Dragon Age II Magazine Preview Details

Magazine publishers are never happy to see scans of their articles floating around, but unfortunately they’re an unethical certainty on the Internet. If you’re really interested in the Dragon Age II preview gracing the pages of GameInformer’s August issue, you should go buy a copy. But until then, here are some tidbits of information that you may or may not already know:

‘¢ The author seems to think that Dragon Age: Origins was based on “aging design”.

‘¢ Dragon Age II starts off by placing us in Lothering as it’s being destroyed.

‘¢ Hawke will survive the razing of Lothering and will become the “Champion of Kirkwall”.

‘¢ The sequel’s dialogue choices are paraphrased into 3-4 words each.

‘¢ The sequel spans ten years of Hawk’s “quests, victories, and defeats”.

‘¢ Hawke will encounter Flemeth as a dragon, though she will transform into human form for a wry introduction.

‘¢ Our new companions will never have issue with our decisions to the point that they’ll leave the party or retaliate beyond a complaint or two.

‘¢ Dragon Age II uses a “framed narrative” structure so that Hawk’s past exploits are being “retold in the present”.

‘¢ Because of the above mentioned structure, events in the game don’t always occur in chronological order.

‘¢ The team is making sure all three class archetypes are better defined (a rogue will feel like “a lithe super-ninja”).

‘¢ There will be fewer talents, but each talent has more depth (a fireball can be enhanced).

‘¢ Crushing Prison will be making a return.

‘¢ Dragon Age II is being simultaneously developed across all three platforms, but control options are being catered to consoles first (“it’s typically much easier to convert them back to PC”).

‘¢ The PC version will retain the same strategic mouse-and-keyboard control scheme and top-down view.

‘¢ The choices we made in Origins will affect Dragon Age II, even if you started on PC and switched to console for the sequel.

‘¢ Art director Matt Goldman thinks Origins’ art style was messy and generic, so the team is going to “hot rod the art” in Dragon Age II.

‘¢ There are no less than a dozen comparisons to Mass Effect throughout the article (by the author, executive director Mark Darrah, and lead designer Mike Laidlaw).