An EA line-up sheet, a not-so-subtle Awakening tease, an obvious Twitter tease, and an accidental official mention might have killed some of the edge off the surprise, but it's nice to know again that Dragon Age II, a full sequel to the original hack-and-slash RPG Dragon Age: Origins, is indeed coming.
An hour or so after Game Informer revealed its August cover this morning--the star of which is a brilliant piece of artwork taken from the new game--the Dragon Age II official website went live. According to GI's digital outlet, this new Dragon Age will feature a "new hero, a different part of the world," and sport improvements over the original. The website paints a clearer picture of what could be a much more action-focused Dragon Age similar to what console owners of the game experienced.
I'm thinking that specifically because of this line: "Think like a general and fight like a Spartan with dynamic new combat mechanics that put you right in the heart of battle whether you are a mage, rogue, or warrior."
== TEASER ==The description of Dragon Age II on the official website pushes a rags-to-riches storyline pretty hard, and it looks like, at some point, your character will become a pretty big deal in whatever land he or she hails from--in the course of a decade. "You [Hawke] are one of the few who escaped the destruction of your home. Now, forced to fight for survival in an ever-changing world, you must gather the deadliest of allies, amass fame and fortune, and seal your place in history. This is the story of how the world changed forever. The legend of your Rise to Power begins now."
The game will also see a new "visual style." The Game Informer art, and the first bits of concept art shown below seem to indicate a fresh, oily, vastly different style is on its way.
I'm surprised that Dragon Age II might not follow where Dragon Age: Origins' first expansion pack, Awakening, took us. In Awakening, we fought off tribes of Darkspawn with a disturbing intelligence, but no real master. This was a direct result of the Blight, which was clobbered in Origins. Why wouldn't BioWare and writer David Gaider keep exploring the narrative threads being left by the mutations and power struggles in the great below in the aftermath of Origins? Is it possible that Dragon Age II isn't the kind of traditional follow-up we might be expecting? Did I just dive off the deep end?
UPDATE: Phew. Official EA release calls this new hero, Hawke, a "survivor of the Blight." But recent posts on the official Dragon Age II message board tells us that Hawke can be either male or female, making Dragon Age II more like a narrowed Mass Effect-type of narrative experience than what we would assume a Dragon Age: Origins sequel would be.
Thanks goes to LlamaNL for the initial intel.