If you miss dwarfing or elfing it up in Dragon Age, the next one is all for you.
Playable races were an integral part of the first Dragon Age, but Dragon Age 2 ditched non-humans in favour of dude/dudette hero Hawke, a choice that series fans questioned (among many other choices in DA2).
Dragon Age: Inquisition, out next fall for PC, Xbox One, PS4, 360, and PS3, will return to tradition. Your hero, the person in charge of the eponymous Inquisition (an ancient organisation that has been resuscitated to fight off menacing demons), can be human, dwarf, elf, and possibly a fourth, if the folks at BioWare decide to add qunari.
And yes, BioWare assures us that NPCs will treat you differently based on your race, like they did in Origins.
You can read more about those details in the cover story of this month’s Game Informer, which is dedicated to the third Dragon Age. There are some party details (the dwarf Varric is playable, as is Cassandra, who interrogated him last game — but no playable Morrigan); some world details (closer to Skyrim than Dragon Age 2); and other interesting tidbits. It’s sounding pretty neat so far.
Comments
27 responses to “Dragon Age: Inquisition Lets You Choose Your Hero’s Race”
Better than the most prolific and awesome word imaginable. This will be the saving grace and indeed possibly the best in the series. My girlfriend will miss me when this comes out 🙂
Hitler will be pleased.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep_OTLZOQsU
Hope they get rid of the awful dialogue choices wheel in favour of the system used in Origins as well.
They’re not, and I’m more than fine with that. The only difference between a wheel and a list is aesthetics, and I think the wheel looks a lot better than a list.
More than aesthetics. Actually seeing what your character is saying is infinitely more satisfying than choosing a brief option that sounds like what you most want to say, only for it to be completely different which is beyond frustrating, Mass Effect also has this problem, only it’s most annoying in DA since the Origins system was great.
I still miss this though.
http://i2.listal.com/image/212937/600full-planescape%3A-torment-screenshot.jpg
I agree with it being frustrating, but as I said below to mypetmonkey, that’s an issue of the paraphrasing, not the wheel itself, and they’ve said they’re working very hard on fixing it.
I can’t agree. The problem with the wheel is that by paraphrasing you only allow for extremes. I don’t think I’ve seen the system well implemented, particularly not in a bioware game.
Would there still be problems if instead of just three options on the wheel, there’s like 5? While I’ve never had problems with the dialogue wheel myself, I understand how some of the dialogue seem generically polarised, but that’s an issue with BioWare deciding to limit just 3 options to the wheel or rather, them sticking to a template for dialogue. Control sticks do go 8 ways, why they only throw 3 per side is valid question I suppose.
EDIT: The greater problem imo with dialogue is not being limited to 3 options but rather what is written in the end. having an entire list of options is meaningless if half of them don’t amount to anything significant (at least imo). I tend to mix a fair bit of my own imagination when it comes to RPG dialogue but that may just be me.
When the dialogue wheel gets the boot as well I will feel safer:
“Do you want this?”
Blue) Yes
Purple) Derp
Red) No
But what really get voice acted:
Blue) Yes & I would love to go to bed with you.
Purple) Derp.
Red) No I would not now fuck off and die. I hate you so much. Why are you even here?
As opposed to:
1: Yes
2: Derp
3: No
Your issue isn’t with the wheel, it’s with how paraphrasing was handled; something they’ve already said they’re working to improve for the third game.
Give me a texbox:
1) Yes blaaah blah
2) No blah blah
3) Maybe blah
4) Since it’s Wednesday blah blah blah
5) Since you asked here is my 20 minute theory on blah blah blah
6) That reminds me of that one time blah de blah blah
7) No I would not now fuck off and die. I hate you so much. Why are you even here?
And actually say what is written as each option…. It’s not that hard. The wheel causes the paraphrasing. Textbox options work… although I guess its a bit double when you’ve read the option and then have to sit there and listen to it again after selecting it.
Sod… I want a silent protagonist.
If it interests you, DA:O was actually limited to only being able to show 6 options at a time. Also, it was different to the wheel in that you could see all the options at once, but in terms of how the conversations worked, it was actually pretty similar.
For example, with the wheel you’d have 3 options that advance the conversation forward, then you’d have the investigate menu, which would have 3 options that don’t advance the conversation forward. In DA:O, you’d have 3 options that advance the conversation, and 3 that didn’t, but the difference is the 3 that didn’t weren’t hidden behind the investigate option.
I read that they did try displaying full dialogue with the wheel, but it didn’t look too good, and as you said, people found it annoying to read the full option, then hear it spoken.
The real question is, where is my gender slider?
DERP… Wrong place
but also the tone of the response was so clear cut in DA2. You know that top = good, middle = sarcastic smart ass, bottom = bad
DA:O had the entire reply and it wasn’t so clear cut as the above
Sounds like your choice of race may not actually matter though, ala Mass Effect ‘origin’ choice. And opposed to Dragon Age Origins where it altered your entire introduction, to both the game world, the races and your place in it. (as a few of the interactions later on, though not as well as it could have.)
If so… then they kind of missed the point, people liked the race choices in origins so much because they actually mattered, they had an impact on context at the very least. Which somewhat ironically speaks volumes on the last half decade of Bioware.
It’s great they’re ‘trying’ to listen, even if they’re still trying to be lazy about implementing choice into their games, and I truly want this one to be a return to form, but it will be with great caution and prior investigation that I approach Dragon Age 3. Fingers crossed.
Yes!!!
Also… there are now horses.
Fast food for the dragons!
Also, unlike part 2… will there be dragons in DRAGON Age?
There was a dragon in DA2… and I think there were some drakes too.
This is GI’s cover image, I don’t know if that’s a dragon or a dinosaur:
http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/electronic-arts2013/dragonageinquisition/7888816/daifullcover.jpg
There were tiny teeny ones… there were a few but I’ll be damned if there was anything as impressive as part 1.
Indeed, still seems tiny. Here’s Flemeth from part 1 for comparison:
Nah.. they’re about the same size.
Indeed. A bit of a problem given part 1s hhasa seemingly wider range of attacks too. Ttlhen again da2 was majorly rushed…
@weresmurf
The dev cycle on DA1 was about 5 years though wasn’t it?
@banderdash On and off yes, that has no bearing on the outright fact that DA2 was a rushed, boring piece of shit.
YAY character creation! Though I’m both intrigued and puzzled as to this Inquisition and what purpose it serves lore-wise. On one hand it could be interesting, but on another seems to be redundant with the Grey Wardens and serves merely to be a clean slate. Though I guess it could have predated the Wardens and served as some sort of inspiration.
All in all, more excited than i was about 2…
Any word on transferring 360/PS3 saves to X1/PS4?
Good question. Also PC to console, I played the first two on PC but now I only have an ultrabook so PC gaming isn’t really in the cards for me… 🙁
An RPG that lets you pick the race of your playable character? AMAZING GROUNDBREAKING STUFF.