BioWare’s live stream of the Dragon Age: Inquisition character creation tool (plus bonus Deep Roads gameplay) has wrapped up, so here’s a run-down on what was shown. I tried to take as many images as possible, but the stream quality wasn’t always the best. I’ve no doubt it will be archived at BioWare’s Twitch channel if you wish to watch (or re-watch) for yourselves, too.
Behold, the title screen of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Those templars and mages walk endlessly towards the structure on the hill. I know this because the screen was up for quite a while before the stream kicked off. It got fairly hypnotic. And kind of sad, considering how much cannon fodder that is.
The game was being played on PC, but with Xbox controller inputs.
After hopping in to a new game, your first option is select your race and gender. These are all presented in rather nifty Tarot Card form.
As are the class selection options.
After that you select a difficulty option. Sadly I wasn’t quick enough to get a shot of the “Impossible” difficulty right at the end, there. Basically it’s a headless man with lots of swords in him, representing the fact that it’ll make Dragon Age: Inquisition’s combat fairly tricky.
Then you’re into character creation proper. Here’s a young Zach Braff, ready to be warped beyond all recognition.
That’s more like it. Here you can see some of the various hair, beard and complexion sliders in action. “Voice” at the bottom there is a binary toggle between the British and American accented options. Women have the same toggle.
At this point his moustache has gone completely out of control, and we’re looking at a click-and-drag system for making the ear size bigger. Cheekbones and so on are altered the same way.
Both outer and inner iris colours can be changed to suit your needs, and to make your character stare as intently at the Dragon Age: Inquisition NPCs as possible.
You can also break your own characters nose if you fancy. Give him that “I used to be a pit fighter back in the day,” vibe. Some of the other nose options are shown here, too.
I’m not sure what happened between the last screencap and this one, but our hero has sort of turned into former Manchester United midfielder Ryan Giggs. Also, at this point the person in charge of the stream decided to add a window showing BioWare hosts Mike Laidlaw and Cameron Lee to everything.
Hell yes, now we’re talking. Hot man make-up ahoy.
Errm. Well. Yes. This is certainly a thing that’s possible with the Dragon Age: Inquisition character tool.
That previous guy was quietly shuffled away to the circus, and Laidlaw spent a little time on this screen which is where you’d import your Dragon Age Keep decision tree to the game. That’s the system which allows you to bring over all your choices from the prior Dragon Age titles to Inquisition.
Then we got to see a bit of lady Qunari creation.
You can apparently create them without horns, if you wish. It’s not possible to mix and match preferred hairstyles with/without horns however, each point on that slider is a different static hair/horns combo.
Qunari can be given a bit of an onyx sheen, if you like.
The Qunari will not be outdone in the glaring eyes department.
While they were showing off bits and pieces from the character creation tool, Laidlaw and Lee did answer a few questions. Regarding replication codes for character sharing, Laidlaw said these weren’t in the game at the moment, but BioWare is aware of the demand for them and they may be a post-release option. If that occurs, they’ll probably be integrated into the Dragon Age Keep setup, somehow.
Apparently there will be no full body tattoos (face only) in Dragon Age: Inquisition, for the relatively straightforward reason that the characters are all in full armour most of the time. But I’d know my character had a secret leg tattoo, Bioware. I’d know. Beauty marks don’t appear to be possible either, unless you somehow manipulate the scar system to look like one.
There is also no ‘body slider.’ Default racial variations in size are all you’re getting there.
Following the character creation segment, Laidlaw and Lee went on to demonstrate a bit more gameplay. They showed a section of Deep Roads from Dragon Age: Inquisition that hasn’t been previously broadcast. I’m afraid my screencaps get a bit worse from this point on, because there was a fair bit of screen tearing and considerably more motion than during character creation.
But you can see them anyway. There are apparently three or four different ways of getting to this area via quests or side-missions.
Naturally you’ll get into some fights. Those ledges aren’t just for show, it’s possible to knock enemies off to their grisly demise – and possible for members of your party to fall off, too. They won’t auto-die, but they’ll respawn on the ledge with less health.
Potions are limited while on missions and health doesn’t automatically regenerate, so I get the impression you’ll need to be somewhat careful when making your way through mission areas. It’s possible to revive fallen Dragon Age: Inquisition companions in battle (either with a distance spell or by running up to them,) but when revived they’ll only come back with partial health.
Just another paused, tactical combat shot here. It was mentioned that skills and casts can be performed outside of combat, if desired.
An exciting loot menu.
It was said that this is one of the pre-order armours (booo,) but the discussion did reveal a bit of interesting crafting detail. If you have an armour schematic, it’s possible to crank out some new versions of that same armour but in different materials. So if you want, say, a dragon scale version of an armour schematic you own, that’s a thing you can do.
An interior from the Deep Roads section.
Producer Cameron Lee’s potion management wasn’t so hot, and as you can see from this image it was pretty much the end of the line for his party. Skulls galore, and Varric couldn’t save the day single handed.
That was the end of the new area gameplay. A couple of other interesting notes mentioned during the stream: friendly fire will be a toggle separate from difficulty, if you wish to activate that. Also, it was said that all controls can be remapped on PC.
Dragon Age: Inquisition is due in November.
