Dragon Age: Inquisition features ‘elements of open world’

It's been a while since Bioware revealed any new information about the upcoming Dragon Age game, but that changes today.

In a recent interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, lead designer Mike Laidlaw discussed the prospects of a new Dragon Age title and if the game could be considered an open world experience. Laidlaw stated: “‘Open world,’ I think is a really loaded term, because everyone immediately thinks of Skyrim and assumes everything will be exactly like Skyrim. In our case, there are extremely large regions you can explore. It’s a multi-region game, which means that you’ll traveling with a world map.”

“You’re traveling across this chunk of the continent in which the game is set. And each of the regions is purposeful. It has a reason you would be brought here. It ties back to the story, or at least to the overall themes of the game. 'These are my enemies and they’re very active here. I should find out why.'”

This means that the game isn't necessarily laden with story, “because story is the antithesis of discovery, right? It tends to lead you along. But when you’re discovering things, you should feel like they’re part of the overall game and not random. I would say that it has elements of open world for sure, but it’s something closer to the feel we had in the Baldur’s Gate games or in Origins, even, where it’s larger areas, big spaces, and the chance for you to move around and see a wide variety of different terrains and locales and so on.”

Comparing the game's combat to CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher and then to Dark Souls, Laidlaw added: “Honestly, a lot of it is stuff we’ve done in the previous DAs. We’ve upped the fidelity of the presentation. I don’t think evading lives in the realm of Dark Souls, nor do I think the Witcher owns strafing.”

“But it’s abilities and movement that are designed to be smooth. They’re designed to let you focus on an enemy or pull back as you see fit. They fundamentally rely on things like your stamina. They have the elements of resource management throughout them.”

Dragon Age: Inquisition is scheduled for a release in Q3 2014 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and PC.