Dragon Age: Inquisition - News Roundup

RPGSite had the chance to interview Mike Laidlaw to ask him some more questions about Dragon Age: Inquisition as it gets closer to release in a few months.

RPG Site: Dragon Age II had a mixed response. To my eye, it felt like it critically did a lot better than it fared with the fans - many critics with no particularly strong feelings about the first game found it a solid title, but fans of the original game were disappointed. How do you approach a sequel with a fanbase that, in theory, is split? What do you change?

Mike Laidlaw: Well... the wild card for the whole thing is really the move to Frostbite, right? So, we're on a whole new engine, we're changing tech. When that happens, you basically have to rebuild all of your systems from the ground up. Frostbite is an amazing engine for visuals, but it is definitely not an RPG engine out of the box by any means.

As such, we had an enormous engineering challenge in front of us. It was a challenge, but it was also a very good opportunity to sit back and look at everything. To say, "Okay, what do we consider to be the defining characteristics of the Dragon Age experience?" Obviously, feedback for Dragon Age II was incorporated into that. But that aside, I think that's more about understanding what makes Dragon Age unique, what makes it stand out, rather than what did or didn't work in the previous game. 

For me personally, if I had to boil it down to a single concept, it's the party. It's not just you; you're not a solo adventurer - you are part of a team. Teamwork in gameplay is a part of that. The fact that we have a bunch of rich characters is a part of that. The fact that the follows are probably the most beloved part of Dragon Age is a part of that. It all really comes back to the party.

As such, when we sat down to look at it... we then need to examine how we make our unique features stand out even more. That realization led to some really key decisions. It's through that core understanding that we decided that, yes, although it's challenging, we were going to do a tactical camera, being able to control the whole party, the party hopefully players love, with a full overview at any time for the whole game. That really started the whole discussion because all of our ability designs needed to work both tactically and in real time. 

Next Game Informer talk about the return of Leliana.

For the most part, Leliana has been peaceful and upbeat, devoting her life to religion and striving for redemption from her checkered past. However, she has had time to change and grow since we last saw her, and BioWare has been building her up as an agent of the Divine (the head of the Chantry). Here are some interesting issues and characteristics we think the red-headed bard will bring.

And for last Game Idealist has news on a new expensive strategy guide that includes DLC, and other goodies. The catch here is it will cost you $119.99.

Dragon Age Inquisition is getting a super expensive collector’s edition strategy guide, according to Amazon. The Dragon Age Inquisition: Prima Official Inquisitor Edition has a regular price of $119.99, twice as much as the videogame. Amazon currently has the item on sale even though the price tag could change at any time. You can find the current amount, along with other details, right now with this Amazon link.

Update: Bioware also announced the delay of the Dragon Age Keep.

With the recent announcement of a new release date for Dragon Age: Inquisition, we’d also like to provide an update on the Dragon Age Keep .

To coincide with the November 18, 2014, launch of Inquisition, we will also be moving the Keep’s launch date. Accordingly, we’ll be extending our beta program, meaning there’s still plenty of time to get involved with the Keep.

For those unfamiliar with the Keep, it’s a companion Web experience that allows you to customize your story choices across the Dragon Age franchise. This ensures that regardless of what platform you play on, you’ll always have your Thedas the way you made it.