After seeing a lot of trailers, demos, reveals and other cinematic teasers, it’s time to get busy with the real deal. This Gamescom I finally got my hands on Dragon Age: Inquisition and four Inquisitors running around the Fallow Mire region. Between hacking apart zombies, gathering reagents and completing side quests for the Inquisition, it was a great run.
As anyone who has seen the trailers will probably remember by now, the Fallow Mire region is the area in the game shown as a part of the quest to rescue some allies from a nearby barbarian settlement – so obviously, I ignored that part of the map entirely, opting instead to do what open-world games should be best in: Exploring an open world and generally being up to some mischief.
The first thing I ran across was some swamp water. Having been warned by my squad mates that disturbing the water will likely make undead rise, I jumped right in – two-handed fiery sword in hand. Hacking the undead apart was quite satisfying – combat feels very fluid and responsive when played at the 3rd-person action camera. Swinging that giant sword felt “right”, with the zombies reacting as they should. All the typical combat maneuvers were there – I blocked, dodged, parried and used special moves (with special mention goes to a massive overhead swing). But the action mode is just one aspect of the combat in Dragon Age: Inqusition with the other, obviously, the tactical over-the-top view.
Even playing with a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard combo, tactical mode was quite easy to manage since the game pauses. It obviously takes a bit longer to scroll across the screen while using a controller than while using a mouse but the result was the same. I gave specific orders to each of my party members on how to best engage the group of zombies we ran across, and my orders were executed flawlessly. Better yet – I gave my own character a stack of orders and she executed those as well, all the while I was back in 3rd-person camera, sitting in the passenger seat.
As far as a hands-on demo, Dragon Age: Inquisition definitely delivers. It feels like a superior Dragon Age game and the small segment of world I got to see was well-made and felt a part of a greater whole.
I can’t wait for the game to release in full on Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in November 18.
