Dragon Age: Origins Updated Combat Impressions

At EA's recent showcase in London, role-playing game veterans BioWare trotted out the latest build of its much-anticipated Dragon Age: Origins, giving journalists even more hands-on time with the combat mechanics of the game. Although we've previously played around with some early-level battles, BioWare ramped things up this session by showing something from the midpoint of the game. Specifically, we engaged in a magic-heavy fight between some powerful abominations and some seriously kitted-out level 12 characters.

But before we dived in, BioWare lead gameplay designer Mike Laidlaw set the scene for the action in which we were about to partake. The battle takes place roughly halfway through the game, although Laidlaw said that it could come earlier or later depending on the order in which you tackle the game's missions. In this mission, you're charged with taking on the evil mage Uldred, who has taken over the Circle Tower (a sort of mage training academy/stronghold). In Dragon Age's high-fantasy world, mages aren't usually evil types. In fact, they're long-time allies of the Grey Wardens, a special force dedicated to taking on the Blight, a corrupting and dangerous force that is threatening to take over the world of Ferelden with darkspawn. Uldred, seeking to take advantage of the spreading chaos, apparently tried to control a demon to do his bidding, but as is the way with these pesky netherworld inhabitants, his plan backfired and the demon ended up possessing him. Having been turned into a creature known as an abomination, Uldred set about capturing and torturing his fellow mages before turning them into abominations as well.

This battle will take place in a large, open hall in the Circle Tower, and after a brief section of dialogue in which the clearly mad Uldred tried to justify his actions, Laidlaw and a fellow BioWare rep proceeded to demo the battle for us. On the side of the Grey Wardens were four Level 12 characters: three mages and a warrior named Alistair who, according to Laidlaw, was kitted out to act as a typical tank-type class. Once the battle started, Uldred immediately transformed into a large pride demon, a towering monstrosity that had a roughly humanoid shape but with a dragonlike head. As you would expect, this creature packed a mean melee punch, and it was aided by several of Uldred's mage-turned-abomination buddies, who acted as vicious foot soldiers. The action onscreen as guided by the BioWare rep looked quite frenetic, with plenty of spells being thrown around, as well as some fast switching between characters to best take advantage of the situation. After a few minutes, the BioWare rep managed to unleash an ultrapowerful spell--called Storm of the Century--that filled the entire battle arena with a powerful-looking whirlwind that dealt serious damage to the pride demon, eventually putting him down and leaving the Grey Wardens triumphant.

We eventually got to lay our hands on a keyboard and mouse ourselves, and we spent a minute familiarizing ourselves with the game's control scheme before starting the battle with Uldred. You'll get to control a party of four in Dragon Age, with the characters' portraits arranged on the side of the screen. To switch characters, all you need to do is click on the appropriate portrait. Of course, your party members will attack and defend on their own without your direct control, but as with previous BioWare RPGs such as Baldur's Gate, you can pause the action at any time by pressing the space bar. While the game is paused, you can line up commands for each character. Each character's abilities are arrayed as hot slots along the bottom of the screen, although considering that we were new to controlling midlevel characters, plenty of the abilities that we could choose from were mysteries in terms of their effects and how to best use them in battle. And speaking of Baldur's Gate, fans of that revered series will be happy to know that though Dragon Age: Origins can be played from an over-the-shoulder third-person view, players will be able to move the camera above the action, mimicking quite precisely the isometric look of Baldur's Gate (right down to the green circles around your individual party members' feet).

Our time with the game proved to be short-lived and not at all successful; Uldred and his minions made mincemeat out of our team. What we can say from our brief hands-on is that Dragon Age: Origins is definitely heading in the right direction, with the controls feeling quite intuitive, particularly for those who have played BioWare's previous games. Switching the camera angle to the isometric view gave us a strong feeling of nostalgia, and we're sure that many fans of Baldur's Gate will use this as their default view.

After our demo, we spoke with Laidlaw, who said that the game is almost complete, with the team now at the final "bug squashing" stage. Laidlaw said that most of the focus is now on the console versions, particularly on transforming the PC interface into something more controller-friendly for the console versions of the game. Dragon Age: Origins is slated to ship for the PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 in late 2009.