14 DAY TRIAL // Developer BioWare and publisher Electronic Arts might have delayed the launch of Dragon Age: Inquisition for a little more than a month, but the two companies continue to engage with fans of the title in order to offer them more info about the world of the game and the process behind its creation.
David Gaider, the leading writer working on the series, tells the official site that writing a villain is one of the most exciting and tougher challenges for the developers because it requires a new perspective and the elimination of some moral boundaries.
The writer says that Loghain in Dragon Age: Origins was one of his favorite characters, mainly because he was trying to do something good despite the very bad situation around him and his own personal flaws.
Sylvia Feketekuty and Luke Kristjanson, two other developers, nominate Meredith from Dragon Age II and Commander Harwen from the Leliana’s Song downloadable content as their own favorite villains, mainly because of the way they relate to the heroes of the story.
The team says that, in order to be successful, a bad guy needs to have a clear rationalization for his action, and “A viewpoint that fascinates, even if it's self-serving or covering an agenda. (There's a reason everyone remembers the cuckoo-clock speech from The Third Man.) The antagonists who stay with me typically change a story's protagonists when they clash, whether by forcing them to adapt or by irreversibly altering their entire worldview.”
The trio of writers also offers details on the process they are using in order to create villains for the Dragon Age universe and how they evolve, in relation to the role that they will play in terms of gameplay, as the role-playing experiences take shape.
David Gaider also suggests that heroes need a very different approach and adds, “The story is largely from the hero's perspective, so you have to account for the villain's presence from that hero's viewpoint. The player is only aware of who the villain is and what they're doing insomuch as their character is aware of it, and you have to write the villain with the core idea of motivating the player to care about stopping them.”
For Dragon Age: Inquisition the main villain is a mysterious force called the Elder One, which was first shown during the Gamescome 2014 event.
The new title will be launched on November 18 on the PC, the Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 and last-gen consoles.
