14 DAY TRIAL // BioWare, the studio behind cult classics like Baldur’s Gate but also newer franchises like Mass Effect, has talked about fantasy role playing games, especially since Bethesda’s recent Skyrim has blown its Dragon Age II title, which appeared earlier this year, out of the proverbial water.
Dragon Age: Origins delivered gamers an old-school RPG experience, in which choices mattered, although the visual style just reminded people of all the different types of fantasy games that came before it.
Dragon Age II, however, took a more streamlined approach, using a bold new visual style while eliminating quite a lot of actual role playing mechanics, while choices didn’t have such a big impact on what happened with the player.
BioWare admitted these mistakes, which generated quite an uproar among fans, especially since Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim title showed just how great a fantasy RPG can be.
Speaking with Kotaku, BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka said that, while he just started with Skyrim, he is quite impressed with what Bethesda did with it.
"I definitely admire the scope of what Bethesda's built. It's a beautiful looking world you can lost in," said Muzyka. "And the lore is very rich so you feel like you're moving through a world with history and that your actions have consequences. That's been a big thing for us in our games, too."
Both Muzyka and his fellow co-founder, Greg Zeschuk, admit that Dragon Age 2, for all its things done right, disappointed fans of the first game, but they hope to please them with upcoming announcements concerning the fate of the fantasy series.
"We think that Dragon Age II succeeded in a lot of ways but we've thought a lot about how to recapture some of things that Dragon Age Origins did well, too," he said, declining to give out any other details about the future of the franchise.
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