It has been a long time since the last What We Know article and a great deal of information has come out since then (E3 and GamesCom in particular). Be forewarned of spoilers from the previous games and published materials below.
Here's the list of officially released material related to the game thus far:
Asunder (novel written by David Gaider, December, 2011) - features Cole, Evangeline, Rhys, Wynne, and Shale (Leliana also appears); neither Shale nor Wynne (for different reasons) will be appearing in DAI
The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak, Until We Sleep (comics written by David Gaider, February, August 2012, and March, 2013) - features Alistair, Isabela, and Varric (Sten also appears)
The World of Thedas (world book, April)
E3 Teaser (June 10) - announcing the fall 2014 release date; shows scenes from the Crestwood demo below, along with an attack by the Inquisition on a Grey Warden keep (about which we still know nothing); the Fade tear and other odds & sods along with trailer-made shots of Iron Bull and Morrigan
A World Unveiled (August 20) - besides environmental shots (including a new dragon), it largely recycles images from the E3 trailer, as well as uses camera shots from concept art and the World of Thedas book
Live Demo Play (aka Crestwood demo) (posted September 1, fan recorded)
Live Demo Play (November 12; fan recorded, as above but includes a few missing minutes) - the Crestwood demo features Varric, Cassandra, and Vivienne dealing with an attack on the village of Crestwood by Red Templars, before switching over to the same group seizing a keep in the Western Approach and finally fighting a dragon
Discover the Dragon Age (March 6, 2014) - a collection of environment shots
The Masked Empire (novel written by Patrick Weekes, April) - features Empress Celene, Grand Duke Gaspard du Chalons, Briala, and Michel de Chevin (Leliana also appears)
Gameplay Trailer (April 22) - features the male, British voice of the Inquisitor; focusses on the initial set-up of the game; a lot of the footage is new, but there are interspliced pieces from the previous trailers (most prominently the Grey Warden attack from E3)
Lead Them or Fall (June 9) - conceptually it's similar to the previous trailer in that it largely sets up the premise (same voice is used); footage includes a lot of elements from the concurrent E3 demo, with very little other recycled material
Stand Together (June 12) - the only female Inquisitor trailer (British voice), a mix of new and recycled material introducing a few of the companions
E3 Demo (part one) (July 9; originally shown at E3 in June) - features Iron Bull, Sera, and Vivienne dealing with the Mage-Templar conflict; shows mounts in use for the first time and includes a dragon fight
E3 Demo (part two) (July 11) - features Dorian, Iron Bull, Sera, and Leliana as the group fights the Venatori in an optional path towards ending the Mage-Templar conflict
Gameplay Features (Combat) (July 29) - shows off combat in the game
Enemy of Thedas (August 13) - completely new footage focussed on the premise; includes confirmation that Hawke will re-appear
GamesCom Demo (August 13; this is just the portion played at the EA presentation) - features Cole, Blackwall, and Solas as they engage in an optional quest to free Inquisition soldiers from an Avvar faction
GamesCom Demo (August 15; a different portion of the demo via an IGN interview; the chatter covers up almost all the dialogue, sadly) - the same group as above, but an earlier part of that quest
We'll start in the beginning with the premise: Dragon Age: Inquisition takes place three years after the events of Dragon Age 2; the books Asunder and The Masked Empire occur right before the game (the former focusses on the mage-templar conflict, while the latter illustrates the beginnings of the Orlesian civil war). The game is not a direct sequel to either DA2 or DAO, in the sense that you are not playing either Hawke or the Hero of Ferelden (or even the Warden-Commander, for those who made the ultimate sacrifice of their Warden in DAO). The events of the past games impacts what occurs (more on that below), but the game has been designed to be newbie friendly. The devs have said the major themes are faith and leadership. Cameron Lee offers a succinct description of the premise (via Nerd Alert at E3):
You are at a peace conference between the mages and the templars...and a massive explosion happens--wipes out everyone [but] you get blasted into the Fade--which doesn't normally happen, people don't go physically into the Fade, but you do, and as a result of that you become marked. So you have this mark on your hand and it allows you to manipulate the Fade in various ways--there's a big breach in the sky between the Fade and the real world--demons are pouring through, lot's of little rifts opening up all over the place, and because of that mark, you're really the only one that can actually do something about it, but the other weird thing is that chaos is starting to spread all over the world--different nations are in chaos, different factions have been weakened, people are at war with each other--which is all very convenient. So as a player you get to form an Inquisition, which is a big organisation full of soldiers, spies, merchants, politicians, all with the goal of uncovering the truth of who is behind this, what is happening, and then bring stability to the world.
Lee was even more specific about the opening itself with AusGamers:
At the beginning of the game when the head of the Chantry and the head of the Mage's faction they're going into the Temple of Sacred Ashes to this peace talk, and they're all killed. There's this massive explosion and this breach in the sky opening up, and the Chantry's in absolute chaos. It's headless. You've got infighting between different factions, you've got people saying screw it let's all retreat back to Val Royeaux and elect a new leader et cetera. So the formation of the inquisition is kind of always like a plan B that the head of the Chantry was considering, and then Cassandra starts to bring this all up after the events at the temple. And she's doing that because she knows that the Chantry was considering it and that the Chantry is just going to run off and talk about stuff rather than taking any action. So she sets things in motion via this loophole, picking up the Inquisition.
One of the choices the Inquisitor gets to make when s/he survives is whether or not to embrace a religious meaning to the event (there was a really good quote for this I can't find now, but you can see the sentiment here). I believe this is why we see the Inquisitor referred to as "the Herald of Andraste" in the GamesCom trailer, but not in the other demos (just "Inquisitor" there).
There have been a couple of interesting things said in the various game trailers about what happens in the beginning. In the latest a voice (which sounds like Alexius to me, the leader of the Venatori--more about them below) tells the Inquisitor:
You are a mistake. You should have never existed.
There's an implication from Dorian in the E3 demo that Alexius is directly or partially responsible for the rift:
Was it worth it? Everything that you've done to the world?
Alexius implies he's attempted to fix things and failed, but I'd take this all with a grain of salt since the dialogue is without full context. We also get an interesting comment from our Inquisitor in the Lead Them of Fall:
Chaos has left its mark upon me.
This might be a metaphor, a reference to the mark on the Inquisitor's hand, or something more specific (perhaps an oblique reference to Zazikel, the Old God of Chaos who started the second Blight).
Along with the tear in the Fade and war between the mages and templars, there's a civil war in Orlais between Empress Celene and Grand Duke Gaspard de Chalons (along with an Elven rebellion in Halamshiral), "The Empire is falling apart" (to quote Asunder). None of the information provided by the developers has touched on the specifics of how this material will impact the Inquisition (albeit we can deduce Morrigan is involved), so it's difficult to judge how much the Inquisitor will deal with it directly (some believe Briala from the aforementioned book is shown in the concept art below, but that's just speculation). I thought I read a quote from Cameron Lee who said we would decide who sits on the throne of Orlais, but as I can't find it, so take that as unconfirmed. Mike Laidlaw briefly mentions the political element to Machinima, saying there was crossover from The Masked Empire, but didn't get into specifics.
I'd initially been under the impression that the Inquisitor founds the Inquisition, but Mary Kirby makes it clear that it's Cassandra who creates the fledgling organisation. In the game lore, the first Inquisition was formed with:
[the] goal of protecting the people from the tyranny of magic in whatever form it might take; blood mages, abominations, cultists or heretics. A loose association of Andrastian hard-liners, the group combed the land in search of these threats and some say theirs was a reign of terror. Others say they were cast in a negative light by history because their investigations and even application of justice, protecting both mages and common people impartially, crossed too many powerful groups. In these accounts it is suggested that the group was already known as the Seekers of Truth and that the "Inquisition" moniker was perhaps pejorative
In the real world "Inquisition" is a loaded term (something I explored awhile back), and its use here is meant to evoke a reaction (Cameron Lee said the primarily meaning for the devs was a group dedicated to uncovering the truth). While your Inquisition won't be torturing unbelievers like the historical version, it could be a very harsh organisation (including abandoning innocents to their fate, ala the Crestwood demo from last year). Regardless, as the Inquisitor you have a great deal of political power:
you have rights and powers that other citizens don't have, and you can use those to great effect. At the same time you also have to make decisions, moral decisions, about what's going to happen. Do you want to save a village from burning, or do you want that village to burn down?
Lee added an interesting tidbit about the Mage-Templar conflict:
You can bring it into the conflict between the mages and the templars once and for all very early in the game, and you can align with one of those--you can decide who you want to bring into your Inquisition. When you make that choice you will see large pieces of content which are exclusive to that choice.
So there are two branching paths right at the beginning of the game--choosing a side, or attempting to mediate between the two--albeit given that there's a main antagonist the conflict is a symptom rather than cause of all the difficulties (we know from the latest trailer that "the Elder One" is our antagonist).
The Red Templars are an enemy faction who have made the switch from regular lyrium (supplied by the Chantry until the Navarran Accord is annulled by Seeker Lambert in Asunder) to red lyrium (the substance discovered in Dragon Age 2 that drove both Meredith and Varric's brother Bartrand mad). We now know Red Lyrium is an anti-magic substance, an opposite force to normal (blue) Lyrium. This faction was featured in the Crestwood demo, but the demo did not delve very deeply into their story (we do not know, unlike the Venatori below, who their leader is).
The mage antagonists are the Venatori cultists, who appear extensively in the second part of the E3 demo (including their leader, Alexius). It's not entirely clear if they have formal support from the Imperium (I doubt it), despite using Tevinter symbols. David Gaider has said neither faction is a mindless enemy which indicates there's a way to negotiate or deal with them in a way that isn't simply killing them off (or, presumably, simply picking one side or the other as Lee suggests above).
Beyond those two (and the civil war), we know nothing about the Elder One or what its motive for the chaos in Thedas is; from the unverified leaked achievement list it appears as though Corypheus (Legacy DLC for DA2) is involved somehow. David Gaider has confirmed there will be other factions as well, but couldn't discuss the particulars. It remains unclear if demons coming from the Fade are disorganised or (at some point) organised enemies. There's a Q&A over the approach of the writers to their villains which you can read here.
Who is the Inquisitor? The voice talent has been revealed and consists of two choices per gender, one British accent, one American: Alix Wilton Regan/Harry Haddon-Paton (British), Sumalee Montano/Jon Curry (American). We are a male or female of any race (Human, Dwarf, Elf, or Qunari), whose only restrictions are that Dwarves are from the surface and cannot be mages, while Elves must be Dalish, and the Qunari must be Vashoth (those never part of the Qun). I'm curious about why there are Elven and Dwarven restrictions, but it seems designed to fit the backgrounds (now revealed on the official website) for each race. The surnames from each race are set (the same order as above): Trevelyan, Cadash, Lavellan, and Adaar. The surname with the most direction connection to past player experience is Cadash, as that's Shale's background (DAO: The Stone Prisoner DLC). The Human background is via the noble family of Ostwick in the Free Marches; according to the DAI website, the mage-version was part of the Circle delegation that goes to the Temple of Sacred Ashes, whereas the warrior or rogue go for much the same purpose absent the Circle connection. For Elves your clan travelled the northern Free Marches before you were sent as a spy to the Temple negotiations. Dwarves are lyrium smugglers for the Carta (confirming speculation from a couple of months ago) living in various cities in the Free Marches, who (like the Elves) are sent to spy. Finally, Qunari Inquisitors are part of the Valo-kas mercenary company who are hired to keep the peace at the negotiations. David Gaider has said there's more race-specific content for DAI than there was in the origin stories in DAO (Allan Schumacher adds there are side missions specific to your background). Speaking of race, the specific benefits of racial choice have been revealed: Humans get a bonus ability point, Qunari a bonus to health (50), Dwarves a resistance to magic (25%), and Elves a ranged defense bonus (25%).
Who joins the Inquisitor as part of the Inquisition? The entire group has been revealed.
Left to right: Cullen (DAO-DA2), Vivienne, Varric (DA2), Cole (Asunder), Solas, Cassandra (DA2-Dawn of the Seeker), Iron Bull, Dorian, Leliana (DAO-DA2), Sera, Josephine, and Blackwall. There are official bios for all--interestingly, every character from 2012's survey leak are present (not a huge surprise given that DAI was originally a Fall 2013 release). Not all of those listed will be companions, as there are only nine who can travel with you; Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine are NPC's. The gender split is close (7 to 5), albeit 6 and 3 when it comes to companions (not the biggest of deals, but an interesting choice given BioWare's conscientiousness when it comes to inclusiveness). I'll briefly go over each:
Cullen (voiced by Greg Ellis, written by Brianne Battye): the templar is a selectively popular secondary character from both previous games; I think it's due to his popularity that his potential death (in The Darkspawn Chronicles DLC) has been retconned out (that's not a criticism, simply an observation). I say "selectively popular" because we know from the 2012 survey leak that he was originally slated to be a companion and as such was the only one removed from that list. Cullen leads the military arm of the Inquisition, but as an advisor cannot be part of the party or controlled (although he will presumably assist in the select missions he's along for). He is a female-only romance option, but more about that element below.
Leliana (voiced by Corinne Kempa, written by Sheryl Chee): another popular character from the previous games, where again the possibility of her death (in DAO's Urn of the Sacred Ashes quest) has been retconned away. She also briefly appears in Asunder and The Masked Empire novels. She is in charge of spies and assassination for the Inquisition. Like Cullen, she cannot join your party, although as we've seen in the E3 demo she will fight on the occasions that she's present for a mission. She is not a romance option (presumably because she could have been for players in DAO).
Josephine (voiced by Allegra Clark, written by Sylvia Feketekuty): a new character hailing from Antiva, she's in charge of diplomacy and merchants for the Inquisition; according to her bio she's an old friend of Leliana's and she is a bisexual romance option. She remains the least explored character when it comes to reveals, being featured in no scenes whatsoever other than group shots and the war table (we have yet to hear her voice).
Varric Tethras (voiced by Brian Bloom, written by Mary Kirby): the popular character from DA2 returns (he was also featured in the DA comics, The Silent Grove etc). He is the only returning character who returns as a companion, something virtually unique to him in the franchise. We know BioWare writers like to change their characters over time (think of Anders from Awakening versus DA2), and I expect we'll see some of that here. He hasn't been ruled in or out as a romance, but I wager he will be (DAI is all about giving fans what they want, and plenty of people want Varric) [sadly Mike Laidlaw has crushed this theory]. He was featured extensively in the Crestwood demo.
Cassandra Pentaghast (voiced by Miranda Raison, written by David Gaider): she appeared previously in the narrative sequences with Varric in DA2, and was then featured in the anime Dawn of the Seeker. As the right hand of the divine and the creator of the Inquisition, I suspect no one will be as loyal to it. She is a male-only romance option and was featured heavily in the Crestwood demo.
Vivienne (I haven't seen the voice announcement [Indira Varma], written by Mary Kirby): the Rivaini-born mage was about to be appointed First Enchanter of the Circle in Montsimmard, but due to the events of Inquisition that does not occur. Not a lot has been said about her outside her ambition, but to me she feels a lot like Aveline (DA2)--a pro-establishment voice. Her romance status hasn't been stated, but I'd be shocked if she wasn't an option. Vivienne appeared in both the PAX and E3 demos.
Cole (voiced by James Norton, written by Patrick Weekes): debuted in the novel Asunder, he seems to be like Justice from Awakening in that he's a spirit inhabiting the body of someone who died. Devs have confirmed his crisis of identity and purpose from the book is over and he's entering a new phase. He's not a romance possibility, and he's also the only character we know for certain that is optional (although there will be more who are). He appears in the GamesCom demo, but we aren't presented with much of his banter.
Dorian (I haven't seen the voice announcement, written by David Gaider): the Tevinter mage is a maverick in his own land and comes to assist the Inquisition against his former teacher Alexius and the other forces arrayed against him. He is a male-only romance option and appeared in the E3 demo.
Iron Bull (voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr, written by Patrick Weekes): the Ben-Hassrath Qunari is essentially on hiatus after suffering from PTSD in his role within the Qun; he's largely "gone native" living in Thedas. He was heavily featured in the E3 demo. He's a bisexual romance option.
Sera (voiced by Robyn Addison, written by Luke Kristjanson): the city elf is a very popular character with the devs and what little banter from her that has been shown makes their feelings understandable (for whatever reason BioWare rogues are always entertaining). We know she's a member of the Friends of Red Jenny, a group referenced in both previous games, but about which we know virtually nothing. Given her background she seems to fill the role of "the voice of the common man." She is a female-only romance.
Solas (voiced by Gareth David-Lloyd, written by Patrick Weekes): an apostate elven mage who is an expert on the Fade; I think his role is in part to challenge assumptions. We've sadly heard precious little from him in released footage (despite appearing in the GamesCom demo). We do not yet know if he is a romance option, but I doubt it.
Blackwall (I haven't seen the voice announcement, written by Sheryl Chee): the Grey Warden is a highly committed person close to the end of his life as a Warden (nearing his Calling). We know precious little about him (despite appearing in the GamesCom demo), and he's been the least discussed companion, so he's hard to judge (he also has an Aveline-like feel to me). An odd bit of trivia, he's referenced in The World of Thedas book.
Assembling this group happens quite early in the game (within the first 30 minutes if I remember correctly), and it is possible to miss out on one or two (although David Gaider said efforts have been made to prevent players from missing out on any). Mike Laidlaw and Mark Darrah (first link) confirmed you can lose companions--down to one apparently if you make an effort to chase them away (I'd guess Cassandra is the core person who remains until the end), but your advisors will never leave. The image above is suggestive of The Last Supper, but the similarities are superficial (especially given the Round Table look in the Stand Together promo; I did look at the former implication which you can read via the link above--there's also this piece from Lena Drake).
Mike Laidlaw talked about the team being inspired by Game of Thrones for characterisation and storytelling:
I think that where Game of Thrones really shines, is with characters that you really care about and that are human, but flawed—and that's something that we've always strove for as well. Fantasy works well when you have people, people with all their ups and downs grounding against the wacky, you know, the mages and the demons and what have you…that's something that Martin does really well in my opinion. He makes characters that even though academically you know they're the bad guy, or academically you know they're wrong, he puts you in their head and helps you to understand whats going on with them.
I think the Architect (Awakening) is a good example of this kind of writing. Cameron Lee adds:
Everyone talks about BioWare’s stories as being what we do, but inside the studio, what we often talk about is the characters. What we think we do really well is characters, and KotOR’s [Knights of the Old Republic] characters are fantastic, and I think Dragon Age: Inquisition’s characters have that same level of backstory to them and depth and emotion and all that sort of stuff.
What about romances? There are eight in DAI (plus one you can flirt with, but not romance), not all of which have been revealed as yet. Thus far we know Cassandra and Cullen (strictly heterosexual), Dorian (for male Inquisitors--here's a great reaction to that from angelarts), Sera (for female Inquisitors), and Iron Bull and Josephine (bisexual). Two of the romances are race-gated, but we don't know which yet (or who the remaining two are, although I think Vivienne is a no-brainer and that Varric is the other [I'm wrong about the latter, sadly]). Cameron Lee discussed the mechanics of romance:
Romances are not about this sort of gamey approval rating; right so it's not like you can give people flowers and then sleep with them. Romance is a more nuanced and more organic and natural. There's these characters there with strong personalities with their own goals, [so] how you interact with them and how [you] may help or hinder or whatever their goals plays a part in that--a part in how your relationship builds with them as a "normal" relationship; and then from there what part do I want to take.
David Gaider said there are some romances where you can reject sexual advances but continue with the romance; however we cannot get married. CVG emphasized something that's worth remembering when it comes to companion approval and party choices:
Each follower has a set of goals they aim to achieve and consequently it really matters who you take with you on quests--manage your party wrong and they might leave.
Mark Darrah has also said the devs have drawn inspiration for relationships from Persona 4 and The Last of Us in terms of how they flow in the game.
Along with the core group of followers, the Inquisitor is in charge of a large number of men and women, the most significant of which are called agents. Cameron Lee explained the concept to gamermd83, and the essentials follow (second paragraph is from AusGamers, link above):
You earn agents as you essentially build up your Inquisition, and then from that you can use your agents and use that influence and power you built up through the Inquisition to do a variety of things: it could be, hey go and get me this rare crafting material, it could be repair this bridge...it could be I want to go and start to look into this main part of the story. ... There are hundreds of operations that you can send your agents on, and those operations will change depending on the actions and decisions you make throughout the course of the game. ... To progress through major parts of the story you have to have a certain amount of influence, your Inquisition needs to have a certain amount of strength.
All throughout the game you will slowly build up the Inquisition to be in a position of power, people recognise you for who you are and what authority you wield. The Inquisition has three main pillars right, they have a military force lead by one particular character, you've got a secret facet with spies and assassins lead by Leliana from DAO and then you've got a political pillar, which is all about the politics, the backroom deals and the connections you have... not just through nobles but also through merchant houses and stuff like that. And the area you decide to invest in both in terms of how you decide to grow and customise your Inquisition but also the types of content you decide to engage in is all up to the player. So if someone wants to play that kind of Game of Thrones-y political aspect they can definitely do it and that flavours the whole game and it impacts the whole game. They're still going to have to go around and kill some things themselves, but having that powerful political organisation will be reflected as well.
We'll also be sending out companions (and NPC's) on various missions throughout the game (the best demonstration of this was the second part of the E3 demo).
Along with the characters above, others from previous games have been confirmed: Morrigan (from DAO; she was featured in the E3 teaser from last summer and apparently she'll be more "mature"), Flemeth (DAO-2), Alistair (DAO-2), Dagna (DAO), Queen Anora (DAO), and Fiona (The Calling and Asunder). The Alistair inclusion will not occur for those who sacrificed him in Origins (which to my mind means his involvement will be quite limited). There will be an unidentified character from the novel The Masked Empire who can be encountered in a side mission. It's also hard to imagine Empress Celene and Gaspard du Chalons won't make an appearance given the Inquisitor's involvement with the Orlesian civil war.
The developers had hinted that Hawke and the Hero of Ferelden (if alive) will be referenced in some capacity, but I thought we wouldn't see them in person given the huge amount of variations in appearance those characters can have--how wrong I was! A default Hawke has appeared in the latest trailer, and I believe the Hero will appear in-game as well (if alive). From what Mike Laidlaw has said I'd guess we'll get the chance to re-create the appearance of our previous heroes in-game. As for their actual impact, Steve Butts at IGN gives us a hint at the kind of thing we can expect while describing the E3 demo: "You’ll be able to claim the banner points in the game in the name of the Hero of Ferelden." It also appears from the above scene that they may help us in at least one battle.
Returning to the question of the backdrop of DAI, what about our prior actions in DAO and DA2? These can be carried over via the Dragon Age Keep. As Lee explains:
What we wanted to do with the Keep is have that ability for people to be able to recreate their save -- particularly for Gen 4 platforms -- and that's quite a detailed list. There's hundreds and hundreds of choices in there, and most of it's narrated and there's pictures and text and stuff like that. So they should be able to recreate to the same detail their save file through that Dragon Age Keep online process, and then pull that save game down onto any platform.
In the Nerd Alert interview (link above) Lee said there's about 300 different choices to be made (more may be added, although at this point none of the new material will impact the game at release). Lee also said decisions made within DAI will be uploaded to the Keep to be used in future games. There is a default background for newbies or those who want to start fresh: a Dalish Elf was the Hero of Ferelden (Origins) and died ending the Blight (Alistair becomes king), while Hawke is a mage (Dragon Age 2) and sided with them against the templars. David Gaider went on to clarify that their approach to the default world setting was that any time there was a choice of a character being dead or alive, or a plot being unresolved in the previous games, they always went with whatever closed the option to make the game more newbie friendly. At the moment players can have up to five game-states saved in the Keep to use.
Images of the Keep finally leaked and while the original images have subsequently been taken down from their original posting, once on the Internet they are there forever (now available from all sorts of games sites). The simplest description of how the Keep seems to function that I could find (the quote comes from a now-deleted Reddit thread):
it looks like a windows 8 tile system using the same art style as dragon age 2's cutscenes. Each tile - Redcliffe, DA2 companions, etc. Leads to other tiles with a number of decisions associated with them. The user can then get a recap on the choice incase they have forgotten what they did. These decisions account from major things like the landsmeet to smaller things like whether you fed the prisoner at Ostagar.
As interesting as this all is, the only concern I really have is that the Keep will wind up being cluttered with too many decisions that are essentially irrelevant. My hope is that the myriad of decisions (down to the minutia in some cases) have some impact on the game itself.
What about various dangling plot elements from previous games, like the Architect (DAO: Awakening), Morrigan's Old God Baby (DAO), or Corypheus (DA2: Legacy)? In the case of those that were purely optional (so would not exist in the default game setting), I can't imagine they will have significant impact on the storyline. However, all significant plot lines will be addressed in some way if they were involved in your story. As Cameron Lee explained last September (specifically in reference to the Old God Baby):
If players did decide to have a kid with Morrigan, and not all of them did, so that's the thing--I can't talk too much about it, unfortunately--but, you know, certainly if you were to have a kid, you know, that would make you a little bit more human, I would imagine, so you might see something about that.
Nearly all (or perhaps all) the large locations for DAI have been revealed, as IGN describes:
Stretching over two nations [Orlais and Ferelden] with 10 unique terrains ranging from forests to deserts, swamps to mountains, Dragon Age: Inquisition will be absolutely massive when compared to the previous two games. “This is the biggest game in our studio’s history,” Darrah told us. “It’s the largest RPG we’ve ever made. There is more story-based content in Dragon Age: Inquisition than any other BioWare RPG." Noting that this is the first open-world game from BioWare, Mark also let us know that Inquisition “will set the bar for all of our future games.”
These ten regions (there's a lot of the difficulty in the terminology being used--we know from the GamesCom demo that there are "regions" within the Fallow Mire, for instance, which itself is...a region?) are spread across Ferelden (the setting of DAO) and its neighbour Orlais (which includes the Dales). Lady Insanity spoke about there being many regions (in the Fallow Mire-sense) in each nation, which seems to mean that each of these huge areas has both smaller regions to discover and within which are even smaller locations (you can see an example of this idea in the first part of the E3 demo when the Inquisitor fast travels within the Hinterlands--as opposed to the moving from huge area to huge area as seen in the Crestwood demo). We know of the following locations either via the official website or via demos (listed roughly east to west):
-The Hinterlands (confirmed, within Ferelden and includes Redcliffe and apparently Ostagar; it was featured in the E3 demo)
-The Fallow Mire (confirmed via the GamesCom demo; it is near the Hinterlands; it also includes Hargrave's Keep; Joe Juba says he was told it's the smallest "zone" in the game--whatever a "zone" is)
-The Ferelden Bog (confirmed via PC Gamer; it may be in the Hinterlands)
-Crestwood Hills (confirmed via the Crestwood demo; it's in Ferelden; appeared in the PAX demo)
-Frostback Pass (confirmed via the Crestwood demo)
-Therinfal Redoubt (confirmed, although where in Ferelden is uncertain)
-Halamshiral (confirmed, in Orlais and presumably part of a larger region)
-Emprise du Lion (confirmed; within the Dales)
-Exalted Plains (confirmed; within the Dales)
-Emerald Graves (confirmed; within the Dales, perhaps near the Arbor Wilds)
-The Southern Desolation (confirmed via the Crestwood demo; almost certainly in Orlais)
-The Western Approach (confirmed, Orlais and includes Griffon Wing Keep and the Fortress of Adamant; appeared in the PAX demo; the fortress is featured in Asunder)
The maps above are screenshots of what we'll see with the war table and I've identified (or made clear) what's shown from what we've heard, but it's not intended to be completely comprehensive. I assume, incidentally, that the markers that include the Inquisition symbol are areas where we have established keeps, but that's speculation at this point.
The point about the size of areas is worth emphasizing. We know from the demos that the Crestwood Hills region is bigger than all of DA2 combined (apparently 15 minutes in-game to walk from one end to the other), while the Hinterlands are bigger than all of DAO combined. Interestingly, the latter is described as medium-sized, which suggests that Crestwood is (relatively) small and that there are much bigger environments. The girth of these areas is meant to give us the open world experience. As Mike Laidlaw explained to joystiq's Susan Arendt:
"In each level, I wanted there to be at least one cave, one dungeon, one something that no-one tells you to go to," he explained to me. He said that his design team had to "break some old habits" as they were creating the enormous open world that would become Inquisition. Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 both made sure the player knew about every last thing they could possibly do, and Laidlaw wanted to make sure not everything was quite so obvious. It meant that there might be content in Inquisition that might never be seen, but it also meant that there was a point to exploring the game's stunning locations beyond just hitting the next point of interest on the map.
Cameron Lee added this to AusGamers:
the game isn’t structured such that you consume an area, then move onto the next, then move onto the next. It’s structured so that we encourage players to go back and forward between these different regions all of the time. Some of the areas in these regions are say too high level for you to get to go there originally -- there might be a dragon there -- so it’s, like, ‘I could go and fight it; I’m going to get killed, but I’m going’, so maybe you come back to that area later on. But then, when you finish the game, you’re still in the world, so you’re still going to do all of these different things. There’s parts of the game that we’ve built that are so difficult that we would only really want players to go there after they finish the story, because it’s just that high level. So it all sort of changes as you go through the story, and we want people to, as you said, have a lot of longevity in the game.
To traverse these large areas players will have access to mounts for the first time in the Dragon Age franchise (from a basic horse to a creature that looks like a cross between a nug and a water buffalo, a lizard of some kind (referenced at E3), a red hart (not a halla), and bog unicorn (both via the deluxe edition), but there will be no mounted combat as The Examiner explains:
the feature was deemed to be out of focus with the series’ core combat systems. After all, players already have additional party members and Dragon Age’s combat emphasizes the use of tactics to properly utilize the different companion characters. The developer chose to continue to focus on party mechanics instead of adding mounted combat into the mix and potentially altering a setup that is already proven to work. Aside from game design, Darrah also revealed that the inclusion of a mount system in general was something that the developer wanted to be careful with since it is new to the series. Adding mounted combat on top of everything else would also require the new mechanics to be built from the ground up on the game’s Frostbite 3 engine. Ultimately, the time and resources necessary to accomplish the task wouldn’t have been worth the effort for a feature that wasn’t deemed to fit well inside the game to begin with.
While the Inquisitor is mounted his companions will disappear until you dismount. I also have a suspicion that one of the ways we'll bounce around between locations is via Eluvians (this is not a unique thought), now that they have been re-activated (The Masked Empire)--if that surmise is correct, Briala would definitely be involved since she currently controls them. A counter argument can be made that we'll travel through the Fade instead (as seems to be occurring at the end of the E3 demo), but for the moment I'll hold on to the thought that the Eluvians will be involved.
To make the open world dynamic, the devs have incorporated a world master system. The emergent system will reflect the changes you make in the environment, so if you (for example) extensively hunt bears in an area, their population will be depressed or go extinct (the same goes for resources you might gather). As Cameron Lee explained:
We have the World Master system, which flows into everything from creatures to NPCs to bandits. The player has, for example, driven out a particular faction from an area – based on decisions and actions they take – and another faction may move in and take their place
The comment about factions is interesting and I'm curious to see how that changing dynamic will work in-game. As for resource collection, what's our motivation? Two things: 1) to take advantage of the expanded crafting system (the deepest ever), 2) the changes in DAI that will prevent players from amassing hordes of healing potions (in demos we've seen a maximum of eight) and auto-healing between encounters. Lee (same link) discussed the new system:
Generally how it works is you have kind of like a template, and that template could be for armour, or it could be for weapons or other pieces of equipment. You can insert different metals, different materials, into the different slots of that template and that will keep the shape of the item, but it will change the physical characteristics of that item--so it will change the look, it will change the stats, so you can really customise how you look and how you're building your character.
This customization extends to bases--some of which are purely aesthetic, but others have game impacts. Some of these game-relevant mechanics are discussed in the PAX demo from last year, where bases can have a focus (military, diplomatic, or economic), and each has its own set of advantages (the specifics of which have not yet been fully discussed). The main base for the Inquisition is called Skyhold, and details about it are as follows:
Inside there is a tavern, stables, a courtyard, kitchens, a dungeon (you can imprison people there) and the war table. You manage your operations through the war table in Skyhold, and by doing so you get resources like gold and loot or agents, some of the operations are tied to the main plot like an operation involving the chantry in Val Royeux. You’ll pass judgement on NPCs who come through Skyhold a-la Awakening. He mentions the son of a barbarian leader you killed coming to the castle gates and chocking a dead goat against the walls which is some kind of ritualistic insult for killing his kin. You can decide whether to give him and his followers weapons and exile them, put him in stockade or a third choice. Judgment sequences as a way of getting players to reflect further on their decisions.
All your companions will be at Skyhold (ala the DAO camp), so players won't have to travel from place to place to interact with them (ala DA2).
Reverting to DAO, we'll be able to change our companions' armour and weapons (the one exception being that Varric will only use Bianca if equipped for range).
Combat itself includes both elements from the previous games [the Combat Q&A just dropped, but didn't include anything new in terms of the general principles]: the cinematic style of DA2 and the tactical camera that the PC-version of DAO offered. The devs have said (link down with the dialogue wheel)) they are placing a greater emphasis on elements such as positioning, elevation, chokepoints, and preparation, with a strong focus on teamwork. We've even seen (in the E3 demo) an example of game-benefits from teamwork, which is a very cool way of encouraging players to think about how they want to engage enemies. Players will no longer auto-heal after encounters and limits are being put on how many healing potions can be carried. Also, There will be no level scaling. This means that you may encounter areas or enemies that are too difficult, and you'll have to come back to them when you are stronger. Cameron Lee talked about combat design:
We design the fights and the encounters, for the most part, assuming that there’s probably going to be a warrior, a mage and a rogue. So that’s three of the four [party members] that you can have. So the fourth one provides a little bit more flexibility to be whatever you want. So we generally design them like that, but that’s not to say that you can’t go in there with four mages, because you totally can. If you decide to do that, I’m sure you’ll be able to do it, but you’ve got to think about how to do it. The combat systems and the creatures and the enemy abilities, it’s so bloody complex that it’s almost impossible to create fixed encounters, so we just do it with a broad sense of assuming that there’s one of each class, and if they want to do all rogues, or all mages, or all warriors, or whatever combination, then have fun; go mental.
So what we’ve done is we’ve created almost like a playbook system for the AI, so you can kind of… in the menu you can say, for the attack play, I want my characters to be doing this type of ability, and this type of ability -- not in mega, mega, fine detail, but just generalised. So that way when you say attack, everyone goes into attack mode, and you can do the same for defence and a number of different things. You can set those up really quickly, and really easily. We wanted to make it as impactful and as hardcore as it used to be, but simple enough that newcomers can get in there and get meaning out of it; get value out of the AI system. So that’s how we kind of do it, and you can change those AI settings on the fly. That’s one of the things that we’re going to do with Kinect, is you can actually just call it out and go “Defend” and everyone will go into defence.
As for classes the selection is familiar: Warrior, Mage, and Rogue. Each has three specialisations, not all of which have been delineated as yet, but should allow enough flexibility to provide variation in play styles and for everyone to find something that suits them. It's difficult to truly dig into the specifics until more is revealed, so I'll bookmark that for now and come back to it when more information is released.
One element from DA2 that has been retained is the dialogue wheel: there are three possible "wheels" that you can encounter during the game: The Tone Wheel is the "standard" option that you saw most often in DA2. You select dialogue for the purpose of conversation and exposition. Your character's choices reflect his or her overall attitude and demeanor. The tones from DA2 (Diplomatic, Sarcastic, and Aggressive) have been replaced with Noble, Clever, and Direct; the Action Wheel is for making a hard-line choice between two (or more) options. It is not tone-based (such as the Accept/Deny quest options in DA2), and all options are "neutral" in terms of tone. To avoid confusion, each option will tell you explicitly the intent of the selected option; the Reaction Wheel is for reacting emotionally to a situation. Instead of choosing your tone, you choose an emotional reaction (such as "Sad", "Enraged", "Confused", etc.). The "Stoic" option is always available for a reaction-neutral response. Conversation will also be more dynamic, allowing you to just walk away mid-conversation.
Within the game itself choice has a major impact on the story we'll experience. As Cameron Lee explains:
that whole demo you saw [at E3], in the last half of it, when you’re fighting with Alexius and Felix, not all the players are going to see that, because going into that area is the result of a branching choice in the game. So you may have picked another area and you wouldn’t be going into that castle at all, you’d be going somewhere else entirely. There’s whole sections of the game that are like that, that we branch off entirely. You can go to Redcliffe Village, and see the consequences of you picking the other decision. So we’ve made sure that any exclusive content, you can still see the flip side of the consequences as well.
We've also learned more about the war table (link above):
The War Table is where you spend the “power” you’ve earned by accomplishing deeds in the world. Killing a dragon, finishing a quest, liberating a civilian area, and many other things earn you this currency. It’s used to task the Inquisition to patrol areas, deploy agents, raid castles, and establish camps. More importantly, it’s the means by which the story is progressed in the open world.
In addition:
You manage your operations through the war table in Skyhold, and by doing so you get resources like gold and loot or agents, some of the operations are tied to the main plot like an operation involving the chantry in Val Royeux. Some operations are resolved instantly and some require you to pick an advisor (Cullen, Leliana or Josephine) to resolve them, they're unavailable while conducting the operation. There's a new resources besides power (which you spend on operations) which is called influence.
We know that loot in the game is colour coded based on its rarity or strength. Mike Laidlaw has also discussed the game's level cap:
The key is to not have a cap. When you arbitrarily just stop getting experience, it honestly kind of sucks in my opinion. The way experience is granted in Inquistion is as you tackle monsters and going after things and as they get too low level for you they stop granting you experience. This is a fairly standard RPG mechanic and by the time you’re capped out and no longer gaining experience, you’ve killed some of the toughest stuff in the world,” Mike said. “You’re probably done with the game because you’ve killed almost everything, so that’s kind of our approach. It’s more of a soft-cap and there will be a point at which you stop leveling up somewhere.
As for the gameplay itself, the story can be played through in 40-50 hours for those who eschew side quests and speed through the main storyline; overall there's 150 hours of play available (granted I'm not sure how literally to take these time estimates, as this estimate is up 50 hours from the one made back in April, with the number then jumping to 200 via Cameron Lee, who dropped the story estimate to 20-30). Mark Darrah says there are almost a million words of dialogue, which would make a book of well over 3,000 pages for perspective. The devs don't expect you to be able to do everything in one playthrough (indeed, given that some choices close off possibilities, this seems impossible). There are a few unique endings, along with about forty major variances based on your choices (there are hundreds of minor differences beyond that). Giancarlo Valdes reports the forty variances are based on defeating the villain and closing the portal, with what you see being based on the choices you made. Also of interest, there's content intended to be played after the main plot is wrapped up:
the preview states that most of the content in Emprise Du Lion is so difficult that the player won’t even be able to experience them until the post-game, implying that there is going to be more content for the player to explore even after the campaign has ended.
As Cameron Lee told Rock Paper Shotgun:
There’s a whole area in the game – it’s one of the highest level areas in the game, we kind of designed it for people to play after they finish the story – that’s kind of a pitched battle. So you and your party come through and push the enemy back and back, further throughout the whole area. And from that, the village that’s nearby changes. Maybe there’s more merchants on the roads and stuff like that, which then affects the in-game economy as well. It’s quite a complex and dynamic system.
Ivan Jenic reports on a Russian leak that DAI will have a multiplayer mode at release. Nothing has officially been said, but Jenic seems to think the information could be credible.
Mark Darrah has said future DLC will occur after the storyline in DAI (unlike the retroactive DLC of DA2).
One thing we won't get before the November 18th release is a playable demo, as Allan Schumacher explained to Game On:
[He] explained that putting together a demo would take time and resources away from the main development of the game. With that in mind, the task of completing Dragon Age: Inquisition itself has been given prominence over taking people off of the project in order to create a demo. [He] clarified that work on both of the series’ previous entries were completed in time to allow the team to build their demos. With Dragon Age: Inquisition, however, the developer is in a much different situation as there is still work to do before the game’s launch. Before the title releases later this fall, fans will get a chance to setup their game save early as Bioware plans to launch the Dragon Age Keep before the game comes out. The Keep will let both new and returning player dictate how past events transpired in the recent history of the Dragon Age universe. The web-based app will be used exclusively to determine player decisions from the first two games in the series as opposed to imported existing save files.
To me this isn't a big deal, but I can see it being a source of criticism prior to release.
Speaking of criticism, some has been made about the game thus far. One comes from Jesse Cox (and Crendor), who didn't think the graphics looked next gen (what?); Phil Owen (and MrBtongue; same link) wants more uniqueness to which I offer this answer:
People seem to believe that if stories follow a formula or are cliched, that somehow makes them bad or unworthy, but the fact of the matter is these definitions are often so loose every single story under the sun could be applied to them. Being cliched doesn't necessarily make something bad anyway. You can take the same sentence and say it in millions of different unique ways. As long as your cliche is dressed in it's finest, I don't think it's a bad thing
Next we have Metro and Griffin Vacheron, who don't care for Tolkienesque epic fantasy (which seems like a mental mistake on their part, like hoping the next Call of Duty isn't an FPS); Metro also doesn't like the British accents in the game...while admitting they are coming from British actors. It's all very silly stuff and does no credit to those offering it.
Finally, we have something with perhaps a bit more weight from David Nelson, who says:
The Straight up Lie. This is when developers assure us all that a cross generational game, say Dragon Age: Inquisition, will take full advantage of the new systems. This is a thing which is not possible. The vision for the game is clearly big, much bigger than before, but any game first created to function on less powerful hardware can't exactly spread its wings unless there is going to be a ton of content chopped off for the last gen version. We know the world could be bigger, the graphics better, the physics tighter, the stories more numerous, the dialogue options more plentiful etc if the game was not also being produced for old hardware. The only hole I see in this is for games like Destiny which will be able to keep growing and thus have the ability to leave the PS3 and Xbox 360 behind.
Putting the inflammatory lying charge aside, Nelson's point that (presumably) more might be available in terms of system if BioWare eschewed the older generation of consoles (perhaps this is what's really behind Jesse Cox's complaint) seems pretty strong. Cameron Lee addressed the concern back in April:
We make [the game] for the PC, and all the guys here have monster PCs, and we know what our budgets are in terms of what sort our memory limits are for different buckets from a development standpoint, and we target them for Gen 4. Our goal with the 360 and PS3 is to not change the gameplay experience. If we have to do it, we'll do it, but it shouldn't be dramatic differences in terms of core gameplay. What you're more likely to see is that we'll take the visual quality down. We have to take it down anyway, because you can't do the stuff we're doing on the old platforms, but that's the job we have in development. Core gameplay like changing the world and NPC interactions and emergent AI, that's a balancing act but I think we're pretty good on that. Being CPU-bound and then being GPU-bound on Gen-4 already--you know, we've pushed it to the limit--we'll come down from that for the other platforms. We haven't started optimisation yet though we're starting to think about it, but we're not going to let that stop us from making a brilliant game. We'll work out ways to bring it down without impacting too much.
This is an acknowledgement that the graphic and physics-fidelity will be different between systems; perhaps there's also tactic agreement that there could be some issues in terms of core gameplay, which may partially validate Nelson's argument. Personally, I don't think BioWare had much of a choice when it came to making the game available to all platforms (so many gamers still use the old systems), but I think the argument that doing so inherently makes the game worse needs much more than the hyperbole above (Nelson's comment about more dialogue is particularly disingenuous, since games have a budget for voice-acting that's independent of console-performance).
That's all the information I've been able to find. If there are any omissions or errors please let me know!
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
