BioWare have been keeping details about Dragon Age II close to the chest, sparking the worst kind of tortured speculation seen this side of arsenic-based life-forms: “Dragon Age II is a hack-and-slash” is the new “NASA found aliens on Saturn.”
In a “Making Of” video released yesterday, Mark Darrah and his team at BioWare Edmonton look to assuage some of those fears. “But because it looks faster, because it has a character with a voice, because of this historical story we were going to do, we ran the risk of people saying, ‘Oh my God. Because this is so different, I’m not sure it’s for me,'” explains lead designer Mike Laidlaw. Ye of little faith, you Doubting Thomases, consider yourselves pre-empted: BioWare know you’re anxious, but they think you’ll like it after you play it.
Which is, y’know, reasonable.
Since there are only brief glimpses of the combat in this video, I’m not going to try to parse its underlying mechanics. Instead, I’ll note that I really like the style of what art director Matt Goldman calls a “cartoon animatic” that showcases some of Dragon Age II‘s early concepts. (Dragon airstrike!) You might also notice that, at least in terms of marketing, we’re seeing a lot more of Hawke as a mage — it always kind of bugged me that the standard Warden was a warrior in the Origins trailers.
I’ve been around the internet long enough to know — so feel free to keep frothing at the mouth until March 8.
