If there is a Dragon Age thread around here be free to dump this here, I struggled to find it.
So Bioware released the Dragon Age 4 trailer at the game awards recently and I haven't seen anyone here posting anything about it.
Okay I know what many of the key members behind Dragon Age (and by some key members I mean all of them) have left the company now. And it really shows in the visuals to this game via the trailer. And I want to go through one picture in particular.
I mean what the hell is this?
Okay so mild rant here. Dragon Age is a franchise I love, I play Dragon Age: Origins once a year because its one of my favourite games. I even enjoyed Dragon Age 2 that's not to say it was good, it wasnt, but I still got some enjoyment from the characters and story.
The problem I have with this trailer is the atheistic. Look at that image, when did Dragon Age become DragonPunk Age. Dragon Age has always been a very grounded fantasy which blends Historical Fantasy and Traditional Fantasy (for the most part), Dragon Age: Origins especially was loosely based on A Song of Ice and Fire books by George R.R.Martin and it clearly shows if you played it. Wardens being the night watch and the Darkspawn being the white walkers, but not only that, like A Song of Ice and Fire it heavily featured a lot of politics in Origins and even Dragon age 2, some of the dialogue was very based in this heavy style where it wasnt just good v evil there were blurred lines and peoples motives made sense. But I digress...
This was a sample of architecture in Origins to compare.
In Dragon Age Inquisition it was clear there was a tonal shift, the move away from the traditional/historical fantasy and into a high fantasy setting that is more super hero-esque super science fantasy akin to, let's say, Final Fantasy and it works for Final Fantasy but not so sure I want it for Dragon Age, especially when that world has already been established only to see them completely change the design.
Even the armor and weapons in the trailer looks very World of Warcraft-ish with the total impractical bow and bright sparkly strings and arrows, which is a stark contrast to the (sometimes) more traditional weapons they had before.
Okay so sure its lovely and flashy and I am sure some people think its way more exciting that traditional armor and weapons and fantasy in general. I mean it looks fancy and cool its colourful and stuff, but where we come to where we got too feels vastly like a different game now.
I know its a lot to rant on by looking at the trailer, and this is maybe overlooking at something before the game comes out. But seeing the slow transformation of the feel of the games seems very prevalent, its a similar thing that's happened to WoW over the years. Where its went to more traditional to more high/science fantasy.
What do you guys think, a lot of Dragon Age fans I kn ow still looking forward to the game and I'd be lying if I said I wasnt too, the tonal shift (if there is one) will might take a while to get used to. But I do kind of prefer my fantasy more traditional/historical...
tldr: Do you think Dragon Age has changed its tonal athletic since Dragon Age: Origins and is it something you have adapted to, do you like it or have you given up on the franchise?