Where do you start with a game like Dragon Age: Inquisition? Bioware have unleashed on an unprepared world a game with so much to see and do that it defies belief. Bioware have taken the lessons they learned from Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II and their mechanically similar Mass Effect series and applied them here in ways that pay respect to the video game RPGs of old while still making it feel next gen.
Dragon Age: Inquisition begins with your character awakening abruptly and finding themselves mysteriously infused with a green power. They alone can close deadly Rifts that dot the landscape, spewing demons and darkspawn into the world. From there you are taken under the protection of Cassandra, who Dragon Age II fans (I know you’re out there, I liked it and I can’t be the only one) will remember as the Inquisitor who was interrogating Varric. From there, you join the Inquisition and begin the onerous task of restoring Thedas to order.
I’m being deliberately vague about the story because, honestly, it’s the game’s strongest suit. The writing is razor-sharp. Every conversation carries weight, each new shift in the story packs an emotional payload. You genuinely want to go around and talk to everyone. You want to know everything about your travelling buddies. Thedas is rich with lore and history and they way it is unfurled and presented to you to digest in whatever way suits you is one of the greatest treats in DA: I’s basket of goodies.
Your character is your main point of entry into the game, your vessel, the lens through which you view every single interaction and swerve of the plot. You are presented with a staggering amount of character creation options at the top of the game, and using it’s clever reworking of a traditional slider system, it is possible to create some truly beautiful looking facial models. I found myself already building a backstory for my character from the jump. She has a scar on the right side of her face that she hides under hair, for instance. The roleplaying takes root early and refuses to let you go.
I want to give Bioware special props here because during the “Playing As A Female Character: Does It Matter?” panel at PAX AUS this year, Bioware’s Asst. Director of Design Aiden Scanlan claimed that the sex of everyone’s character would be chosen at random to begin with and if they want to change the sex, they are welcome to. My character defaulted to female initially and when I restarted to go through character creation again, it started me with a male. Great to see developers taking feedback from metrics and running with it.
The gameplay breaks down into four seperate components – exploration, combat, conversation and the War Room. Exploration is what you’ll be spending the vast amount of your time doing. You’ll scamper over hill and dale, getting into fights, collecting pick ups and loot to upgrade your character and team mates gear, finding side quests, hunting wild game and discovering some truly breathtaking vistas on your travels. There’s so much to see. Combat is reminiscent of previous entries in the series – you can set your party members behaviours so that they’ll follow or protect you during combat or you can press the back button to open up a strategy menu that will allow you to plan your party’s attacks with a greater degree of precision. This is especially useful for fights involving a lot of enemies, and those pop up with greater frequency that you’ll expect.
Conversation is the other major time sink in . Bioware boasts some ridiculous number like 700 hours of dialogue recorded for the game so when I say you’ll be doing a lot of talking, I mean it. Similarly to Mass Effect, you can answer however you want during a conversation and your answer will affect the person you are talking to. Are you nice, neutral or aggro? Interestingly, this is the first time you’ve been allowed to turn off the indicator that tells you what kind of reaction you can expect in the options which makes navigating a conversation altogether more thrilling. Just say what you think! You never know how they’ll take it! Fourth, we have the War Room. This is kind of an expanding of the Galactic Readiness idea from Mass Effect 3. Here you unlock new areas by undertaking missions. Missions are purchased using Power. Power is accumulated by completing quests and side-quests out in the world. The more power you have, the more missions you can undertake in the War Room, and the more areas you can open up for exploration later. It’s quite clever and it gives you a sensation of real importance, like your decisions really are affecting the wider world.
There’s so much content on offer here – so much it actually feels overwhelming times. I actually spent an entire day running about The Hinterlands on Friday and for every quest I turned it, I would turn up another two or three en route. They just didn’t seem to end. Apply this to the numerous other areas in the game and you are faced with hundreds and hundreds of hours of gameplay just waiting to be discovered. It’s a real credit to Bioware’s dedication and the skill of their writing team that Dragon Age: Inquisition has this much content on offer. It’s the sort of game you could conceivably still be playing in six months, trying to mop up every single quest.
I’ve seen Dragon Age: Inquisition described as open world but that really isn’t accurate. It’s just that each area is so staggeringly huge that it can feel like it’s open world without really being so. The reason for this immense scale is that Bioware have built the game on DICE’s Frostbite engine, allowing them build massive, densely decorated environments. This also allows them all sorts of nice lighting effects, animations and environmental effects like smoke, water and even wind. Each area in the game is diverse and interesting to look at right away, from jagged coast lines to lush forests and into immaculately designed cities and run-down country towns. It gives each new area a sense of personality and lets them feel a bit more distinct.
If I had a criticism I could level at the game it would probably be that the equip menus are a little confusing to begin with but you do get the hang of them eventually. You’ve got a number of different builds to level your character with. You can drill down on a particular skill tree or spread your points out into different trees, depending on what you want to get out of your character. You’ve also got control over the way your comrades level up too, so you can tweak them to better fit with your style of play.
The visuals are a real treat for the eyes as well. Mountains in the distance seem massive and imposing, larger trees creak with age and are blown about in the wind, your armour changes depending on what you’re wearing which is always nice and character models are detailed down to freckles on their cheeks. So much work has been put into the look of this game – it feels incredibly old and lived in. Dragons are a terrifying sight when you first encounter one – giant, leathery death swooping about the sky, shrieking and blasting jets of fire everywhere. They’re not overgrown lizards like the ones in Skyrim. These dragons look like they mean business and they do.
I could actually go on and on for hours about this game. At time of writing, I’ve sunk thirty-odd hours into and I feel like I’m only just scratching the surface. This is one of the most engaging, fine-tuned and important gaming experiences of the year. Other western RPGs have a new high bar to jump over.
Review Score: 9 out of 10
Highlights: Massive world, memorable characters, immersive experience.
Lowlights: Some menus a little clunky.
Developer: Bioware
Publisher: EA
Released: November 20, 2014
Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Reviewed on Xbox One
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