(via PlayingWithMyWeiner.com)

Huzzah! The spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate is Dragon Age: Origins, and BioWare
recently confirmed that PC players will have it before April 2009, and consoleans soon
after.

Originally just titled “Dragon Age” the ‘Origins’ in the title refers to how your origin and the
decisions you make affect the way your story unfolds. This is nothing new for BioWare.
KOTOR, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect all had “light side/dark side” decision trees. BioWare
considers this sort of character development its particular idiom, and they seem determined
to keep honing the technique until every player feels that each of their characters is an
entirely unique entity shaped by the player’s own hand.

Unlike in Mass Effect, however, your main character does not have a voice. BioWare told
Joystiq at PAX that this was due to the great variability in gender and race for your
character. The demo makes it clear that, at least in town, race does matter. In the town we
saw, Human Wardens were treated with great honor and respect, but their Elven brethren
were far less revered. Humans might experience the reverse in an Elven town, and it
remains to be seen how the Orc PCs fit into the whole mess. The specifics of character
creation are still under wraps.

As far as the game world is concerned, the forces shaping the characters in Dragon Age are
not your typical D&D high thud and blunder. BioWare has taken a darker tone, complete
with real blood and real violence. You play as the Grey Wardens, elite warriors called to
task to put down the forces of a risen Old God.

Combat is classic BioWare pause-and-play, with a decent mix of action and roleplaying
every combat. The fight in the 45-minute PAX demo felt solid, and gave the player several
options to finish the fight, including butchery and trickery. It is possible that even these
choices can affect your character development, but BioWare has yet to confirm this.

As of PAX, the game looks good. BioWare has developed a new game engine for DA that
they are calling Eclipse. The game will come with a toolset for user-created content, and
one can only expect that with a subtitle like Origins, expansion packs will be on the way.

If Dragon Age: Origins is this promising eight months before its release, I look forward to
seeing the depth and polish BioWare puts on the final product.