Do yourself a favor...finish "In Your Heart Shall Burn"

If you are on the fence about this game...

PLEASE do yourself a favor and finish that quest. If the story hasn't captured you yet, this is where it gets awesome.

THIS is why I keep coming back for Bioware games...no one else does those moments better.

Yeah the story beats are preeeetty good. One of them after 'In Your Heart Shall Burn' made me say 'holy shit' out loud ^_^

Well not even really just for that quest but simply the amount of stuff you have access to after is worth it. The game really comes into its own after that quest.

The last section of that quest kicked my ass. I had grabbed all the supply caches on my way into the chantry and I was left trying to do the trebuchet with half my supply, on hard. I ended up turning the difficulty down.

Edit: But yeah, the game is better after that section than before. Before, it felt like it needed a bit more structure. Like they were rushing to the false climax of closing the rift, and in so doing didn't build up to it sufficiently. Given how long the game is already, it's not surprising that they didn't take more time, I guess.

Boy, I only just finished this quest not 10 minutes ago, and came away, mind blown out of the water. It's like a song I like or something. I've been loving this game from minute one; the larger story-driven quests have all been sublime in my opinion where-as the "open world" questing was a little bit less compelling, though still pretty great once you got into the groove of it.

This here section, however, completely outshines and outdoes anything before hand in the game, and arguably even in ANY Bioware product. It's cinematic enough to be worthy of an MGS title, with a fantastic balance between the dramatic and the downplayed. Songs are sung, bad guys are thwarted, dragons are menacing, character moments are had. All of a sudden, DA: Inquisition is threatening to topple my GOTY list as is.

I am all in.

I agree, that mission and the aftermath is the true start to this game. Story and gameplay wise. So yeah, do it as soon as you can, but beware the enemy gauntlets on harder difficulties.

Yeah, I made the same mistake with the supply caches, because how could you know? Imagine my delight then at that wave stand off by the trebuchet. Arriving there I had 4 potions left, on fucking Nightmare. Red templars + Red Horrors = Emperor Palpatine like lightning strikes = everyone dies in a mere 2 seconds.

I ended up kiting every single enemy across the whole city with Varric, which was especially fun with the boss wave. Took me 2 hours. It sucked.

That main mission and the one before it were fantastic.... took me back to that BioWare greatness. You unlock 3 new awesome new skill trees after you meet Hawke. Also Cole is what this game needed sorely with the majority of it's party members being boring and uninspired. Game has been killing it with the main missions but those side missions are still glorified fetch quests but eh still addictive :)

I wouldn't say this is where the game opens up or anything like that. The game has already, up to that point, shown you everything it has to offer. It's simply on a larger scale now (quite literally as you have more large zones to explore now.) The story goes in that direction because its a Bioware game, so of course it does.

The game certainly felt anemic before that point content wise, an issue resolved after it, but someone that didn't enjoy it on a fundamental mechanical level is not going to have any change of opinion.

I should really play more. I generally want to be a Mage, but the Mage gameplay has been boring the first couple hours, so I'm now play a rogue and nhaving more fun.

Maybe I should restart as a lady because what has been turning be off is how generic and contrived the intro has felt. Ahhh your a prisoner, but wait your a special prisoner, your the ONE! You can stop it all because your hand is infected with green, and green stops the world ending big balls of green!

Plus after playing far cry 4 with all it's eccentric wacky characters, dragon age's characters feel bland. But I haven't played much, so maybe try become more interesting

Agreed. Finished this quest last night and was pumped afterwards. The game really opens up after that. As mentioned by many others, the areas after the Hinterlands are much more interesting.

@asilentprotagonist: I really like the characters. Putting Vivienne and Sera together is fantastic. They are the total opposite of each other and just continually take passive aggressive swipes at each other.

That moment in the camp. Holy shit am I glad I got the soundtrack for this game.

I assume this is the event that takes me to Skyhold? See, I'm tempted to start over and then rush to this moment but I heard that doing that will auto complete a bunch of missions. Which ones? Is it just haven missions or also hinterlands etc?

It was a pretty good quest (aside from that horrifically cheesy song moment), but it kinda just goes back to boring politics for a while after that. Just got to the part where you enter the Eluvian with Morrigan. Realllllly hoping the main quest starts picking up soon. I pretty much love the rest of the game, but the main quest has been a massive disappointment thus far.

@alistercat: I dunno about the Haven quests, but it definitely didn't auto-complete any of the Hinterlands, or any other area quests from what I saw.

I was enjoying the game quite a bit before that mission but it's certainly elevated my enjoyment. I was surprised by the nature of the villain and how it tied into Awakening and the DA 2 DLC.

@sethphotopoulos: How does it tie in to awakening? I don't remember.

At least they seem similar.

@sethphotopoulos: Oh right. No, they just look a little bit similar. They're not really related though.

I haven't played that game in years so I couldn't remember why he was in the game. I barely remembered the villain's involvement in DA2.

@sethphotopoulos: He was just the first darkspawn to develop free will. He started the blight in DAO by messing with an old god that would become the archdemon.

That must have been DLC, right? ... Because I didn't play any DLC for 2 and had no idea what Hawk was talking about.

It was in the Legacy dlc

That part was great. I think I ran around Skyhold for like 2 hours after that quest too.

Can't wait to play it T_T Starting Dec 1

Can I jump into this if I've only played Origins? I wasn't sure how standalone each game is.

@truthtellah: Sure, Kotaku also released a beginner's guide which should help fill in some backstory

Cool. So, understanding the lore of Dragon Age 2 is important to enjoying Inquisition? Just wondering if maybe I should go play that first.

yeah i loved the game up till that point and then that quest just made it even better.i figured the first hub was all we would get and then we get the actual one.i thought i played alot of the game up to that point,but after that quest i felt i just beat a 25 hour prologue,which was a awesome feeling.

@truthtellah: i would say that you dont have to play dragon age 2 to enjoy inquisition,but it wouldnt hurt either.honestly,inquisition is so good and dragon age 2 is so meh that i would just play inquisition.as long as you have played origins you will be fine.

I have to say that the change made a significant difference for me. The game went from very good to great because I like the new areas better and the combat finally clicked once I got access to the specialisations and could actually start using the builds I wanted to go for since I looked at the skill trees. I switched from dual wield rogue to archer assassin, made Vivienne full on Knight Enchantress (witch a few frost skills) and since I really like Dorian as a character I tried out a Necro build which is fun despite being not as strong as Rift Mage or Knight enchanter. I'm having a blast switching from my Inquisitor to Vivienne and back during fights. The story is typical Biowar but I personally don't mind and liked the connection to DA2. What happens at the end of that mission has only solidified that Inquisition is my GotY.

@truthtellah: If you go in knowing the limitations DA2 is not a bad game. It gives you a better understanding of the Mage - Templar conflict and introduces a few elements that are referred to in Inquisition. The story goes absolutely bonkers at the end (not in a good way) and the characters aren't as strong as in Origins but if you don't compare it to Origins to heavily it's still a good time. I actually enjoyed my second playthrough a lot more because I wanted another Origins when I played it first and DA2 is certainly not that. It's also not very long, should be cheap now and you can skip most of the fetchquests. Give it a try, see what you think and maybe take a short break before you start Inquisition.

That was literally the best moment of that entire sequence. Like, I have a save just before that moment that I'll always have just because I really, really loved that moment.

It's kind of a reference to the part where Leliana sings the main theme in Origins and I also liked that moment. Yes, it's cheesy but in that charming Bioware way I can enjoy. That being said I can understand everybody who hates it.

I think that mission, top to bottom, might be my favorite singular thing from Bioware.

And I loved that damned song. Maybe it's a bit cheesy sure but it's the right kind.

Just the DLC story beats of Dragon Age 2 is important in regards to Inquisition

@truthtellah: To be fair, the larger conflict in terms of the mages and templars (and some character's that do appear in Inquisition) is further explored in one of the Dragon Age novels (DA: Asunder) authored by the lead(?) writer for Inquisition. It takes place after DA 2 but before Inquisition. I haven't read it myself though but if you really want to go all Vinny on the lore you can probably check that out. There's also another novel which goes into detail about the events that is leading the Orlesian Civil War (DA: Masked Empire), which is also happening during DA:I though the novel takes place before the start of the war.

Does it play out any differently if you do the Templar quest instead of the Mage quest?

I didn't play the DA 2 DLC but I totally thought this was the same person from Awakening when I got to this point.

With reference to the song...when I first heard it i was going "Hey isn't that the song Pippin sang in Return of the King?". Anybody felt the same way?

Overall enjoyed the big(finally) story bits from the quest, but couldn't help but roll my eyes at the need of the song , and the sequence after where you're climbing rocks to find the hold and such. Just screams "we needed to do something that looked like Lord of the Rings so here it is" to me. Apart from that, really enjoyed it.