Dragon Age: Origins (PC)

The delay is disappointing, but the game is shaping up very well.

Any new RPG will be greeted with a degree of interest from hardcore fans of the genre, but when the game in question is from the studio that made Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect and KotOR... well, then you're dealing with some seriously great expectations. Sadly those expectations are going to have to wait a little while longer than planned, since BioWare has just shifted the release date for Dragon Age: Origins back to the end of the year.

In the mean time the eager masses will have to make do with the slow drip-drip-drip of details from the information spout of the media machine. Our first look at Dragon Age took place at EA's showcase event at the start of last month. To be honest, previewing an RPG on the basis of a presentation is a bit like previewing a 500-page novel by ripping out a handful of random pages; all the same, we'll happily describe what we did experience: the demonstration of one major quest, and a chance to test the game's combat engine.

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As BioWare is quick to point out, Dragon Age is sort of a spiritual successor to the classic Baldur's Gate series. It is also, it says, "more mature" than a lot of its previous games. In the upside-down world of video game logic, being "adult" or "mature" often means that the developers have just increased the quantity of boobs and swearing - but that's not BioWare's style. Instead, the developers are promising something darker, more thought provoking than the High Fantasy style of its Dungeons & Dragons-inspired games. We're still very much in the realm of dwarves n' elves here, but this time the setting will be undercut by themes like racism and social tension.

That sounds a bit tedious and politically correct, so let's look at the example of the quest we were shown. At the start of the scenario we were introduced to a player character named Winter - a Dalish Elf who serves a faction known as the Grey Wardens. At the time we joined Winter and his party, they were attempting to gain support from a clan of Dalish Elves lead by a chap named Zathrian. It seems that part of Dragon Age's plot involves preparing for a large battle, one that will necessitate a small army of allies; the precise details of this are not clear, but the upshot was that Dalish was trying to persuade Zathrian's people to lend a hand.

We're still very much in the realm of dwarves n' elves here, but this time the setting will be undercut by themes like racism and social tension.

Now, the fact that Winter and Zathrian are of the same race had a major effect on the way the scene played out. The Grey Wardens are primarily a human-lead group, so Winter's association with them is quite unusual. Zathrian comments on this when the two characters speak (via a very KotOR-like choice of dialogue), but he's still relatively friendly. Had Winter been a human, Zathrian attitude might have been considerably more hostile. It's not clear exactly what effect this hostility would have on the availability of quests he might give out, but in our situation ol' Zath was more than happy to explain the situation: his elves are getting savaged by a pack of werewolves who inhabit the surrounding forests. The only way to break this curse is to seek out and kill the wolf named Witherfang - the cursed sod who is essentially the source of all the other half-men-half-mutts. Zathrian says that his elves will join Winter's cause if he can bring back Witherfang's heart.

As it happens, Winter's party includes a cosmopolitan mix of races, including a human warrior named Alistair and a shape-shifting mage named Morrigan. Both of these characters will have their own opinion on the way you handle Zathrian's proposition - and indeed on everything else you do in the game. Depending the choices you make, your conversations with them and whether you look after them in battle, the members of your party will form an opinion about you. Piss them off too much, and they might just leave your merry little band. On the other hand, if you're nice to them, give them presents (this is an option) and unlock the right dialogue trees, you might be able to strike up a romantic relationship with them. You can certainly do this with Morrigan, if you're a male character; given BioWare's past games, we wouldn't be surprised if you could do this as a female character too.

At any rate, there was no time for love during the demonstration, as Winter and his pals set off to find Witherfang - quickly finding themselves in the middle of a fairly serious scrap with the werewolves. While the quest was being shown to us we just sat back and admired the graphics - particularly the texture of were-fur, and the rather neat fire effects; later on we were able to try the combat system for ourselves, and found that pretty visuals were the last last thing on our mind. Fights can be controlled in real-time or via stop-start commands, but since you're unable to queue up a huge number or actions (a la KotOR), you're forced to remain fairly close to what's going on. You can shift the camera about to adjust your perspective as you see fit, though the optimal choice seemed to be a sort of overhead view - ideal for keeping track of how everyone is doing mid-battle.

While Dragon Age ploughs a separate furrow to established D&D trends, the main three classes seem to work in much the way you'd expect: warriors get stuck in, rogues are good for a bit of preliminary scouting and back-stabbing, while mages can offer all-round support or crowd control - though you need to be a bit careful with area-effect spells. It's quite easy to end up blasting your own party if someone happens to wander over to the enemy you've just targeted with a fireball.

It'll be interesting to see how the game translates to consoles

Then again, maybe that was just us being rubbish. As we've already stated, RPGs aren't really the kind of games that can be picked up in ten minutes - especially when you're playing a save from halfway through the story (at a guess). What is clear is that there will be a fairly hefty variety of moves and abilities for each class. Your party can only ever total four members at a time, but each of those figures will have a lot of tactical options; even Alistair, the straightforward warrior, had a range of skills that included knock-down moves and focused attacks. BioWare also says that characters will be able to take on a secondary class later on in the game, opening the door to hybrid classes like warrior-mages, and the like.

Our demonstrator certainly seemed fairly at home with the combat system, and in their capable hands Winter and his pals dispatched the Lycanthropic menace. Or rather, they killed off the guards: once they'd entered the deeper part of the werewolves territory, they were invited to a Parley with the beasts' leaders. Somewhat frustratingly, BioWare then asked the assembled press to refrain from reporting on what happened next. While this desire to avoid spoilers is admirable to an extent, it does prevent us from discussing the rather cool way that the quest developed. Let's just say that, in this quest at least, the design team have opted to explore some fairly dark and interesting ideas. If this scenario is a useful yardstick, then moral decisions will be plentiful - and they won't be of the easy black/white, good/bad kind either.

With the release date pushed back, it'll probably be a little while before we get a handle on the full experience offered by Dragon Age. As stated before, it's pretty hard to judge a project this big on the basis of a first glimpse - but a decent first gander is better than none at all. And to be fair, when the project at hand is coming from BioWare, the question is not, "Will it be any good?", but rather, "Just how good is it going to be?"

Dragon Age is due for release on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 in Q4 2009.