Dragon Age: Inquisition is an upcoming and highly anticipated action adventure role playing video game from industry renowned developers and division of Electronic Arts, BioWare; who are responsible for titles such as the Mass Effect Series and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
Set to publish the latest entry into the Dragon Age series (being preceded by Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II) is BioWare’s parent company, Electronic Arts (Battlefield and Need for Speed franchise).
Dragon Age: Inquisition, which will be running in part on the powerful Frostbite 3 Engine, is currently set to launch on October 7th of 2014 across multiple platforms, both last and current gen via retail and digital distribution. The title is expected to launch on Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4
Originally known as Dragon Age III: Inquisition, Mark Darragh (Dragon Age Executive Producer) penned an open letter in which he confirmed that the game would be dropping the “III” from its title and would thus be officially known as Dragon Age: Inquisition from that point onwards.
The development of Dragon Age: Inquisition was first revealed to the public (although it had been known to have existed prior to this) at some time in September of 2012 when the Executive Producer of Dragon Age dispatched an open letter the game was indeed in development and that its official title was to be Dragon Age: Inquisition. The reveal came with information that the game had been in development for a whole 18 months prior to the writing of his letter.
However, prior to this on May 19th of 2011, Biowares Creative Lead (Alistair Mcnall) informally (and perhaps unintentionally) announced the game on his Twitter feed when he tweeted, “I’m looking for exceptional environment artists join me at #BioWare Edmonton, Canada to work on ‘DragonAge3 #gamejobs #jobs #3D #artists”.
Despite both fan and industry predictions that the game was to be delayed whilst other titles under BioWare and Electronic Arts were worked on, having said “Dragon Age III’s development will not be delayed by BioWare’s other games.” and “We will try to bring some closure to Hawke’s story but likely not in a playable form. Originally we had planned to do an expansion pack but had to stop to focus on what we are working on now.” The predictions were however proven true with the Q4 2013 launch being changed and set as a Fall of 2014 launch.
Given the mixed feedback that was received from Dragon Age II (that mostly focused on the negative and repetitive nature of the game or its comparatively less interesting plot), Mark Darragh asked the fans of Dragon Age series to provide them with feedback on the game and to mention features that they would like to see implemented or removed from the next instalment (that was at the time not even announced).
While not much is known about the full plot of Dragon Age, here’s what we do know. The game is going to be set in the land of Thedas as well as parts of Ferelden and Orlais. The narrative driving force for the game will be investigating a tear in the veil of reality leading to a breach into the Fade (a metaphysical realm).
Bioware have mentioned that a central part of the game will be “saving the world from itself.” whilst it is in the throes of an all out war. The Warden (presumably the Grey Warden from Dragon Age: Origins) and the Hawke (the player’s character from Dragon Age II) are said to hold important roles in Dragon Age: Inquisition according to Mark Darragh, but at this time they haven’t revealed any information regarding what this might mean. As the story progresses players will be able to travel to different regions of the game world, one such region being the Tevinter Imperium, the land of the Magocracy.
Many aspects of the action role playing game genre are found within the Dragon Age franchise and many of them are to be implemented in Dragon Age: Inquisition as well as some of the older game mechanics being combined.
As players have come to expect, customisation is indeed a returning feature to Dragon Age: Inquisition. One of the most important returning features is the return of multiple playable races. The player can use either a Male and Female character of different races, including Dwarves and Elves. Listening to fan feedback, Dragon Age: Inquisition will also finally offer the player the chance to play as one of the Qunari, the mighty warrior people of Qun.
Combat will have a fundamentally different flow and gameplay core than that of previous titles that focused on queuing skills, building custom AI commands for NPCs and switching between characters to perform unique skills or rapidly pressing buttons to perform combos and switching between characters to best suit your scenario. A feature that was introduced in Dragon Age: Origins on the PC was the overhead tactical view that allowed for better strategic placement of characters is returning in Dragon Age: Inquisition much to the pleasure of fans.
Player choice is an important returning feature with The Inquisitor sometimes making decisions that will lock down entire parts of the game world in the wake of their decisions, Bioware have promised that the ramifications of your choices will be significant.
We are yet to receive concrete information regarding the classes that will be appearing in Dragon Age: Inquisition. It is however safe to assume that the normal classes will appear; Warrior, Mage, Rogue etc.
The Inquisitor – The player’s character and main protagonist is the leader of the mysterious Inquisition.
Alistair – Alistair is a competent warrior that serves the order of the Grey Wardens and was a companion of the protagonist from Dragon Age: Origins. Depending on what choices the player made during specific missions, Alistair may now be the king of Ferelden.
Iron Bull – Iron Bull is a Tal-Vashoth, one of the Qunari who has abandoned the Qun. Iron Bull lives his life as a mercenary.
Morrigan – Morrigan is an apostate mage that is well versed in the ways of magic and is a lethal combatant with a phlegmatic personality. Like Alistair and Leliana, she was a companion of the Hero of Ferelden. At the end of the fifth blight she vanished mysteriously, only to resurface years later as an Arcane advisor to Empress Celene.
Sera – Sera is a formidable archer of Elven descent.
Solas – Like Sera, Solas is of the Elven people. Solas is however, an apostate mage.
Varric Tethras – Varric is a dwarven rogue, merchantman and companion of the Champion of Kirkwall.
Thamond – Thamond is a human captain serving within the ranks of the Inquisition.
Vivienne – Vivienne is a former senior enchanter of the mages circle that joins Inquisition and its ranks to help the other mages.
Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.