Introduction

Dragon Age: Origins is the spiritual successor of BioWare's popular Baldur's Gate series. They've added some amazing things into the game including several conversational and decision processes that result in drastically different outcomes in the storyline, recently seen in games like Mass Effect. In Dragon Age you are able to choose your "Origin" which is the background and lore of your own character. Based upon the origin of your character you might find the world a very different place. If, for example, you were born as a noble, dealing with other nobles is much easier and they take you much more seriously. You also might find there are some people in the world who are jealous of your nobility and want to take what you have. Conversely, if you're born into a life of crime and poverty, nobles might not want much to do with you and your shady ways. There is of course a main storyline and the game is a bit more structured than say an Oblivion, but by doing it in a more linear fashion the decisions you make are also much more meaningful. At one point we were told the number of possible unique endings numbered in the dozens.

GDC Dragon Age: Origins Features

During the Game Developers Conference this past week in San Francisco we had a sit down with the lead writer David Gaider, and  the lead designer Mike Laidlaw and were shown a demo of the new game. They also highlighted some of the amazing features they've built into the game. 

One of the more appealing features of the game is the highly advanced combat system that not only allows you to swap different members in and out of your party, but also to set a virtually ENDLESS amount of tactical preferences. For example, if you're exploring with a healer, a mage, a warrior and a rogue, and you want to take charge of the warrior; you can actually set the tactics for the healer and mage to back you up; and give the rogue orders to defend or attack the enemy also. That's the quick version, there's some really in-depth options and a very high level of customization in the combat process. One of the most appealing things in the tactical combat options is setting "if statements" for how your party members should react to certain situations. For example, lets say you want your healer to heal any party member once they hit 30% of their health, just set that rule in the tactics menu and the AI will make it happen. You're able to make tactical decisions in pause mode, which gives you, the player, a great opportunity to really plan out your defenses and attacks without feeling rushed or doomed if you take too long to come up with a suitable plan.

Another feature that immediately caught our attention was the ability for the player to make choices that ACTUALLY DO change the world. The demo played through a scenario where the player is on his way to a castle to ask the Duke of the castle for help fighting off some undead who were attacking the town on a nightly basis. It was made quite clear to us that at this point the player could either A) Help the people, or B) Leave them to their fate, and each of the decisions would have changed the lives of the villagers and the world around the player. An added bonus to this feature is the fact that every character in your party has opinions about the matter, and will actually tell you how they feel about the decision you do or don't make. Make too many decisions they don't agree with (and from the demo you can tell every character has his/her OWN opinions) and they'll leave your party! Here's a video of what ensues when we decide to help the villagers:

Battle Scenes/Combat

The demo picks up where the choice making lets off! The decision is made to help the lowly villagers and fight off the undead that swarm into the city every night. In the demo the undead are rushing the town from a few narrow corridors, which allows our mage and "Sten" (Our horrifically huge and ill-tempered warrior) to really do some damage. 

Tactical decisions were made for the defense of the town and unfolded as follows: 

• Sten activates an ability that prevents him from being knocked down
• Mage sets an earthquake to occur at the base of the mountain where undead funnel in
• Mage sets fire field in the quaked area
• Sten drinks potion of "Warm" allowing him to be fire resistant (You see where this is going right?)
• Rogue set to ranged combat
• Warrior set to side of fire in a defensive position between Sten and the mage/rogue

So effectively what was done is Sten was made resistant to fire and the earthquake effect, then an area at the base of the mountain where the undead rush in was set to quake and covered in fire to burn them as they roll around. Those that were stuck in the middle had their skulls crushed by the relentless smashing of one Mr. Sten (Seen below).

End of Battle and Dragon Age: Origins Screenshots

Halfway through the battle some warriors run up asking for help saying a portion of the town has been overrun, you leave a few of the warriors that were assisting you to go and help out the townsfolk. The fight in town is total mayhem as enemies are approaching from every direction. More tactical decisions are made as the rogue and mage are moved to the city steps and the warriors take to the town square. Here's some of the screenshots we obtained from this exclusive demo event; some of them are of the town and the battle, and others are taken of the events leading up to the full scale attack:

Release Date

There isn't a solid release date yet but we were told fall of 2009 for this title. For more information visit the official Dragon Age: Origin website!