We’ve been standing in a tavern for 20 minutes. We’re not doing a quest, we’re not talking to anyone and we’ve not put the controller down to go and make a cuppa.
We’re actively loitering in the corner of this cosy, hearth-lit bar, listening to a bard strumming away on a lute. And not in a kooky, look at how bad/funny/videogamey she is way.
She’s good. Great in fact. It dawns on us here that this is where the third major entry in Mass Effect’s fantasy-leaning cousin truly impresses.
Bioware has crafted a world of such scope and density that it’s easy to find yourself lost within its storied folds. The constituent parts of the environment stand up to scrutiny so well that it’s impossible not to be impressed.
But Inquisition asks a hell of a lot of its players. It needs you to stick with it, to drink from the grinding pool and simultaneously absorb theconcentrated flavour of this massive space.It doesn’t make this easy, with one of the dullest open-world introductions in memory.
It takes 20 hours to get going. That’s the length of most normal games. 20 long hours of fetch quests, MMO-style gauge-filling and painfully gamey boxticking.
Thedas is admirably huge, but for the two working days of game time it takes to overcome this first section, the busy work is numbing.
But then, suddenly, things get real. In that first chunk of game the story feels typical, with an amnesiac main character and tears in the Fade to boot.
In a clear bid to assuage series fans who felt (rightly) that Dragon age II was too focused on the singular locale of Kirkwall, it initially appears that Bioware has thrown the tightness of its characterbuilding, choice-making franchise out with the bath water. But stick with it, because all of the things you love about Dragon age are most definitely there.
Lord of the dings
your avatar, fleshed out through a versatile character creation process allowing for human, dwarven, elven and even qunari characters, enters the world as a prisoner.
Before long your aimless gaggle of quickly gathered companions finds itself heading up a fledgling Inquisition, a reborn military and political force determined to undo the machinations of a deliciously evil bad guy, whose name we won’t reveal. So much of what’s good about this story is spoilerific…
We can safely wax lyrical on the brilliance of the writing across the board, however, and nowhere is this more compelling or apparent than in your immediate roster of nine companions.
While not as instantly accessible as Hawke’s gang, the group feels denser this time out, as individual personalities grow, thrive, clash and spark off of one another (and yourself).
It’s still hard to pick out a non-spoilery example, but you’ll find yourself gasping at their revelations, bickering with them when they make bad decisions, and laughing at their surprising and welcome competence when it comes to breaking out the wit.
Even deadpan man’s man Blackwall, a Grey Warden with themightiest beard, can drop the mic on occasion. “What can you, one man, bring to the table?” you might ask. “Save the ****ing world, at a push,” he quips back at you.
Resource code
your crew hangs out back at Skyhold, which is to the Inquisition what the normandy was to Shepard’s crew.
Here you can whittle away hours nattering with the huge cast of fully (and well) voiced characters or organising your forces through three advisors and the use of a world map splayed upon a war table.
You’ll gather resources while out in the world, and it’s in the undercroft of Skyhold that you’ll peruse the crafting menus, eventually fleshing out the loot system wonderfully.
From Skyhold you step out into more open environment maps across both Ferelden and Orlais, which contain the exploratory dungeon-crawling that makes up your ever expanding to do lists.
Each of these areas are vast and put together with the kind of stylistic panache that you’d expect from a much narrower game world.
On the Storm Coast the waves crash against angular rocks, a salty shower splashing up and over your party as you navigate the beach.
What should have been a standard non-critical quest into the Fallow Mires, a swampland permeated by permanent rainfall, evolves into a deeply atmospheric delve into lightninglit ruins as we tackle a resident bandit problem. From the big things to the small, Thedas looks fantastic.
Combat is more of a mixed bag. It’s always been a secondary concern in Dragon age, a series which prefers the looser, AI-controlled party route over the more tactile management required in a traditional RPG.
The zoomed out tactical camera, which was previously only available to PC players of Origins and omitted entirely from Dragon age II, is back for all formats here though, making it easier to chain your party’s skills together.
Successfully having one of your mages freeze a foe to ice before getting The Iron Bull to melee-bash them into shards with a dual-wielded hammer never gets old.
More adequately delivered are the choices that crop up throughout, a prime example of these being the post-quest judgements you have to dish out. With each villain you overcome you’re asked to sit upon your Inquisitor throne and decide what to do with them.
The crimes and failings of these individuals are lain at your feet and you’ll have to make the ultimate call on their fates, which in turn leads to splintering side-quests and lore fonts for your three advisors to pursue.
Did you chose to send a disgraced Grey Warden to the Deeproads? you’ll be able to follow her story as it unfolds as far as you want to.
Lore and orders
There is a right and a wrong way to play Inquisition, and the game itself does a terrible job of informing you of this.
You should step into Thedas knowing that this is an adventure that will consume tens, or more likely hundreds, of hours of your gaming time. There’s no need to collect everything, to fill every gauge or to hand in every single quest.
You’ll want to turn your completionist tendencies off in order to adequately balance out the marginal filler and the mind-blowingly essential. Manage to do this and you’ll be rewarded with one of the most involving RPG narratives going. If you ever make it out of the pub.
Pros:
- Incredibly well-written, especially considering its scope.
- Thedas is massive and full of interesting stories to discover.
- Choices feel weighty and lend your character a sense of power.
Cons:
- The first 20 hours can feel like a massive grind.
Where to Buy
You can get this Game from Amazon:
