BioWare's cautious trickling-out of Dragon Age 3: Inquisition details picked up steam this weekend, thanks to a panel at the Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo. Marginally, anyway. The takeaways boil down to three lavish concept artworks, a handful of hard details and a mass of helpful comments along the lines of "let's just say" or "in theory" or "we're not not doing that".
Fortunately, we here at OXM are skilled in the sorcerous arts of interpretation and prognostication, adept at distilling the glitter of gold from the texture of tin. Here are twelve things you need to know about Dragon Age 3, plucked from the panel video, prior BioWare chats and the Twitter feeds of Messrs Mike Laidlaw and Cameron Lee.
1. You're definitely human
Sorry, but other species will be off-limits in Dragon Age 3 for story reasons. There are two ways of interpreting this, off the tops of our heads. Firstly, it could be taken as proof that Dragon Age 2's human-only Hawke will return as protagonist. Secondly, this could be more evidence in support of rumours that the new game's lead is an Inquisitor, tasked with soothing the tempers of warring Mage Circles, Chantry agents and Templars. After all, it's hard to imagine a dwarf or an elf being elevated to such a position of power within the human hierarchy.
Lee has a few words of consolation for those who mourn the ethnic sprawl of Origins-era character customisation. "I think you'll be pleased with the options you'll see in DA3 to make your character your own." That'd better amount to something a little more comprehensive than an expanded array of novelty hats, Cameron. We're also told that "the team's goal is to give you choices that matter with a fully voiced character", which suggests that the logistical burdens of having several different, species-specific lead voice actors are to blame.
2. There are no playable backstories
But there are backstories, thank goodness, and the one you choose will "significantly impact" how the campaign unfolds.
3. The levels are massive
Allegedly, a single Dragon Age 3 environment is larger than all of Dragon Age 2's environments put together. Providing there's more than one of those environments, this should bring an end to complaints about asset recycling across several quest lines. Nice to see BioWare putting the Frostbite 2 engine to good use.
4. You should keep hold of your save files
BioWare's dancing an interesting dance on the subject of how choices in prior Dragon Age games will affect Dragon Age 3. We're expecting the implementation to be comparable to that of the Mass Effect series, but it won't necessarily be a question of importing a save - more evidence, perhaps, that the new protagonist will be an entirely new character. "We're exploring ways to import without necessarily needing saves," Laidlaw confusingly observes. "World imports will still happen, though." Explanations on a postcard, please.
5. Flemeth is back
Though to what degree has yet to be established. The old witch was more or less guaranteed to return, given (a) her ostensible immortality, and (b) her role as a sort of guardian of the Dragon Age universe, tweaking everybody's strings from afar after the example of Fable's Theresa. "It feels wrong to not have a "little" Flemeth in your game," Laidlaw pointed out during the panel discussion, adding on Twitter that it was important not to "over-use" the character. What do those inverted commas bode, do you think? Has Ferelden's most ferocious granny fallen foul of a shrinking ray?
12 comments so far...
Clanger67 on 22 Oct '12 said:
No worries about still having both save files,although nowhere near finished two yet,lol.Hmmm not sure about only one playable race although if it is all for the story.Kinda guessed Flemeth might make a re apperance.Sounds intriguing and really want to believe it will be mega,please.
Bezza89 on 22 Oct '12 said:
To be fair Ed, a monkey penis is bigger than the entire levels of dragon age 2. It was just one environment after all.
OXM ETboy on 22 Oct '12 said:
What kind of monkey?
/readies body and mind for lengthy zoological discussion
SidTheSloth on 22 Oct '12 said:
Hmm, big open areas is nothing to shout about if there's jack all to fill them. One of the weakest areas of all the Bioware 360 games for me is inside cities/areas etc, they never truly feel 'alive'. The first ME's citadel was probably the closest they got to cracking the nut, but then you bugger off to Noveria and it's so static etc. Games have moved on quite a lot and hopefully they don't have massive areas filled with emptiness - Dragons Dogma suffered with this a little too as an example.
Now i've written all that, maybe this isn't the first thing they should be thinking about though given other priorities? Hmm...
And Flemeth? Yes please. But the other witch? The daughter witch - is notable by the complete absence of her name anywhere!?!? I can't take another game with little/no mention of what happened to Morrigan...!!
And breathe... Time, as the saying goes, will tell...
Bezza89 on 22 Oct '12 said:
One with a penis the size of how many bytes it takes to make kirkwall. I'm going for Siamang.
Plamsa wing on 22 Oct '12 said:
Besides the fact that most of your past choices didn't have much of an effect in the end. What did happen to that Collecter base in the end I wonder... Pretty sure I destroyed it, pretty sure it wasn't mentioned much.
Please make Flemmeth look more her age Bioware, I know she can change form and all, but I don't really want to see her looking like a sexy grandmother again. *shudders*
Bigger areas are nice, but as Sid says, it's nothing to brag about if you don't give it some flavour so to speak.
Shame about the lack of a play-able backstory and a selection of races. Then again I hate those Elf types and I'm not bothered about Dwarfs. Just give me more face warmers and better looking hair styles!
I could go on, but if I do I'm afraid I'll "go off on one." Just don't try and make it the biggest thing since cheese for christ's sake.
Technically that is an Ape. Unlike Apes, Monkeys usually have tails, the Siamang has no tail, thus making it an Ape.
So what you could say is the Squirrel Monkey. Love that name.
Bezza89 on 22 Oct '12 said:
You dare question my googling?
You are correct sir, I clicked on a link to wikipedia giving species of monkeys which was actually species of ape.
I now question whether you knew that already or you checked yourself with google. lol if the latter.
Plamsa wing on 22 Oct '12 said:
Nope just a few BBC nature docs.
msbhvn on 22 Oct '12 said:
I think it's rather telling that we'd rather talk about monkey/ape penises than the inevitable disappointment of DA3.
SidTheSloth on 22 Oct '12 said:
Apparently the female apes would rather talk about Dragon Age 3 than the disappointment of the monkey penises - apparently size isn't everything. Apparently.
Decent_Jam on 22 Oct '12 said:
At risk of bringing this thread kicking and screaming (monkey screaming?) back onto topic...
I really like the look of this list. Since I had a lot of fun with Mass Effect in all and enjoyed Dragon Age 2 enough to actually finish it (a rarity in my book, as some of you know) I think I may well give this one a go.
The compelling nature of this game will come down to the story and characters, which is something difficult to judge. I never really felt like I connected with any of the DA2 characters, except possibly Merril, and admittedly the lack of varied settings did cheese me off a bit - not to mention both the factions in the little column A vs column B debate going crazy at the end bafflingly *spoilers, sorry*.
I liked what they did in 2 and I'm keen to see how they've improved it, roll on the next E3.
hujiki on 23 Oct '12 said:
Hope it plays Like Dragons Dogma... That will be real cool....