Surprise: A developer is producing a new sequel for a popular franchise.
Today, BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah confirmed that the Dragon Age team is working on Dragon Age III: Inquisition and has been for the last two years. Darrah wouldn’t detail any story beats, but he did say that the “Inquisition” subtitle is indicative of the general narrative. Sounds like anyone who doesn’t attend the church of dragons is going to get the rack. …
“Recently, I said that we didn’t want to talk about Dragon Age III unless we had something to show,” Darrah wrote in his open letter to fans. “I’m trying to stick to that plan and won’t be revealing much today. That said, a lot of information and rumors have surfaced recently, and we don’t want to hide from them. There are a bunch of things that I really want to share with you, but I want to do this right and doing it right requires some more time.”
Besides the name, Darrah confirmed that many of the same developers from the first two Dragon Age games are working on this third title. He also said the game operates on a new foundation.
“We are working on a new engine which we believe will allow us to deliver a more expansive world, better visuals, more reactivity to player choices, and more customization,” Darrah wrote. “We’ve started with Frostbite 2 from [developer] DICE as a foundation to accomplish this.” Frostbite 2 is the graphical powerhouse that games like Battlefield 3 run on.
Dragon Age: Origins, released in 2009, was critically acclaimed for its sturdy, classic role-playing-game structure. Many criticized the 2011 followup, Dragon Age II, for reusing locations and lacking a sense of epicness that many associate with fantasy-RPGs. BioWare has suggested that Dragon Age III: Inquisition doesn’t reuse in-game locations in the same way.