The Dragon Age games hold a special place in my gaming heart/library—Dragon Age Origins was a transcendental (and I don’t use that word very often) game that not only pushed the envelope of my pre-existing notions of what a Role Playing Game can be but it’s also the very first game where I felt myself emotionally involved in it’s rich story, world and characters in ways that very few games have managed to made me do. And I did enjoy Dragon Age 2 a lot, too, despite it’s many flaws (most of which stem from it’s short development time). Although it was a far cry from it’s predecessor in terms of world design and scale, the newly added flourishes to it’s combat did balance out things for me. In the end I felt DA2’s gameplay was an evolved version of it’s predecessor and a step in the right direction.
Sadly, I couldn’t get to play Dragon Age: Inquisition cause EA decided not to release the game in my country (India) but after watching tons of gameplay videos and story related content and reading lots of feedback posts from the players themselves on both the better and worse aspects of the game, it’s safe to say that I got a fairly adequate viewpoint (pun intended) on what Inquisition did get right and what it didn’t.
To start off, Inquisition’s MMO-style fetchquests (which were far too many) were a huge letdown for the series, and it’s combat, although ambitious and something that aimed to be sort of a ‘best of both worlds’ experience from the previous two games, actually ended up being worse than both of them. In short, Origins still holds the best narrative experience and DA2 is still the preferred choice for the gameplay while Inquisition is regarded as the more ‘forgettable’ entry between the three.
But before I get to the upcoming 4th installment of the series titled Dragon Age Dreadwolf, there’s something I need to confess. I know I’m probably in the minority here, but I do adore how in each subsequent entry, Bioware consistently tries to evolve the gameplay and they’re not afraid to significantly alter some of the core components in order to bring whole new strides (as we saw in both the Mass Effect and the Dragon Age series of games) in it. Now of course, the result is a bit of ‘hit-or-miss’ and frankly, there have been more misses than hits in the past couple of titles for the studio, but I still admire their forward-thinking approach in each of their games.
Now to cut through the thick of things real quick, while I’m sure that Bioware will be bringing in a lot of evolutionary new changes in how the narrative works in Dragon Age Dreadwolf, this article will solely focus on the most memorable aspect that there is in a Videogame, which is the Gameplay. A lot of the complaints in Inquisition were centered around it’s combat which many felt as kind of ‘watered-down’ and lacking in depth compared to it’s bretheren. Nerfing the Mage class by limiting the number of spells and entirely removing some of the more powerful spell trees present in it’s predecessors, taking out the Cross Class Combos and the full fledged micromanagement of all characters like both Origins and Dragon Age 2 had, are some of the main reasons for these complaints. The removal of these staple, key mechanics that have given the Dragon Age games their own unique identity, is why many felt that Inquisition severely lacked in depth compared to it’s predecessors.
The recent few titles from Bioware have seen the devs making the gameplay more geared towards casual players, who would basically jump into the combat button mashing instead of taking their time to delve deep into the stats, skills and the more nuanced elements of an RPG. It’s clear to anyone at this point that much of the ‘streamlining’ of the past few Bioware titles are clearly efforts to make their games both increasingly accessible to newcomers as well as making it feel rewarding for the veteran RPG lovers. Inquisition was no doubt made with the intention to bridge the gap between these two disparate demographics but clearly didn’t become that.
But from my viewpoint, the previous title in the Dragon Age line-up, namely Dragon Age 2, already did a darn good job at being both straight up, in-your-face action RPG and tactful, strategic playground. After playing Origins, DA2 felt like a breath of fresh air that managed to make the overall gameplay experience a lot more exciting and fluid while still retaining the deep, tactical aspects of Origins. Moreover, it felt like a true evolution in the right direction in terms of RPG action and tactical depth and nothing really felt amiss in terms of gameplay variety and richness.
So if the gameplay of Dragon Age Dreadwolf manages to just be a lot like DA2 but with tons of smaller, quality-of-Life changes on top, it’s a win, at least for me. I don’t think Bioware needs to try to reinvent the wheels any further—as they’ve already achieved that (or came damn close to) in one of their previous games. While it’s almost a given that they’d still be revamping the gameplay nonetheless, personally that gives me more concern than faith cause it was already damned good in one of their earlier titles and it’s quite possible that they’d try to fix something that’s not broken and end up with a game that’s closer to Inquisition than their more, true-to-form titles like Origins and DA2.
So in a nutshell, whatever Dragon Age Dreadwolf’s unique blend of RPG-action turns out to be, it needs to bring back the sheer enjoyment and flair of DA2 with it. Of course it’ll be even better if it can inherit some of Origins’ focused tactical slow burns in it’s DNA as well. A proper ‘best of both worlds’ experience (which Inquisition had sought to become but couldn’t) that surpasses both it’s predecessors in whole new ways would be a real treat and something that’s destined for greatness, though.
Ultimately, it all remains to be seen, in Time. But till then, here’s hoping that Bioware delivers yet another genre-redefining, high watermark of an RPG experience with Dragon Age Dreadwolf that’ll be cherished and celebrated for years to come.
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