If 2023 is remembered for one thing, it's that it was a 100% critical success year for the RPG. Role-players across the land have been feasting exceedingly well these past few months, what with the stonking success of Baldur's Gate 3 (and to lesser extents, Starfield and Diablo 4), so we thought it was about time to celebrate your favourite RPGs of all time. Your votes have been counted, your comments have been sorted, and the cream of the RPG crop has been assembled. But which of the many excellent RPGs have risen above all others? Come and find out below as we count down your top 25 favourite RPGs of all time.
]]>Often when we talk about "hype" surrounding a release, it’s in anticipation of shared cultural euphoria more than that of a great gaming experience. Either way, a great RPG game hits different. Recently, Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate 3 have both been landmarks. Not to mention the enduring sweep of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and the Minesweeper-esque ubiquity of Skyrim. When studios get the RPG right, the end result inspires excitement and devotion in ways that feel utterly unique to the genre.
To this end I chatted to Dragon Age, Baldur’s Gate, and Mass Effect maestro Mark Darrah, some of the folks at Studio ZA/UM, and the minds behind the two definitive tomes on CRPG history: Matt Barton of Dungeons And Desktops, and Felipe Pepe of The CRPG Book. I wanted to ask these genere experts about all things choice and consequence, player freedom, and Baldur’s Gate 3’s phenomenal success. What turns a niche into a phenomenon? What goes into creating a great RPG? And what makes the genre so special to people? Turns out that last one is a big question to ask.
]]>“It’s incredibly weird for anybody who knows me that I’ve become the romance guy,” David Gaider tells me. “I’m the least romantic guy. Especially when I get to the characters saying ‘I love you’ to each other…” Gaider mimes the sickliness of the scene and his own horrified response. “Apparently I did it so well on Baldur’s Gate II that James Ohlen kept handing me this stuff. And, god, I hated it so much.”
It’s weird, in fact, that Gaider wound up working on Baldur’s Gate II at all - let alone that he became synonymous with Dragon Age and romanceable companions afterwards. At 27 years old, he ran a hotel in Edmonton, Alberta - the same city where, unbeknownst to him, Bioware was busy making its name. Once it came time to make a sequel to Baldur’s Gate, Bioware cast around for local writers, and a friend recommended Gaider, who had played D&D in the ‘80s before it fell out of fashion.
]]>After hitting alpha last month, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is at last on the horizon - though still the 'far off, squint a bit and you can make out a few basic details' horizon. BioWare have now revealed a sneak peek at an early cutscene, in which chirpy dwarf Varric muses about his old companion/possible ancient Elven god Solas. He's the big bad, you see. The Dreadwolf himself.
BioWare have also released a few bits and bobs in celebration of Dragon Age day, including posters for upcoming Netflix show Dragon Age: Absolution, which is out on Friday. I hope it doesn't do a Dota.
]]>We’ve finally got a proper look at the upcoming fantasy animated series Dragon Age: Absolution, heading to Netflix on December 9th, thanks to a new trailer. The series is made up of six half-hour episodes following Miriam, an elven mercenary, and it’s set in Tevinter. That’s where the next Dragon Age game, Dreadwolf, will take place, too. Have a watch of the trailer below.
]]>A few more classics have made their way onto EA’s list of games they’re shutting down online services for, with Mirror’s Edge the most notable casualty for PC players. The shutdown will come into effect from January 19th, 2023, just overshooting the 13th anniversary of the game’s launch on PC. It’ll presumably affect the dystopian parkour game’s online leaderboards, and downloadable Ghosts of other players.
]]>Dragon Age is one of my favourite game series. I replayed Dragon Age: Origins recently not for this column, but for fun. That's the kind of wild gal I am. Origins was one of the reasons I got into PC gaming, because my dinky laptop wasn't good enough to run it and I was desperate to play it after seeing the trailers. I spaffed some of my student loan on a new desktop and spent four months eating nothing but cheese sandwiches. At the time it felt worth it. Watching those trailers now is like opening a time capsule full of fantasy tropes and, for some reason, an incongruous chugging guitar song by someone we don't need to mention ever again.
Replaying it now is a different experience. It's still a really cool RPG, notable for very good world-building and a cast of interesting characters (that you can have sex with in a cold tent), and it continues to hold a dear place in my heart. On the other hand, there's a whole section that's such a mind-numbing slog to get through that everyone hates it and there's a mod specifically to remove it from the entire game. Origins is a game I very much like, yet sometimes struggle to explain why it is good. But I'm not alone in thinking so, 'cos in 2009 this was RPS's Game Of The Year. Can't blame me for that. I didn't even work here then.
]]>Videogame publishers look at animated series like I look at air fryers: everyone else seems to have one, so I want one too. I assume that's why BioWare are working with Netflix to produce Dragon Age: Absolution, a new animated series coming this December.
]]>Get your speedrunning shoes on and prepare your glitches: Awesome Games Done Quick has arrived for its yearly speedrunning extravaganza. As with previous years, the charity event is raising money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. It's been live since yesterday evening and runs until this Sunday, and there are already some fab runs in the likes of Mirror's Edge and Dragon Age: Origins to catch up on.
]]>What did you do to celebrate Dragon Age day on Friday? I watched a voice actor get brutally shut down by Dragon Age fans, after he posted the cringiest video I have ever watched in my life. Greg Ellis, the voice of Cullen in Dragon Age: Inquisition, decided that it would be a good idea to post a 40 minute video, in-character as Cullen, complaining about him and his voice actor being victimised by cancel culture. It is awful. It is hilarious. It might well be the best thing to happen to Dragon Age since Dragon Age 2.
]]>Ah, religion. I know this is a topic we all have trouble agreeing on. But fear not, humble practitioner of a good pray, I am not here to squint angrily at your favourite book of life advice. I’m only here for the videogame religions. The ones that are very, very, very, very bad. You know, the gun-loving cults and the xenophobic people-burners. The (mostly) fictional religions that involve an uncommon volume of murder. Step this way, sprinkle yourself with some of my 100% genuine oil of the almighty, and peruse the 9 most dodgy religions in games.
]]>It has happened. The day spoken of in legend. After two years, I am finally to be set free of the Curse Of Steam Charts. All its taken is entirely leaving my job in four days time to end this purgatory. The only decision left is to whom I shall pass this vexation. That, and how to avoid mentioning the actual games for one more week. And this time I've come up with a self-indulgent doozy.
]]>There's a new Dragon Age on the way, according to the moody teaser shown during December's Game Awards. Forgot where you left off? Best start catching up with Dragon Age: Origins then, with the rather lovely Qwinn's Ultimate DAO Fixpack mod. As the title suggests, it's your one-stop shop for polishing up the game and fixing up all the little issues Bioware never had the chance to officially patch. It even reinstates a handful of lost dialogues and events to the game - nothing too dramatic, but a good foundation to start with, though you may want to buff it up with a few more choice mods before starting.
]]>With BioWare starting to mutter about Dragon Age again (and rumours saying they'll announce DA4 this week), here's one person who won't be involved: long-running designer and director Mike Laidlaw, as he's joined Ubisoft Quebec. Laidlaw [not to be confused with Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw -ed.] left BioWare in 2017 after 14 years, where he'd been a lead writer on Jade Empire, a lead designer on the first two Dragon Age games, and the creative director of Dragon Age: Inquisition. He doesn't reveal what he's creatively directing at Ubisoft Quebec, the studio behind Ass Creed Odyssey, but says it's "truly interesting" and "exciting."
]]>Following the pre-pre announcement of news on something new in Dragon Age, BioWare have pre-announced that they'll open up in December. My fingers are crossed for a new game continuing the adventures of the merry gang in Kirkwall from Dragon Age II, though I suppose events Dragon Age: Inquisition would cut that off. And the mysterious project still could just be a dang comic book or something rather than another RPG.
]]>Then the bus EXPLODED. Hello, this is the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, and we are here to talk about the best game openings and intros. Whether they are cold opens or slow burns, we love a good first impression.
]]>Hello chum! Sit down and have a nice glass of water and a pack of Bombay mix. That's how we greet our closest friends on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. This week, best pals John and Brendan discuss how friendship is handled in videogames, and what characters felt most like close buddies. John felt a kinship with Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins, and sees Lydia from Skyrim as Wilson the football from Castaway. Whereas Brendan felt a habitual closeness to the undead woman in Dark Souls who sold him poisonous arrows. Takes all sorts, really.
]]>BioWare veteran Mike Laidlaw has parted ways with that RPG rabble after 14 years. He was co-lead writer on Jade Empire, a lead designer on the first two Dragon Ages and the creative director of Inquisition, and did a little design on Mass Effect. Laidlaw announced his departure last night with a tweeted statement. He doesn't explain why he's away but I suppose it's not our business. What's next? Well, for starters, a lot of Twitch and Twitter.
]]>Few game mechanics right now make me 'urrrrrrrrrrgh' quite like crafting. Bloody, bloody crafting. I hate crafting. I hate that just about every game I pick up can't wait to introduce its crafting system to me, with its long shopping lists of finnicky items to find, and about as much care for being believable as all those shotguns and medikits Lara Croft used to find littering ancient tombs. Crafting is the worst, and unlike something like the escort missions of old, it manages to be the worst regardless of how much it actually ends up wasting your time.
]]>After seventeen years in the scribbler's hotseat, writer and designer David Gaider has left BioWare. Gaider joined the RPG-builders back in 1999, putting in some time on Baldur's Gate 2 before moving onto Knights of the Old Republic. His contributions to the Star Wars universe include snarky murderous human-hating droid HK-47 (a terrifying vision of our machine-doomed future presented as comic relief) and Carth Onasi, a sad space-man. Gaider's greatest contribution to CRPGs came as lead writer on Dragon Age: Origins, the beginning of the series that, along with Mass Effect, has come to define modern BioWare.
]]>Since the dawn of RPGs, two things have remained constant: heroes require armour, and players will always want to find out what happens if they strip it all off and run around. Some would call it a secret test of a game's devotion to world simulation - that if characters react, it says good things about the developers' devotion to detail. Others just think it's really funny. (To be clear, it's very rarely even close to sexy.)
This week then, a random sample will answer the question the world has been waiting to realise it should have asked - objectively speaking, which RPG is the best? Specifically, if they all forgot their PE kits and had to go quest in their pants.
]]>In Dragon Age: Inquisition, you are the most important person in the entire world. People will follow you into battle, go along with your decisions and occasionally kiss you on the lips. There's an enormous world to discover and it's all there for you. Go and have an adventure. You deserve it.
Adam: Inquisition is like comfort food. A month-long banquet of comfort food, with all the trimmings.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
Have you heard of it? Dragon Age: Origins was this little RPG put out by an indie studio in Canada called BioWare. Aha, my little joke. But it's a question well worth asking, as with the release of Inquisition I've spoken to lots of people who've never played the original, and would absolutely love it. Including my dad. Dad - play this for goodness sake.
]]>The difficulty with explaining why Dragon Age: Origins was super-duper top dog stuff is that on a surface level it was all a bit boring. Nasty creatures are coming to destroy your green, faintly damp-looking world! You've got to save the realm, perhaps because prophecies? Prophecies might be a thing, I suppose. Also: dwarves and elves and sometimes magic.
Thematically there's very little going on in Ferelden that hadn't already been flogged to oblivion by the rest of the genre, which makes Origins an even tougher sell to a culture now fixated with Game of Thrones. Decapitation makes an occasional appearance, but Origins is largely po-faced fare. What helps it succeed anyway is the one cliché it skewers beautifully, through its depiction of evil and a place called 'the fade'.
]]>Loads of games are free, you know. Lots of weird and wonderful games of all shapes and sizes made by all sorts of people. Many of them are great, aren't they? But imagine the giddy thrill of receiving for free a game which once cost actual money. How decadent! What a bargain! How could Dragon Age: Origins be free this week? Why? Quick, you better download it before The Man notices his mistake.
]]>You probably should have called it Faux Dragon Skin, Bioware special edition packaging designers. If you're going to use it a fake reptile to decorate the supermegaultrodeluxe version of Dragon Age: Inquisition's box, you might as well go for the ultimate fake reptile.
Other than this misstep, EA/Bioware are going all out with the clumsily yet wonderfully-named Dragon Age: Inquisition Inquisitor's Edition. A lockpick set! A tarot deck! A quill and inkpot! Pretend money! A bloody enormous cloth map!
]]>This year? THIS YEAR? Why was I not told of this? (I was. It's just that I have the memory of a Leveson Inquiry witness these days). Yes, fantasy RPG sequel Dragon Age Inquistion is due this Autumn/Fall, and much as Bioware have some faith-rebuilding to do after the double-whammy of Dragon Age II and Mass Effect Ending-Gate, I really would like a big, fat, indulgent, glossy RPG on my hard drive right now. Will it be Dragon Age Not-III? The trailer below, which focuses on Frostbite 3 engine-powered environments, suggests I will at least be cooing at its surface.
]]>Quick, quick, before it's pulled!
Unless of course this is a clever marketing ruse, wherein giving the impression that this half-hour of in-game Dragon Age 3-ing is somehow illicitly-obtained makes everyone frantically watch every second of it. WE ARE BEING TRICKED DON'T WATCH THIS VIDEO WHATEVER YOU DO
]]>↑ that logo is a fake, sorry.
With Mass Effect now concluded, at least until the inevitable announcement of a new trilogy, a first-person shooter and a free-to-play god-knows-what, and SWTOR currently being fitted into its microtransacted iron lung, all eyes turn to the core Bioware team's next roleplaying move. The smart money is surely on a new Dragon Age game, and tiny wee scraps of hint have seemed to support this. Today we got significantly more than tiny wee scraps, as an alleged survey allegedly leaked by alleged specially-selected community members offers all manner of alleged potential details on a third Dragon Age game.
]]>Bioware are releasing a whole new game after Mass Effect 3 is sent out into the big wide world. All we know, though, is that it's a new franchise, and this is the first screenshot of it, as bestowed upon the industry's number one chum GameInformer. We don't know a name, we don't know if the inclusion of buggies and deserts is a red herring (as was the Mass Effect 3 image they released for last year's VGAs), and we don't even know if it's an RPG, guns & conversation, shooter, or what. We'll find out just what it is at the VGA awards on Saturday.
]]>This week, a few mods that I've been monitoring but haven't had a chance to have a proper go at yet. In some cases, that's because they haven't been released yet, in others it's because the hours in every day are sadly limited, and as well as playing games and writing about them, I very occasionally sleep. I even venture outside from time to time, although admittedly not in the current political and meteorological climate. Too chilly. Too bitter. All too real. Onward to fantasy. Preferably with decent central heating.
]]>I haven't watched this first episode of the Felicia Day-starring Dragon Age live action web series Redemption yet and thus would be A NASTY STINKY LIAR if I passed any comment on it at this stage, but I have embedded it below. Let's watch it together!
]]>Here's the trailer for that live-action Dragon Age TV series, starring that woman people on Twitter all have a crush on, and it's... Well.. It's. Well. Well, it makes Dragon Age II seem an awful lot more palatable all of a sudden. Bless everyone involved, but the budget's just not there, is it?
]]>Yes, obviously there's going to be a third game. It's a long way off, still. But what are they going to do with it? Match-3 puzzler? We should be so lucky. Instead it's going to feature an art style similar to DA2, and you'll be able to full tinker with the loadouts of your party members. Fighting will also be encounter-based, rather than surviving waves of enemies. Hooray!
]]>This is a depressing year to be on the internet. And a doubly-depressing one to be a newswriter on the internet. The latest (but, let's not bloody kid ourselves, not last) game company to suffer the peculiar ire/amusement of hackers is Bioware. Fortunately, only a very specific bit of Bioware, so don't panic too much: their 10-year-old Neverwinter Nights forum. It actually happened a little earlier this month, but now Bioware are alerting everyone affected and opening up about exactly what details were compromised. You may have thought, following the initial talk of this hack, that it was no big deal for you, but if you used to play NwN you might well have left passwords, email addresses, phone numbers or CD keys in the information these imps have made off with. Credit card details are apparently safe, however. Full Bioware statement below.
]]>EA may not have given Battlefield fans the answer they wanted to hear, but meanwhile, back in the kingdom of Ferelden, things might be looking a little rosier. Eurogamer had a chat with EA bigwig Frank Gibeau about the reception to Dragon Age 2. He was careful not to actually slag off the game or its makers, but he did imply that the negative feedback has very much been taken on board.
]]>Now this is more like it. Dragon Age: Legends, the Facebook game intended to a) promote Dragon Age II and b) suck out your very soul, has been remixed by indie chaps Pixelante, creators of the lovely Pixel Legions. (But not the same lot as Auntie Pixelante aka Anna Anthropy - that would be something). The net result? Dragon Age: Legends becomes a romping good time, a festival of monster-splatting and levelling up rather than a glacially-paced exercise in begging.
]]>So there have been some problems with EA's DRM for Dragon Age. Ars Technica has a good, angry summary of what has been happening:
]]>What would it be like if Dragon Age's Morrigan and Mass Effect's Liara T'Soni met? I fed that question into the RPS supercomputer and it spat out the above image. I don't think it was trying very hard. Anyway as of yesterday both ladies have received their very own DLC, with DA's Witch Hunt and ME2's Lair of the Shadow Broker both available for download RIGHT NOW. Witch Hunt costs $7 and adds about an hour of play time (according to the Dragon Age wiki), while Lair of the Shadow Broker costs $10, lasts about two and a half hours and lets you have sex with Liara. One of these packs is a better deal than the other, I feel.
]]>September 7th is looking like a bad day for people find themselves bleeding from every orifice whenever Bioware release Downloadable Content. They're going to be painfully jettisoning twice the fluids they may have expected, because as well as Lair of the Shadow Broker for Mass Effect 2, they're releasing Witch Hunt for Dragon Age: Origins which basically takes your Warden out for the final part of the story where you find out whether Morrigan ever decided to start wearing sensible clothes. Trailer follows, which includes spoilers...
]]>Just as a follow-up to Jim's post earlier, it's worth pointing out a Bioware comment from last week in which they revealed that Dragon Age: Origins was their most successful game ever. Which makes it doubly weird that they're trying to make Dragon Age 2 more like the Mass Effects. The first one, at least, was a less successful project.
*As of last November. Mass Effect 2 probably did okay too.
]]>The next big chunk of Dragon Age DLC is now out, and (as John mentioned a couple of weeks back) it's a devious little concept. It's only a module rather than another Awakenings-size mega-chunk, but it's a chance to step inside the festering skin of a Darkspawn hurlock and lay vicious siege to the puny human city of Denerim. The idea is 'your' Dragon Age hero didn't survive the opening fight in the original DA, so it's Darkspawn vs Alistair instead. Won't end well for our boisterous, blonde-haired holy warrior, I suspect. If you complete it, you unlock a new item in the main DA/Awakenings campaign, which will presumably just pop magically into your inventory like so many of the other DLC items. Honestly, why must latter-day RPGs do that? It removes the striving and the triumph from finding or buying cool loot. Especially when the story is "your character was born an orphan and a pauper. Oh, apart from that impossibly priceless high-level Blood Dragon armour he happens to have in his bag."
]]>There's new Dragon Age DLC on the way. Which so far hasn't really been much of a cause for celebration, but this one, Darkspawn Chronicles, sounds interesting. Very interesting. It's an alternative history, where your character is killed during the Grey Warden's Joining ceremony. This leaves the lovely Alistair in charge of the elite group, but oh no, you don't play as him. You play as a darkspawn.
]]>It's not exactly jam-packed with detail, but there's a new Dragon Age: Awakening trailer that features a spectral skellington dragon, The Queen of Black Marsh. That's good enough, right? Which also affords me the opportunity to let you know that the long, long delayed Return To Ostagar DLC is finally available for the PC (the poor PS3 crowd still don't have it). Almost a month late, and held up by a series of fiascos, we'll be taking a look at it just as soon as we can.
]]>Dragon Age's first post-release DLC has been announced, and it's called "Return To Ostagar". It apparently "allows players to exact their revenge and embark on a quest for the mighty arms and armor of the once great King Cailan when they revisit Ostagar, the site of the Grey Wardens’ darkest hour, to reclaim the honor and learn the secrets of Ferelden’s fallen king." It's going to cost 400 Bioware points on PC, which I guess is about $5. Release date is the less-than-specific "this winter". Full press release below.
]]>The Dragon Age toolset has been released, which is surely they only sensible way to defeat the DLC demon that walks in our shadow. Purge it with the capacity to "build new, original campaigns, quests, or cut-scenes," or even "create your own stories with the powerful cinematics editor that offers full control of the camera, voice and lip syncing tools, and a full character creator." Hmm. It's 472mb in digi-girth, and even has its own trailer, posted below. Get the toolset here or here, and probably other downloady places too. The important issue, however is whether anyone going to make us an RPS campaign? Eh? Anyone?
]]>My review of Dragon Age in PC Gamer is now online. All 60 million words, but short the very pretty boxouts (and thus vital details about the "taint" - snigger). It looks very splendid in the magazine. (Unfortunately an RPS review will be a while coming as our attempts to get review code were not responded to.) It's a tremendous game, in many senses of the word. Here's an excerpt that captures one of my favourite details:
]]>Over the weekend the Dragon Age pre-loading has started, meaning if you pre-order it - er - it'll start downloading. Early. And similar. Anyway, to celebrate this momentous event, Direct2Drive have given us five copies of the Digital Deluxe Edition to give away to you. Our fine readers. So it's compo time! To secure your copy of this much anticipated game, you have to use the recently released character creator to make the most interesting looking character you can. What does "interesting" mean? Well, you read the site. That's your job to work out. Reverse analyse our evil noggins. Anyway - when you've done that, send a link to a grab of your creation, perhaps with a little in-mail elaboration of why you think it's so splendid. Don't actually mail us the screengrab. Mail us a link to the photo. I repeat, mail us a link to the grab of your character. We can't have our compo inbox bunged up with enormous jpg files, you understand. Anyway - get the creator from here and get cracking. The compo will close at 6pm EST GMT on Thursday 5th, so those who don't win still have time to actually pre-order the thing. The usual compo rules apply.
]]>First of all, I'm very sorry for the headline. Moving on. The Dragon Age trailers, they will not stop. The latest is the reveal of the Dwarven potential party member Oghren, a fighter who can join your gang. As you'll see in the trailer below, he's brash, rude, and partial to the odd drink or seven, and at odds with the political state of his home city of Orzammar.
]]>Bioware's fantasy epic is trundling towards us like a siege tower made of conversation trees and noisy metal, and we're starting to get a few glimpses of the characters in detail. One such glimpse, a video show-casing Zevran The Asssassin, possibly Dragon Age's stabbiest character, sits below the click. I've also posted a small gallery of the latest screenshots, which you can click upon for embiggenment.
]]>After our last rather cynical few comment thread chats about Dragon Age, a source from within EA (who will have to remain anonymous) got in touch to say that the cynics were wrong, and that the game really is the modern equivalent of the famed Baldur's Gate games. It is, our source insists, one of the great RPGs. Do we believe them? I mean, it's all within towing their company line, isn't it? Well, despite some scepticism induced by terrible marketing, I do hold out that this is going to be a thoroughly enjoyable RPG. Bioware aren't exactly short on talent, and this game has been years in the tweaking. That said, I'm kind of looking forward to both Alpha Protocol and Mass Effect 2 more, because they're both looking bold and non-fantasy. But then again, the collector's retail edition of Dragon Age comes with a cloth map (see below). And that kind of changes things... Terrible map-lust.
Anyway, GamesCom trailer below. It's good. And Darkspawny.
]]>There were surprisingly few disappointments at E3 this year. Most trips behind a closed door revealed something new and exciting, or reinforced enthusiasm for an ongoing project. EA's demonstration of Dragon Age sadly did not. If the content shown was indicative, it seems reasonable to worry about with the forthcoming old-school fantasy RPG. I'm just hoping it was not.
]]>What interesting timing. A few weeks ago I talked to Dragon Age's designer Mike Laidlaw at a press event. It has just gone up on Eurogamer. Of course, this ties in to the uproar around the recent violence trailer. I found myself eye-brow raising a little in the PR-line which Bioware seem to be following with this too, but when pressed Mike defended the mature direction as more than just trailers...
"I'm not sure the level of maturity is the difference - but the depth, the experience itself. Does it all hang together on a single theme? Because I think our greatest failing could be it's just a standard oh-look-a-unicorn fantasy... also, this guy's head just popped off. For it to feel tacked on, and not part of the experience."
More here. Of course, there's also the sarcastic response inspired by Psychopomp's comment thread post...
]]>A spot of interesting news regarding Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware and EA have announced that the game will be coming out without Securom DRM, or any other form, beyond an old-fashioned disc check before loading. This means the old-skool fantasy RPG won't require any online authentication at all, and thus will have no install limits. Another sign of EA's changing mind about game protection.
Blues News reports the story, picked up via the official Dragon Age forums, where Community Coordinator (come on community, follow me in groups of four) Chris Priestly describes the announcement as "good news."
]]>Dragon Age is a fantasy RPG. No, it's true. It's being made by Bioware and everything. Still don't believe me? Well I have irrefutable evidence placed just beyond the cut: a battle to save a town from two different perspectives. Big Man With Sword and Wizard Girl, respectively. There's even a pause in the action while orders are issued to the rest of the party. Conclusive proof.
There's still no date confirmed for this origin-story-telling RPG, but we're expecting it to save the peasants from dark powers by the end of the year. And why is that dude standing in the fire? We may never know.
]]>Below the jump is a pleasantly long video showing off Dragon Age's conversations, from the perspective of a few different races, and demonstrating the difference that various origin stories will make. Some of the acting is quite a relief - a good degree better than in other videos we've seen of the game. And extremely British, which I hadn't realised. (And amazingly, actually British actors, rather than embarrassing mockney attempts).
]]>The two sizable videos that lie beyond the cut contain a wide expanse of Dragon Age information, with tonnes of in-game footage. There's plenty of time spent in the game world, looking at quests, conversations and so on - far more detail of the general RPG stuff than we've seen previously. It's spoilerific, obviously, but the amount of detail covered in the two pieces certainly has me looking forward to this game even more than I had been previously. The GameVideos servers seem to be creaky slow at the moment, so this might take some time to load.
Dragon Age is due in Q1 2009, apparently.
]]>Whadda ya think - is Bioware's next RPG, reportedly a spiritual Baldur's Gate sequel, looking mightier than it did in the last trailer? Open letter to Bioware though: please, for the love of Tzeentch, hire a different voice actor for whoever Your Majesty is. The guy sounds like an annoyed Blue Peter Presenter.
]]>The Dragon Age site has changed to reveal a link to the already-populated forums, a subscription link for a newsletter, and a link to the apparently-in-engine trailer on GameTrailers. It has also picked up a subtitle, which is odd, because "origins" is usually a title you tag onto something further down the line, when you feel the need to do a prequel, right? Anyway, the not-actually-CGI trailer is after the jump.
]]>
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