BioWare: We “must” improve upon Dragon Age II
Lewis Denby May 27, 2011 - 8:37 am
BioWare have come under a lot of flak for their efforts with Dragon Age II, the sequel to the sprawling, epic and engrossing title that was Dragon Age. Following it up with a smaller, more focused sequel, they made some design decisions along the way that didn’t sit very well with fans.
Those fans have since accused BioWare of ignoring their concerns, but now writer Mike Laidlaw has reassured people that the developer understands where improvements need to be made.
Writing on BioWare’s forums, Laidlaw said: “Following the launch of DA II, I did some interviews and some of you interpreted my statements to mean I was blind to the concerns that have been voiced repeatedly on these forums. That was never my intent, nor the message I wanted to convey.
“I am absolutely aware of the concerns voiced here. Issues like level re-use, the implementation of wave combat, concerns about the narrative and significance of choice and so on have all been not only noted, but examined, inspected and even aided me (and many, many others on the team) in formulating future plans.
“Further, I’m not only aware of the concerns, but I agree that there are aspects of DA II that not only can but must be improved in future installments. And that is precisely our intent.”
Laidlaw was quick to point out that he and the team remain very proud of Dragon Age II, despite acknowledging that the game had its problems.
And indeed, Laidlaw feels that from a storytelling perspective, Dragon Age II helped the team get into the position where they can create a more captivating Dragon Age III than if they’d have continued down the Origins-style epic route.
“Hawke’s story was a departure from the usual tale,” he said, “and in crafting it and the game around it we learned a lot. Some from what worked, but even more from what didn’t. Such is always the way.”
Along with the forum post comes a trio of images, which were also released on Twitter and Facebook. Some have speculated they might be a DLC tease. What do you think?
Here at BeefJack, we had mixed opinions of Dragon Age II. Some of us loved it, some of us didn’t. Reviewer Kevin Pabst was in the former camp, awarding it a spectacular 9.2 out of 10.
Comments (1)
I like it but the game becomes dull…Not like Witcher 2 like going into a random battle could be life or death. They should try doing that so the game wouldn’t be all that super duper easy.
I hope that if they are decided to do DA 3 that they have difficulties from the first DA and have some kind of script that ups the difficulty as you lvl up your characters and having a story that continues to change around like in Witcher 2.
If they can managed to pull it off then well you get another kick ass game…XP