14 DAY TRIAL // BioWare is hard at work on Dragon Age 3: Inquisition, the next installment in its medieval role-playing game series, and one of its lead developers, Aaryn Flynn, believes that he and the rest of the team are influenced by The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, as such a thing can't be avoided.
Medieval fantasy role-playing games have seen a resurrection in recent years, with some delivering a more action-oriented gameplay experience, like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Dragon's Dogma, while others had a more isometric dungeon crawling one, like Diablo 3 or Torchlight 2.
After the rather lackluster Dragon Age 2, BioWare is currently working on the next installment in its own medieval fantasy RPG franchise, in the form of Dragon Age 3.
We already heard a few details about the game, which will use the new Frostbite 2 engine to deliver stunning visuals and impressive gameplay, but there are still quite a lot of aspects that have only been rumored or speculated.
Now, BioWare's Aaryn Flynn has talked with Game Informer magazine, via Kotaku, and revealed that his team can't help but be influenced by Bethesda's extremely successful Skyrim.
"You can't look at a game like Skyrim and not think about how impressive what they've accomplished is—or [think] that's an interesting new direction or that there was something that didn't work well for them that we could take in a new direction. So, we're always influenced by these games, especially in a relatively tight-knight genre like RPGs," Flynn said.
The BioWare manager also emphasized that exploration should be an important part of any self-respecting role-playing game, and he admits that BioWare's major franchises, like Dragon Age or Mass Effect, have neglected this portion of gameplay in favor of a more tight narrative.
Previous Dragon Age 3 rumors did speculate that the game would have an open world, just like Skyrim, so it's a safe bet to say that players will explore a lot more of the franchise's virtual world once the new game is released at some point in time.