As well as its huge, sprawling size and impressive defences, Minrathous is a visual spectacle. It features looming towers, magical aura in the air, unimaginable wealth, and even mystical floating buildings. It's also home to dark alleyways, murder around every corner, and abject poverty. It's a city of vast contrasts, and Dragon Age 4 needs to explore these in depth.
Contrasts are a big theme across Dragon Age, but rarely are the contrasts as relatable as this. It's the contrast between the Templars and the Mages, between the dwarves and the surface dwellers, between the Elves and the... slightly different type of Elves that Dragon Age has traditionally been built upon. These lead to interesting stories, but it makes it difficult to step inside the realities of the debate. Parallels can be drawn, but if Minrathous pushes the contrast between rich and poor - especially during a potential Qunari invasion - to the forefront, it could pull us into the heartbeat of the story instead of leaving us sitting on the sidelines, Googling the gameplay benefits of siding with one fictional faction over the other.
[...]
