Dragon Age: Inquisition, A breath of fresh

“STAY FOR ONE OF THE MOST DETAILED CHARACTER CREATOR SUITES YOU'VE EVER SEEN.”

Come for the slaying of Smaug’s fiery chums, stay for one of the most detailed character creators you’ve ever seen. Bioware has really gone above and beyond this time out. Thought your custom Commander Shepard was all that? Just wait until you see a system that lets you tailor your Inquisitor right down to his/her ocular diaphragm.

That’s right: Dragon Age: Inquisition enables you to tweak both the outer and inner colour of your character’s iris. Hot! Granted, that’s not exactly one for the boxart quote (though feel free to prove us wrong, EA), but its endemic of the panoply of options at play in Bioware’s grand action-RPG. Double chins; Adam’s apples; lip liners you’re very much in Yuke’s/WWE territory here, fantasy fans.

Detail and choice seem to be the unifying qualities of Inquisition headed into the final straight before the game hits shelves on 18 Nov. With four different races (Human, Elf, Dwarf and Qunari) and multiple class types, which you can always respec if you get bored, this is a game in seriously accommodating mood. Good. Because after the slightly shonky Dragon Age II, Inquisition should be looking to make amends. We could use a back rub, Smaug old buddy.

New enemy types have also surfaced thanks to a recent trailer. Fresh from the Big Book Of Game Antagonist Clichés comes The Elder One; Inquisition’s chief evil doer, who’s described as extremely arrogant. There’s also a brief glimpse at something called an Envy Demon imagine if a xenomorph and a skinless ostrich with six arms drunkenly stumbled into a Motel 6 and the resulting abomination would just about be on the money.

AGE AND WISDOM
All going well, we’ll have a review of Inquisition next month. Already, we’re confident this won’t be a repeat of its disappointing predecessor. The intervention of Frostbite 3.0 means you’re dealing with a seriously pretty addition to PS4’s winter line-up, while the four-player dungeon-crawling co-op mode appears to be a worthwhile addition. Here’s hoping Inquisition taps into Origins’ excellent spirit.