14 DAY TRIAL // BioWare has stated that it has purposely aimed to lower the barrier of entry for players who are interested in Dragon Age 2, in order to make sure that even those gamers who could not learn the mechanics of the first in the series could play and enjoy it.
Speaking to Destructoid after the demo for Dragon Age 2 was released, Mike Laidlaw, who is the leading designer working on the game at BioWare, has said, “Traditional weak points of the classic RPG are … they’re daunting. High barrier to entry. They’re hard to get into. So our goal with 2, I think, is to strip away a lot of that barrier to entry to let you ease into the game.”
Laidlaw implied that a lot of those who tried out Dragon Age: Origins did not even complete one hour of it, but it's not clear whether this comes from actual player tracking or just from anecdotal evidence.
The designer then went on to talk about his personal preferences for the game, adding, “I’m pretty sure I’d like to play as a rogue who is male,” he said. “And then I kind of ease into, ‘Ok, cool, these are my starting abilities and do I want to go more archery, do I want to dual-wield, or do I want to … use more bombs and poisons?’”
The combat in Dragon Age 2 is more quick and fluid, especially when the player led party is just dealing with fodder and BioWare has worked hard to make sure that the interface is full of information but also non intrusive.
We have a Demo Look for Dragon Age 2 up on the site and will offer more information on the game when the full version is released on March 8 for the PC, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.