The forthcoming Dragon Age 3: Inquisition will be a feast for the eyes, according to BioWare's Neil Thompson, thanks partly to DICE's Frostbite 2 engine, and partly to art direction that avoids certain tedious clichés.
"Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 were both done using BioWare's own Eclipse engine, and it was starting to creak a little bit when Dragon Age 2 came out," Thompson confessed in an interview you'll read in issue 95, on sale now. "Inquisition is being done on the Frostbite 2 engine and it is an astonishingly powerful engine."
"There was a pre-production period where almost on a weekly basis I'd be sitting in the environment reviews and being blown away by what was coming out - it looks stunningly beautiful. So I think when we do start releasing screenshots, people won't be disappointed."
In Thompson's view, companion series Mass Effect is "the perfect example of a game that transcends its technology", using skilled visual design to hide or make a point of the limitations of the engine. By the sounds of it, Dragon Age 3's art direction is similarly ambitious.
"Can you make fantasy beautiful in a different way? We think we have something special for Dragon Age 3: Inquisition," he mused, adding that the game will shun the "subdued colour palette and harsh brown feel" typical of much current fantasy media.
Inquisition is out later this year, and is hotly suspected to be a next generation console release. Here's Thompson on what the next round of hardware launches will offer, tech-wise.
Don't forget the new issue.
7 comments so far...
SilentDark on 18 Jan '13 said:
You want to know a game that transcended it's technological limitations, Baldur's Gate 2, and it wasn't through any visual design trickery it was through great characters and excellent story telling. I'd like this to be pretty but as long as the story is one worth telling then it should be fine. Interested to see how this one turns out.
Bezza89 on 18 Jan '13 said:
I found DA:O amazing in every aspect other than presentation, the sequel was prettier but produced in less than a year and showed weaknesses in the story and very much in design. With #3 we've had at least 3 times as long a production as #2 and a supposedly easy engine to work with, this should mean the story and characters along with the technical side should be at least up to par.
A lot of shoulds I know, I too am very intrigued by it and can only speculate. Let's hope they don't leave the genre that made #1 so compelling though, as 2s combat was the right side of different.
ItchyRash on 18 Jan '13 said:
Vary wary of this. Origins was fantastic, if a little underwhelming in the looks department. 2 was completely lacking in every way. They put a bit of gloss on the presentation but in a weird way I found it worse to look at than Origins. It was just bland and lifeless and boring. The first portion of the game where you're escaping with your family has to be one of the ugliest settings I've seen in any game. Then there were the recycled environments that you kept revisiting over and over. It was just so bland and boring.
The story in 2 was, for the most part, terrible with one of the worst endings I can recall. The only good part were some of the characters.
I loathed 2 almost as much as I loved Origins. If they can go back to Origins gameplay but with improved looks (not dragon age 2 improved) and environments then It's sure to be one of my favourite games. But part of me thinks that Skyrim has spoilt me when it comes to fantasy RPGs. It'd take a lot to top that
Baryonyx on 18 Jan '13 said:
I'd love to see a new Baldur's Gate game. For consoles, please. Gaming seems to have had a 'dumb' spell recently but games like XCOM show that there is room for games that let you think. I'd love to go back to something like that!
SilentDark on 19 Jan '13 said:
I actually wouldn`t for several reasons.
1. The bhaalspawn saga is over. Choosing mortality or godhood was the biggest decision the PC had to make. You couldn`t top that.
2. I`d want bioware to do it. Nobody can craft a story quite as well as these guys however I think they`ve made it clear they prefer to work on their own IPs.
3. I wouldn`t want EA anywhere near it. I think EA will just have bioware pump out endless Dragon Age and Mass Effect sequels until one day they stop being profitable and bioware joins the list of developers EA has consumed. I just don`t want them anywhere near it.
gallopinglake6 on 19 Jan '13 said:
Frostbite2? What are they, still living in the age of Charlemange?!
Decent_Jam on 20 Jan '13 said:
I really enjoyed Dragon Age 2, but I recognised its flaws, particularly the recycled caves. I think there is a lot of potential for this, they just need to work on making the characters a bit deeper, only Varric really remains memorable and endearing. The romance sub plots in most places seemed pretty forced and I never seemed to have enough skill points to really develop my characters into specialists, even if I put everything into 'Dexterity' for example they refused to be fantastic. Also really you should see differences in play style increasing attributes like that (e.g. faster evades or something)
For Inquisition they have a lot of work to do to restore faith in BioWare for many people, but I will probably invest in it since it's the sort of 'lite' RPG that I can handle, compared to the complex and 1000-hours nature of Skyrim.