More Dragon Age 2 Details Revealed!

I’m sure that you die-hard Bioware cultist fan-boys have been drooling on your crotches as you absent-mindedly click your mice, in search any scrap of information regarding the sequel to their sexy RPG, Dragon Age: Origins. Well, I was so kind as to gather some information regarding Dragon Age 2 for you fiends, so clean your faces off and pay attention, fools! There seems to be plenty of intriguing aspects of this sequel that have made me all the more eager to lay my clutches upon it and create the most dashing, cruel, and handsome Hawke that Ferelden will ever see. Apparently the events of the sequel begin as the tale of Origins is still taking place. A different style of story narrative will unfold as your Hawke makes moves and creates history. A few tweaks have been made regarding dialogue and the devilishly entertaining morality system. There is potentially dubious talk of altering the combat system and more. Let’s see what flavor of madness Dragon Age 2 will bring to the table.

The Man Himself: Hawke

Gone are the days in which you begin your quest as a Grey Warden with the intent to rid your lands of the nefarious Arch demon and his pestilential Dark Spawn hordes. You are now Hawke, the champion of some place called Kirkwall. Are you impressed? You remember that town called Lothering? It ended getting besieged by those bastard Dark Spawn in the games predecessor? Well, Hawke was there. He saw it go down. Yup, you quicker Dragon age fans might have jumped ahead of the class and pondered “So that means we all have to use the same origin story?” Yes! That is the case. We will all start the game as a human named Hawke in the town Lothering as it gets booty stomped by those ugly beasts. No more of that silent hero garbage though! Our man can finally speak up and run the show, as he very well should! The dialogue system has been tweaked with that of Mass Effect in mind. So you will be able to shape this Hawke in terms on appearance and class, as well as personality, but you are still creating the mythology behind a key character in Ferelden history. Sounds fairly appealing to me!

A Decade of Myth

This time around, just when you thought you had those brilliant madmen at Bioware pegged, they switch up their narrative style on you. The tale of Hawke will take place spanning over a decade. Say he was rumored to have prevailed against all odds at some battle, as told by firelight years later, it will be you performing the deeds they speak of. Apparently, portions of the story are being told by one character to another. One character relating a tale to another regarding some gray area concerning the bloody history of Hawke. I imagine they start with a cut scene of two weirdos talking about the guy behind his back, and then as the narrative gets good, the focus will shift to the perspective of the hero himself. Though there will be no importing of characters from the previous game, your decisions from the previous play will affect the world your current Hawke will reside in. Yes, your decisions and choices will be imported and have a dynamic effect on the world. The team at Bioware also wants emphasis not just on Hawke, but also on the world of Dragon Age, the lore that surrounds it, and how you will play a part in the shaping of its history. Sounds to me like there is room for potential story convolution here, but their writers have always seemed solid in the past, so I am eager to see how well the story is told.

Morality and Reactions

One of my personal favorite aspects of Bioware games is their whole emphasis on available choices affecting the outcome of the game. It has really help make my game experience feel personalized and always contributes greatly to a games replay value. So it comes as a pleasant surprise to read that they intend to place further emphasis on this facet of their game and how you will really get to enjoy it. For instance; now that the game spans a decade you will get to see how your decisions affect the greater scheme of things as year’s progress. They are claiming that you’ll be able to see results from your decisions rather swiftly in this title, and that this game will be much more reactionary than the previous. I fear that, in an effort to cram as much as possible in the game, they may cut the duration of the various time periods. It also makes me wonder…if you’re Hawke lays waste to some dungeon and he gets mad leveled-up and is sporting some sexy gear; does it all just carry over the years? A couple years can pass and your wardrobe, items, and skills are exactly the same? Of course, your choices and actions will resonate with your party as well. It seems as though they are no longer allowing party members to just quit on you. In Dragon Age, you could not keep Leliana as your rogue and be an evil character, which further limited your options. Now characters can dislike you (even gain bonuses from disliking you) but will remain by your side. Unless you can kill them or something equally devious, that is. This does leave more room to truly play the game as you desire, not cater to the judgmental Leliana or the fussy Alistair. The idea of my decisions and alliances shaping a world is a truly tantalizing thought. I must surely try my hand at it! I can’t wait to make the cold-blooded decisions that will place my Hawke as the most nefarious fiend to ever grace the Free Marshes. I intend to kidnap children, pilfer loot, use seduction as a weapon, and other deeds of the sort.

Tweaked Battle-System

It seems the battle-system from Dragon Age will get a bit of some work done for Dragon Age 2. Now the fighting was solid for the game, it seems where they intend to improve upon is making it so that you truly have to alter your tactics with your class in mind. In the previous installment, there were times where a dual-wielding rogue could feel just like a weaker warrior, especially when his grenades and traps are gone. In this sequel, they intend to combat that by further growing the character skill trees and adding further depth to the abilities and spells. Perhaps they intend to allow you to customize spells for specific uses? Could individual spells have their own skill trees? That could be fun stuff indeed! In the DAO you could combine spells like Cone of Cold and Stone Fist to shatter enemies; such a thought makes me ponder as to what further spell combinations will be implemented in this RPG. They are also speeding the battles up, trying to do away with that whole clumsy feel of a character fulfilling his orders. There is also talk of allowing for multiple characters abilities to work together for accumulative effects on your targets. I’m sure there will be more pleasant surprises to stumble upon as you accidentally combine spells and abilities for devastating results.

I hope I’ve satisfied some of you internet-zombies and your lust for Dragon Age 2 information is temporarily satisfied. So we revealed a little bit about the man himself; Hawke. I’m not sure how I feel about everybody sharing the same origin story but I’m sure the choices allowed in the will make for a unique experience and plenty of replay value. I also have concerns regarding the story being broken up to span an eventful decade. Sounds like good story telling, I just hope that game time and exploration opportunities do not suffer in turn. I always anticipate the engaging and often amusing choices and moral decisions that are waiting to be bumbled by someone such as I. All that talk about the depth of the new battle-system has me eager to shed some Ferelden blood with spell combos and abilities. Despite a few minor concerns, I am quite looking forward to setting up shop as a dude named Hawke from some place called Kirkwall. I’ll be sure to keep you fiends in the know as I learn more.

Joseph Bryant – SwiftGlassEater