14 DAY TRIAL // BioWare has discussed the characters and potential companions for players in the upcoming Dragon Age: Inquisition, confirming that they're complex beings, especially when it comes to the approval of the player's actions and the potential romance opportunities.
The studio has always prided itself with creating great role-playing games filled with memorable non-playable characters that had meaningful relationships with the players, either just as companions or as romance options.
Dragon Age: Inquisition isn't an exception, as BioWare has confirmed that there will be plenty of potential romance options, and it has now revealed that the general approval and romance system won't be changed all that much from previous titles.
"We want to avoid it feeling like a vending machine for romance," BioWare's Marc Laidlaw told Kotaku. "I don't think that's a particularly realistic way to earn someone's affection, at least not in any lasting way. We're not deviating wildly [in the way we do romance], certainly there's that sense of approval, and different things you say and different things you do of course, will affect people."
Characters will be complex beings with different expectations of the player, according to the developer, and won't agree with his or her actions all the time.
"Your characters all have their own views on how the world should be run, what's right, what's wrong, as we've always done, because really, that's what makes strong characters. They don't always agree, they're not homogenized vanilla puddings bending to your every whim."
Laidlaw has also confirmed that all characters will have different goals, agendas, and aspirations, and that it's quite possible that players will finish the game without recruiting every potential companion or with having some leave the Inquisition due to low approval of the player's actions.
"It's a lot more involving if you're out there doing stuff with them, if you have them with you, if you help them achieve their goals, do their agendas. In some cases of course, disagreement can fall out as well, it is possible to finish the game without every character recruited, with not every character still there. The big thing for me is to not make it too gamey."
Dragon Age games in the past have certainly delivered some complex characters and some really intriguing relationships between them, so it's going to be interesting to see how Inquisition can evolve that aspect of the series.
The game launches on October 7 for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.