page_title: Dragon Age: Inquisition
section_title: Development
hierarchical_section_title: Dragon Age: Inquisition / Development
caption_attribution_description: Worlds Collide: Combining Story and Systems in Dragon Age: Inquisition Mark Wilson &#x7c; Lead Technical Designer, BioWare Kaelin Lavallee &#x7c; Lead Narrative Designer, BioWare Location: Room 3016, West Hall Date: Thursday, March 5 Time: 11:30am - 12:30pm
context_page_description: Dragon Age: Inquisition is an action role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. The third major game in the Dragon Age franchise, Dragon Age: Inquisition is the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II. The game was released worldwide in November 2014 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
  The story of Dragon Age: Inquisition follows a player character known as the Inquisitor on a journey to settle the civil unrest in the continent of Thedas and close a mysterious tear in the sky called the "Breach", which is unleashing dangerous demons upon the world. The Inquisitor is viewed by some as the 'chosen one', as they have a 'Mark' on their hand capable of closing the Breach. The Inquisitor assembles the titular Inquisition in an attempt to stop Corypheus, an ancient darkspawn, who opened the Breach in the course of his attempt to conquer Thedas and achieve godhood.
  Gameplay of Dragon Age: Inquisition is similar to its predecessors and mostly consists of elements found in a typical action role-playing game; players control their customized Inquisitor, and the companions they meet.
context_section_description: Developer BioWare was planning on fusing elements of both earlier games in the series, Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II, into the creation of Dragon Age: Inquisition. The game features larger environments with more opportunity for exploration. Dragon Age: Inquisition was first informally announced on Twitter, on May 19, 2011, by BioWare's creative lead Alistair McNally. The core idea for Dragon Age: Inquisition, namely that there would be an inquisition and the player character would be its leader, was originally intended to be the follow-up to Dragon Age: Origins.
  On March 19, 2012, nearly two weeks after BioWare released Mass Effect 3, creative director Mike Laidlaw tweeted that BioWare was finished working on content for Dragon Age II. Executive producer Mark Darrah mentioned that BioWare originally had plans for an expansion pack, entitled "Exalted March", to mark the first anniversary of Dragon Age II but canceled it in favor of developing other opportunities for the series. Although Dragon Age: Inquisition was not officially announced by that stage, Darrah asked fans to give feedback on what they would like to see in future Dragon Age installments.
  Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter speculated that Dragon Age: Inquisition would be released some time in 2014. The title was believed to be scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of 2013, but Pachter suggested it had been delayed so BioWare and video game publisher Electronic Arts could fix problems and create new content for Star Wars: The Old Republic and Mass Effect 3. However, many BioWare developers, such as Mary Kirby, claimed this was inaccurate, stating that "Dragon Age III's development will not be delayed by BioWare's other games."
  The game's development faced several challenges. Criticism of Dragon Age II added pressure to make the next game a success. The decision was made to switch from the Eclipse engine used in the first two series installments to Frostbite. Frostbite had been used to make Battlefield and other first-person shooters and did not have any of the required tools for an RPG, like save functions or inventory management systems. Consequently, the Dragon Age: Inquistion team had to build these features at the same time as they were creating the new game. Art director Matt Goldman said of development, "Basically we had to do new consoles, a new engine, new gameplay, build the hugest game that we've ever made, and build it to a higher standard than we ever did, with tools that don't exist."
  Ray Muzyka, BioWare's former CEO, said in an interview with Wired.com that Dragon Age: Inquisition would be influenced by more open world games, such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which BioWare is "checking out aggressively". The developers stated that they would no longer reuse environments, which was considered a main issue in Dragon Age II.
  On August 27, 2014, BioWare announced that Dragon Age: Inquisition would have a four-player co-op mode that is separate from the single-player mode.
caption: Technical designer Mark Wilson and narrative designer Kaelin Lavallee presenting on the game's "story and systems" at GDC 2015
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