BioWare "Aggressively" Looking at Skyrim for Dragon Age 3 Inspiration

Post by Steve Farrelly @ 04:47pm 22/12/11 | 21 Comments

In a recent interview with Wired, BioWare's Dr Ray Myzuka said the future of their Dragon Age series (presumably Dragon Age 3) would not only combine the best components of the last two (and a half) Dragon Age games, but would also feature popular and compelling components from other successful RPGs on the market, specifically The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

"[The next Dragon Age] is gonna have the best features from the prior Dragon Age games," he told Wired. "But it's also gonna have a lot of things I think players are gonna find compelling from some of the games that are out now that are doing really well with more of an open world feel."

"We're checking [Skyrim] out aggressively," he added. "We like it. We're big admirers of [Bethesda] and the product. We think we can do some wonderful things.

"Our goal is to surprise and delight our fans. I've seen something in the last couple weeks that is really the future of that franchise that is so compelling, I am so looking forward to being able to announce it."

It'll be interesting to see where they go with any such direction given the ploarised story elements of most BioWare games and Skyrim. Open-world, sandbox gaming is definitely not something BioWare are known for, yet is arguably the most compelling component of Skyrim and most other Bethesda Game Studios games. Keep your eye on this space though, because there's a lot of potential in any such inspired venture from BioWare in the Dragon Age franchise.

dragon age bethesda game studios bioware interview skyrim the elder scrolls v dragon age 3

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qmass
Posted 04:53pm 22/12/11

urgh. how about coming up with some ideas of your god damn own instead of rehashing over and over and ending up with derivative s***... like dragon age 2! :O

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Deviouz
Posted 04:54pm 22/12/11

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Dan
Posted 04:56pm 22/12/11

I'm just happy that they recongise that Dragon Age 2 wasn't the right formula. Personally I wish they'd just layer the Dragon Age: Origin characters and thematics directly over the latest Mass Effect mechanics.

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deadlyf
Posted 05:13pm 22/12/11

Dragon Age 2 was a big improvement over Dragon Age: Origins in terms of updated game play. It wasn't as expansive, was far to linear, reused too many maps/areas and the characters were a bit shallower (still were pretty good though) but I think that is more symptomatic of a shorter release window rather than the wrong formula per se.

If they pick up anything from Bethesda I hope it is the open world/random encounter part of it. That has been Biowares greatest weakness IMO. On the other hand Bethesda could take some pointers from Bioware on character development, I've played over 90 hours in Skyrim and yet my character feels like it has no personality and I have 0 attachment to them, Bioware on the other hand makes you feel like your character is a well crafted part of the game.

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Nerfy
Posted 05:32pm 22/12/11

This is ticklingly good news imo. While watching the skyrim trailer I was thinking "this would be an awesome trailer for the warden/morrigan's child, years later - the dragonborn" - alas I just had to put up with some other awesome game. Skyrim did some things bad which Bioware does well, but it did a lot of things well which Bioware does bad.

While I eventually did like Dragon Age 2, I played the DA1 DLC after DA2, and for me DA1 was far superior. Went back to DA2, and just couldn't enjoy the overly fancy combat with exploding bodies from sword cuts and whatnot.

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Vash
Posted 05:35pm 22/12/11

Coop for f**** sake.

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fpot
Posted 05:39pm 22/12/11

On the other hand Bethesda could take some pointers from Bioware on character development, I've played over 90 hours in Skyrim and yet my character feels like it has no personality and I have 0 attachment to them

Bethesda's modus operandi when dealing with character development is to put it solely in the hands of the player. This is why you are silent and able to pretty much choose your class by the way you play the game. Shoot lots of arrows? You're an archer. Steal lots of s***? You're a thief. Shoot arrows while stealing lots of s***? You are a thief assassin. It's up to the players imagination to fill in the gaps for how they want their character development to pan out over the game.

However to get away with this without being called lazy there needs to be a solid game world populated with interesting characters for the PC to interact with. Whether Bethesda achieved this with Skyrim is purely subjective, but the consensus (heh) seems to be that they have. I certainly think they have - I am playing with my second character and am up to my 80th hour of gameplay (would be higher if I wasn't so busy with work over schoolies) and I am still discovering new things in areas I thought I had explored properly.

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slamma
Posted 06:24pm 22/12/11

I'm with you qmass,nothing wrong in poaching a few good ideas of a game to improve your own but "aggressively"checking out skyrim.dosen't say much for their own r&d team.

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deadlyf
Posted 06:42pm 22/12/11

Yeah I'm not saying that they haven't done a good job in terms of being able to build your character to a play style that suits you but "using your imagination to fill in the gaps" isn't nearly as good as the addition of giving your character a voice and having more dialogue options. Obviously to do that right is probably a huge amount of development time and money which may be why Bethesda has such a huge and immersive game world and mute characterless avatars and Bioware has s***** small restrictive areas that get used repeatedly alongside excellent work on the dialogue, voice acting and character development (in terms of story, relationships and personality, not necessarily game play).

The strongest point of Skyrim or Bethesda games is the expansive and immersive game worlds they create, the strongest part of Dragon Age or Bioware games is the character development and dialogue. On the other hand the strong point of each developer seems non-existent in the others games.

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Nerfy
Posted 06:50pm 22/12/11

I prefer a voiceless character, can just work with a blank slate instead of "playing" a set person.

edit: Or at least, largely nameless.

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demon
Posted 06:53pm 22/12/11

dragon age 2 was like a different game from dragon age 1. all they need to learn from bethesda & skyrim is to make the next version an improvement on the previous version! ;) da1 was a good game.. i only played the demo of da2 & didn't like it.

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Tollaz0r!
Posted 06:53pm 22/12/11

I really liked Dragon Age 1, hated Dragon Age 2.

I'm also a huge fan of Baldures Gate 1 & 2.

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Nerfy
Posted 07:13pm 22/12/11

i only played the demo of da2 & didn't like it.

I also didn't like the demo, grabbed da2 & da1 ultimate ages later when the pack was $20 on steam (unfortunately EA games with DLC aren't on steam anymore), and played da2 through - It's actually pretty damn good, still a valid sequel. Plus, if you've played awakening, it extends hugely on some of the subplots in that. Also has one of the best bioware characters ever, Varric.

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1000
Posted 09:22pm 22/12/11

The reason this is happening is because DA and DA2 are absolute rubbish when compared to Skryim. The first DA was barely OK, the second game was rubbish. Load up Skyrim and it is immediately evident that Skyrim is so far ahead of any of the DA games that it's absolutely embarassing.

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BladeRunner
Posted 09:25pm 22/12/11

Dragon Age 2 went the wrong way, The story was good enough but exploding bodies and recycled maps were too much. I would expect that from a lesser developers. Also I do not like how they changed Darkspawn and changed the gameplay, that s*** me right off.

Would be interesting to see if they made of clone of Skyrim, If they did it right, it could be good. If not they should stick to original Dragon Age style.

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Nerfy
Posted 10:05pm 22/12/11

More interesting towns would be a start (Bioware has slowly been making their environments less involved and blockier and blockier, where you're set on a 2D toolset-maze floorplan, which I really dislike).

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Grundar
Posted 10:36pm 22/12/11

Don't do it like DA2 and it will be far more well received.

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Vash
Posted 11:49pm 22/12/11

They are different games. i actually enjoyed DA2 more than skyrim because the characters in DA2 actually got me more involved into the story.
While Skyrim characters all seem like talking robots to me. to each his own though.

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Nerfy
Posted 12:18am 23/12/11

Main characters and large interconnecting plots is one of the things that bioware does right imo. Settings and making the characters within them seem more than just "interaction points" is not.

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anihilator
Posted 06:46pm 26/12/11

Imo if they are looking at skyrim for answers to their DA3 gameplay they are clearly looking in the wrong direction and will only accomplish another DA2 aka POS. DA1 was the better game by far and what really made it stand out from the croud was the fact that it was a RTS Strategy. They f***ed DA2 by making it a? hack n slash rpg then basically lowering everything, skill level, items, intelligence all so that way they could port it to console.

Now if they are looking into a ORPG for ideas.... i'm expecting this game to once again play as if it was a stand alone game and not a game that is meant to be a sequel.

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Nerfy
Posted 07:17pm 26/12/11

Yeah I'm definitely for the tactical party combat, hope it comes back. (not that I disliked Skyrim's first person)

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