author: Zuzanna Domeradzka
It's a Miracle Dragon Age: Inquisition Succeeded, Creator Recalls
According to the former producer of Dragon Age: Inquisition, it's a miracle that the game was a success. Problems were caused primarily by its engine.
From the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition, considered by many to be the best part of the series, eight years have passed. The game's former producer, Mark Darrah, recalled the process of developing this title in one of the more recent videos published on his channel on YouTube. What, according to him, went wrong?
Problems with Frostbite
It turns out that one of the main aspects hindering work on Inquisition was Electronic Arts' proprietary engine, Frostbite. A few years ago, former BioWare general manager Aaryn Flynn, claimed that it was a very troublesome engine, which caused difficulties in the development of, in particular Mass Effect: Andromeda. The same was also true for the third part of Dragon Age.
Darrah revealed how the decision to make the game on this engine came about in the first place. Electronic Arts only encouraged BioWare to move to Frostbite. However, having besides the older Eclipse Engine (used in Dragon Age: Origins from 2009), the choice seemed obvious at the time. Unfortunately, putting the engine itself to use was not so easy. By adapting to Frostbite, Inquisition didn't even have such a basic feature as a game save implemented until its alpha.
Interestingly, the tools developed for Inquisition were not implemented into ME: Andromeda or Anthem. As we know, a kind of miracle that the success of the third part of Dragon Age (the title was named game of the year and feature game of the year 2014 at The Game Awards gala) did not translate into subsequent BioWare games.
Skyrim inspiration was a mistake
Another former BioWare employee, Mike Laidlaw, admitted a few years ago that if the developers of DA:I had seen The Witcher 3 earlier, the world in their game would not have been so noticeably empty. Darrah, on the other hand, stated in his material that they decided to create a larger game mainly by being inspired by Skyrim. The developers learned too late that quantity does not at all go hand in hand with quality.
Let's hope that BioWare has learned from its mistakes and fourth part series Dragon Age will at least make better use of Frostbite.
