14 DAY TRIAL // BioWare has launched a new trailer for its upcoming Dragon Age: Inquisition in order to reveal the October 7 launch date for the title, showing gamers quite a bit of the world they will be able to explore and some of the allies and enemies that they will encounter.
It manages to use the new Frostbite 3 engine from DICE to deliver some impressive sights, while suggesting just how broad the scope of the story will be and the array of options that gamers will be able to explore.
BioWare is a company that focuses on deep, engaging and complex role-playing games and Dragon Age has been its flagship fantasy series for a while.
And it seems that with Inquisition, the studio has once again understood how important it is for its audience to be convinced that the vision powering its games aims to tell a heroic, intricate and carefully constructed story.
The Promise of a Focused Experience
The first title, Origins, was launched in 2009 and promised to be a sort of spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate, with an emphasis on party mechanics and tactical combat and with a narrative that involved a once in a life time event and the fate of a kingdom.
Fans loved the game and its expansion and made it a commercial success, with BioWare promising that there were plenty more adventures to explore in its new fantasy universe.
Dragon Age 2 was launched in March 2011 and the company promised that it would offer a more focused experience that would allow gamers to get more details on one core location and one protagonist.
The more action-driven combat, the limited customization for party members and the smaller range of choices led to criticism from some of the fans.
BioWare promised a more focused experience, but it ended up compromising its vision for Dragon Age to some extent because the entire narrative failed to deliver the feeling of heroism that players were expecting.
An official expansion pack called The Exalted March was canceled outright as the studio sought to create an entirely new Dragon Age title that revitalized the franchise.
The Power of Leadership
Dragon Age: Inquisition took more time to create than its predecessors and uses the new Frostbite 3 engine.
This means that BioWare has the chance to show players the world of the game in greater detail, which in turn creates the opportunity to deliver situations where the protagonist can act heroically.
Most video game fans will never be in a situation where they need to be the great leader that will solve a worldwide threat and that’s what Inquisition is promising to deliver when it arrives in the fall.
Role-playing games with lower stakes can create interesting experiences, but Dragon Age is already an established series and needs to deliver on its big vision with solid mechanics, well written characters and a plot that explores the complex backstory that BioWare has already created.
Statements coming from the leadership of the studio suggest that the developers understand what the fan community is expecting from Inquisition.
Of course, talk is cheap and we need to wait for the actual launch in order to see what the new Dragon Age has to offer to its dedicated audience.