Dragon Age: Inquisition is the story of a mysterious, malevolent rift that allows evil to pass between worlds. It might also be the story of a franchise finding its feet again, and possibly reclaiming its throne in the crowded role-playing game (RPG) market.
The fantasy series got off to a killer start with Dragon Age: Origins, but Dragon Age II, while reasonably well reviewed, wasn't embraced to the same degree.
The latest title, Dragon Age: Inquisition has had a comfortable four-year development period.
Cameron Lee, the producer for Dragon Age: Inquisition, says that plot and game-play have been tweaked for this instalment.
“For us, making a sequel is interesting because we’re not telling the story of the same character between different games. We’re telling the story of the Dragon Age world across time, from the different perspective of different characters. So it’s more about what story we now want to tell in that continuing saga of the world and how best to tell it.
"And for Inquisition, the best way to tell that was to let the player really explore the world in an open aspect. So it is massive, open-world regions that the player can explore and get involved in. It's more about the ambition and the story we wanted to tell. We spent a lot of time looking at different cultures, countries and factions in our world, and how to make them feel real.
"We definitely overhauled the combat," he says. "The player has the ability to play through action combat with their swords, spells and abilities, or they can pause the game and pull the [virtual] camera up and issue commands to their character and companions and then advance time and see those tactics play out. But what we're finding is that players, unlike with previous Dragon Age games, would either like tactical or action view.
"With Inquisition they're going in and out of those two modes more fluidly now, which is a positive aspect because it lets the player have more freedom and thought behind the combat encounters."
Lee says that Dragon Age: Inquisition also benefits from being made for the Playstation 4 and Xbox One: "There are definitely benefits with the new consoles. Obviously it looks better, so you can increase texture resolution and that sort of thing. What matters the most is the level of immersion, which comes from weather effects, leaves blowing, bugs crawling on the ground, how much wildlife you can have, and how many characters.
“It’s about creating a believable world for the player and I think the next-gen consoles allow that to be ratcheted up to the degree that, particularly for an open world game like this, matters a hell of a lot. The story aspect of it, in terms of how they look and move, all these things are enhanced with next-gen consoles so it’s more believable and more emotional when you deal with characters. I think both story and exploration benefit a lot.”
As one might expect with a fantasy, RPG franchise, Dragon Age has its share of passionate fans.
"We've discovered fans love our characters, and sometimes they hate our characters," says Lee, smiling, "and that's fine because we want people to love or hate them. There are things from the different games that players loved, such as the sprawling story of Dragon Age: Origins, but they didn't like the smaller scope story of Dragon Age II.
“So we looked at player feedback across both titles, what they loved and disliked about both of them. And then we thought about what we wanted to create. That led to a number of things. It led to us bringing back races, for example. So you can play the original three races – elves, humans and dwarves – and then we added a fourth with the Qunari.
“Another thing we wanted was the combat encounters. We wanted it to feel more thoughtful and tactical. We enhanced that. We slowed the combat down and made it feel more impactful.”
Like many mainstream RPGs, the Dragon Age franchise has a malleable narrative and characters. But it goes a step further than some, by allowing players to choose their character's sexuality too.
"For a game like Mass Effect [also from EA and Bioware] or especially Dragon Age: Inquisition where it's about fantasy fulfilment, it's up to the player.
“It’s easy for us to say we want different races, skin tones, sexuality, voices or decisions that you make. These are all aspects of fantasy fulfilment, so who are we to say what your fantasy fulfilment should be. Shouldn’t it be up to the player?”
