14 DAY TRIAL // The Dragon Age 2 demo has just been released and gamers will get a chance to see how the role-playing game moves ahead of the March 8 official launch date, and one of the main designers working on it is encouraging players to make sure and explore the tactical opportunities included in the new game.
Mike Laidlaw, who is the lead designer working on Dragon Age 2, has said that, “We wanted to make sure that we held onto the elements that made Dragon Age: Origins strong – party-based, tactical.”
He added, “Even going so far as to replace spell-combos with cross-class combos so that now, when a mage freezes someone, a mage can’t blow up that guy like you could in Origins; now a warrior or rogue has to get involved.”
The idea behind the chance was to encourage players to abandon their main character and explore the skills that are offered by other members of the party, bringing team work to the center of the game.
Laidlaw also said that Dragon Age 2 is quicker during gameplay and can be more easily controlled, but he rejected the idea that this was all a sign of the game developers making compromises in order to gain a wider audience on the PlayStation 3 and on the Xbox 360.
The lead designer says that the changes are designed to eliminate some unnecessary conventions of the role-playing game genre and make sure that gamers get an experience which is aligned with their expectations.
He describes the process as stealing a little from the action genre, as it has done with experience and leveling, which were lifted from role-playing games.
Dragon Age 2 can be played on the PC, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, and if the demo version is downloaded and played more than 1 million times, all players will get two extra items in the full version of the game.