting online “universe” behind all of its games and series, but also lead writer David Gaider has confirmed as much on the forums.
The fact they’re using a new engine derived from Frostbite 2, instead of DA:Origins/DA II’s Eclipse engine…that’s kind of a big deal. At least BioWare is finally getting some benefits from EA, those being that DICE is FAR better at tech than them.
Dragon Age II was a really cool idea hampered by time constraints. Still love the idea of following one city through a decade to see how it changes. I just wish it, you know, changed.
Dragon Age in Frostbite 2.0? Sign me up! I actually liked Dragon Age 2 despite its flaws, so I am definitely looking forward to seeing what they come up with for DA3.
The story and characters of Dragon Age II were just fine. Better than fine, actually. It was the gameplay where things got dicey. As long as that’s corrected …
DA2 shows that it can come too soon, though. Although at least the first thing they said was that they would be putting more work into the level design, so that’s a start. Take your time, Bioware. Origins was totally worth the wait.
The gap between DA2 and 3 gives me a lot of hope. DA2 was rushed to meet a release date. The Mass Effect release cycle is about as fast as you can knock one of these out with A+ quality, and those took slightly more than two years between each game.
I am extremely skeptical. I will wait for a ton more info before giving this even a bit of leeway. I hope DA 2 selling less than half of DA:O taught them the right lessons. The mainstream will NEVER get into this type of game. Ever. So baiting fangirls and otakus with stupid romances, or having unconfiguarable companions so that cosplayers could easier dress like them*, or everyone donning stupid anime armor and flipping around like Chinese acrobats in order to impress ADD afflicted dudebros should be categorically out. If they’re not, I’m out.
or having unconfiguarable companions so that cosplayers could easier dress like them*,
*Actual Bioware quote.
A mod was quickly developed that fixed this issue, enabling you to outfit the human companions with whatever you wanted…or render them naked (if you wanted). Truth be told, the mods created for DA2 helped save the game in many respects.
Dragon Age 2 was a disappointment, but no where near bad enough to stop me getting this day one. Probably 2014, huh? Ugh.
It was exactly that bad for me. I remember the excitement, then the creeping realization that I would be slowly repeating the first four hours of my playthrough all the way to the end. I will wait until the shine wears off before I pull the trigger on this one.
Perhaps if I weren’t all medieval fantasied-out, if Dragon Age 2 hadn’t been a crushingly awful piece of shit, if Mass Effect 3 hadn’t turned out so sloppy and disappointing in narrative terms…
..well, perhaps then my instinctive reaction to this news wouldn’t simply be “lol, no”. Which pretty much leaves CD Projekt’s upcoming cyberpunk thing as my sole RPG hope for the immediate future.
I couldnt finish Dragon Age 2 on either PC or 360, so i may be out on this one…unless they bring back the Morrigan/Origins storyline from the first game, which is one cliffhanger ending ive pondered a lot about.
But seriously, Dragon Age 2 really killed the franchise for me; sure, the combat was better on the 360, but i just coulnt get through all of it again; it remains unfinished for me.
The thing is, I really do get into Bioware RPGs for the story, and DA2 had a good one that set up some interesting conflicts that don’t even involve the Darkspawn. And it had a great cast of characters that did a good job of flipping a lot of stock fantasy set ups: you get a woman as a tank, the devout virgin is a man, a dwarf as the rogue archer, and an elf as the two-handed heavy hitter. A nice touch, I thought.
That said, it’s a terrible video game. The combat was crap, with repetitive enemies, the level design atrocious, and it is just horrendously ugly to look at. That should be enough for me to swear off, but Origins did such a job of hooking me into this world that I’ll still buy this day one on the strength of the concept over the awful execution of the last one.
I recognized all of DA2’s flaws, but somehow they never negated the fun for me. I could see early enough that it was a very different, lesser creature than Origins, but I still found the whole deal compelling enough for a few playthroughs. Guess I’m just BioWare’s whore.
That’s it for Bioware then. At least as far as I’m concerned. My hopes were that they would step up and right the ship. Shame, but they earned a nice retirement. Thanks EA.
That’s it for Bioware then. At least as far as I’m concerned. My hopes were that they would step up and right the ship. Shame, but they earned a nice retirement. Thanks EA.
get ready for “Mass Effect: Spectre Warfare” everybody!!
Seriously, these news suck ass…no wonder Obsidian went Kickstarter for its new project.
I just really hope the story went like this – BioWare founders know they’re nearing retirement from the games industry, sell the company to EA so it’ll live on, and stick around for a bit to smooth the transition – rather than like this – BioWare founders have no plan to retire from the games industry, sell the company to EA, and then are slowly beaten to submission by the bottom-dollar-oriented corporate behemoth.
As a huge fan of some of their games, both versions of the story are sad, but only one of them is actually painful.
