Predictions for Dragon Age Inquisition

Predictions for Dragon Age Inquisition

So, with November 18^th looking further and further away, and me still not possessing a Dragon Age Keep Beta code (hint, hint) I’m sitting on my hands with my fingers crossed and going to myself. “Please don’t suck. Please don’t suck. Please don’t suck. Please don’t suck.”

I want this game to be good. I really want this game to be good. Not just because I’m a huge Bioware fan, not just because I want more diversity in an endless sea of white male protagonists doing the Dirty Harry bit, not just because the ongoing disappointment of Destiny, Watch_Dogs, the Sims 4 and other AAA games have failed to hit the mark and not just because I want to go back and enjoy games again before the publisher’s greed ruined it, one last time. No, I have a number of burning questions I want answered.

I mean, yeah, the game looks great and I’m sure it’ll be fun messing around in Skyhold, but like me and the rest of the fans, we want… well, answers to all the questions that have been raised throughout this series and what’s going to happen.

Prediction #1: This will be Dragon Age 2.5

Yeah… when I first saw the return of the ‘conversation wheel’ in the various demos, I knew that Inquisition’s going to employ the same dialog wheel from Dragon Age 2. You’ll pick between diplomatic/aggressive/Fozzie bear all over again, you’ll get persuasion options based on which ones you picked the most and that’s it. Also, judging by the combat, we’re seeing a return of the cross class combos and the focus on action oriented fights.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing; it could be the team’s way of say “Look! Look! See? This is what we wanted for Dragon Age 2, all along!”

Prediction #2: This will also be Mass Effect 3.5

Remember that ‘other’ conclusion to the trilogy that had you make various choices with unknown consequences at the time? Yeah, this game could be taking lots of inspiration from that particular title. It’s a good thing Bioware didn’t do anything stupid like taint the brand of their formula, otherwise, this would be-

Oh, wait.

Eggs. One basket. Lesson learned.

In all seriousness, this game is screaming to fix the errors of the other game’s woes while probabaly using a lot of its beats. I fully expect a character template swap a la Wrex/Wreav or Mordin/Padok Wilks to be in full effect with Alistair/Anora, Bhelen/Harrowmont, Carver/Bethany, and Anders/Sebastian.

I also expect various choices to reward consistency and punish fickle behavior. For example, perhaps choosing to help mages in Origins can bite you in the butt if you chose to help Templars in DA2.

Prediction #3: Everyone you know will look different

I just want to reiterate this point to all the open-minded fans out there. (Clears throat)

The Frostbite Engine is not the engine used in the last 2 games. The characters you know from Origins and Dragon Age 2 will look different. Everyone will complain about it.

Got that? Good. Yeah, this is what happens when you keep changing engines and send half the animation team to work on The Old Republic. Expect consistency to go out the window. Oh, I’m sure some will get close enough. I think the team would have more than enough time to make returning characters that already appeared (Alistair, Zevran, Morrigan) to be acceptable. And yes, I’ve been guilty of doing this as well (though I would argue that even if I never saw Zevran before, the DA2 animation would have been atrocious in its own right.)

Oghren, Shale, Sten, Wynne, Loghain, Aveline, Bethany, Carver, Fenris, Isabela, Merrill, Sebastian, Anders, Nathaniel, Sigrun, Velanna however? Free game. How they’ll look is really up to the animation team.

It’s funny how the most consistent looking character in all the franchise is Leliana for some bloody reason. Even then, they manage to get her eye color wrong.

Prediction #4: Sebastian Vael will turn evil if you spare Anders

“I swear to you, I will come back and find your precious Anders. I will teach him what true justice is.”   

This is the big prediction from me. For those out of the loop, let me explain.

Jennifer Heplar, a senior writer for Dragon Age 2 and also responsible for Gamlen, Leandra, Bethany, Anders and Sebastian (among others) faced harassment for many of the changes to Anders in DA2. Reports say she even got death threats for her children. She eventually left Bioware meaning someone else will take over the characters she was in charge of. Meaning Sebastian will be written by another person. How can they change a character’s perspective with the departure of the original writer?

Simple. Make the character evil.

Sebastian was known as the pious, devout Andrastian in Dragon Age 2 and struggled to decide if he should be a priest or prince. All that changed when Anders blew up the Chantry. So, where can a character go when a mother-like figure has been slain, Anders has been spared and Hawke betrays him? To go bad.

I fully expect to see Prince Sebastian as a corrupted, twisted, jaded and evil figure to heavily contrast choir boy persona in Dragon Age 2. He would have bags under his eyes, wear a crown and murder any mage he saw fit.

I’m looking forward to it.

Prediction #5: People will not hate the Multiplayer

So, a bunch of people thought the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer was going to suck. On the contrary, it actually ended up being a huge hit and some even said that “It was the best thing about ME3” (Which is either funny or sad when you think about it). But yeah, the multiplayer’s going to get a bunch of focus, fans are going to be surprised that it’s enjoyable, everyone will play it and like it.

Why would there be so much emphasis on the co-op, you may ask? Simple.

Micro-transactions.

Yes, the EA method of business is to nickel-and-dime the player for every cent they have. Yes, I know it’s “optional”, and I’ve always asked “Why does this option exist?”. It’s simple here: you pay enough ‘platinium’ in order to unlock more chests, get better gear and out-do your teammates while EA rakes in all the duckets.

Still, if they hold events and give out free packages like they did with Mass Effect 3, there’s worse ways to go. Though, I have a distinct nagging feeling that the future of the Dragon Age franchise will inevitably a Diablo clone but with more micro-transactions. Scary.

Things I’m genuinely curious about

-The Landsmeet outcomes

Hands down the Landsmeet sequence was one of the best parts of Dragon Age: Origins. It gave great character moments, a confrontation with a fantastic villain and ‘actual choice’, including being married to a noble and becoming a consort.

What I want: To see if there’s really any difference between Alistair ruling alone or ruling with Anora. Remember, Alistair takes the spotlight from Anora even if they get married together.

-Morrigan’s Dark Ritual

What I don’t want: No consequence for doing the ritual. It would be severely weak if the ‘cost’ of doing the ritual was actually beneficial and did nothing more than help the Inquisitor. If that’s the case, why ‘wouldn’t’ everyone do the ritual from then on? If there’s no cost, why not partake in something that eventually saves both you and your fellow Grey Warden.

What I do want: Consequence. I want to see people regretting helping Alistair live if it meant doing this other horrible thing. That or variation between who did the ritual. Wouldn’t you like to see what a Loghain and Morrigan child would look like? I would.

-The state of Orzammar

Hands down, the other great choice was resolving “A Paragon of her Kind” and choosing who would rule Orzammar, because quite frankly both candidates were terrible. Harrowmont, while honorable and soft-spoken, is a strict traditionalist and keeps Orzammar’s caste system in place. Bhelen, while progressive and forward thinking, is a complete bastard. Dwarf Nobles know that he framed you, causing Trian to be killed and does every underhanded trick to get to the throne. This might be hard since the voice actor for Harrowmont, Robin Sachs (who also voiced Zaeed from Mass Effect) sadly passed away. Then again, Pival from DA2 was introduced so… who knows?

What I don’t want: Black and white morality. The reason why this decision was so great was because the decision was so gray and morally ambiguous. Do you choose progress by any means necessary or stagnating tradition? I would seriously hate it if Bhelen “went mad with power” and ended up making things worse for Orzammar or Harrowmont being ‘the right choice’.

What I do want: Moral complexity. Use what made the old game work.               

-The Architect

“Help me kill the Mother, and after it is done, I will leave to continue my work.”

A talking darkspawn who created a version of the Joining in order to free other Darkspawn and make them intelligent? Interesting, to say the least. His promise to end the Blights feels like a ‘too good to be true’ scenario, but I would like to see how it plays out.  

-Walking through the mirror with Morrigan.

“Then come, my love. We will face the future together.”

Call me a softy, but I want to see what happened to my Warden when he walked through the mirror with Morrigan. Whether he lived or died.

-The living Hawke sibling.

Probably the most varied choice out of them all, I want to know what happened with Bethany/Carver. Again, I don’t have a lot of demands for this, as I am curious. Does a Warden Bethany continue to be jaded? Will a Templar Carver be a lyrium junkie? I don’t expect much from this except a shoehorned cameo, but I will be excited to see what happens.

Interesting thought: In Dragon Age 2, when you changed Hawke’s race from Caucasian, Bethany and Carver were both affected and became the same race. Will it carry over into Inquisition?

-Sandal Feddic

We’ve been following around “Enchantment” boy for two games and haven’t learned a new thing about him. One moment he’s scratching his butt, the next moment he’s spitting out prophecies and covered in darkspawn corpses. I really hope we finally get some bloody answers this time.

-Who Hawke sided with at the end of DA2.

Again, obvious reasons. The choice was so set up, I’m wondering how this is going to play out. Is this another genophage choice where the Inquisitor is punished if the Warden helped the mages or Hawke helped the Templars? Paint me curious.

Stuff I’m curious about but is not a priority for me.

-DA2 Romances. Okay. Hear me out. While the romances in Dragon Age were a nice touch, I really don’t see how they’re going to work out in Inquisition. You are not playing Hawke anymore, therefore your Inquisitor would have no reason to be excited when they see Isabela/Merrill/Fenris/Anders/Sebastian. Likewise, said romantic interests would have no reason to respond to you and awkwardly mention their romance to you. In Mass Effect, you played as Shepard throughout the entirety of the series, so your personal relationships and the triangles you weave affect your Shepard. Having you play 3 different characters in Dragon Age feels weird and won’t pay off in the same way.

Stuff I couldn’t care less about.

-Tallis

No, seriously. I saw Dragon Age Redemption and played through Mark of the Assassin and I could not give a nug’s nut what happens with Tallis. She’s not a particularly interesting character, yet constantly forces her ‘awesomeness’ down your throat, breaks the lore in several spots and doesn’t even give you the illusion of choice when it comes to her interactions. No, thanks, Felicia Day.

In the end, Dragon Age: Inquisition’s going to have the unpleasant burden of having to succeed on its own merits and wrapping up all the questions put forward by its predecessors (Unless Bioware/EA decide to be dicks about it and not answer any questions until Dragon Age 4).

But why worry? We’ll always have Ferelden.