How Bioware Gets It Right Again with Dragon Age: Inquisition

Dear BioWare: I was skeptical about all of the hype surrounding the characters in your new RPG, Dragon Age: Inquisition. But really, you outdid yourselves. You brought all the best parts of Mass Effect — the organizational meta-game; the choice system; the interesting, complicated NPCs — into a high fantasy genre that’s really been suffering. Thanks for that. While I’d like to be able to give my player character kinky hair (work on that for next time) the customization options are truly staggering. Thanks for that too. Thanks for letting me turn off the gore and take off the helmets, because some things are just distracting. Thanks for giving me a Black female NPC who is so fabulous, people are writing articles about her fashion choices. Thanks for treating me, Black female gamer me, like part of your core audience. I’ll see you when the DLC comes out, debit card in one hand and controller in the other.

I’m about 35 hours into BioWare’s latest video game, Dragon Age: Inquisition and I’m loving every minute of it. I’ve made it through 3 TPKs. I’ve out-run 4 very angry bears, lit 5 tower beacons, built like a hundred camps, traveled back and forth across a gigantic board and I’ve almost decided who I’m going to romance (something about Blackwall’s beard calls to me, but the Iron Bull….mmmm). Sure, the game has some glitches – quite a few team members have half-disappeared into table tops, and there’s that audio bug that ruins occasional conversations – but overall, I’ll be d…