Dragon Age 3 announced by BioWare (UPDATE)

UPDATE:

IGN has some story details related to a questionnaire leaked last month.

“The empire of Orlais is riven by civil war; the Chantry is divided; the Templar order has broken away; the Mage circles have rebelled. Some unseen force is manipulating events, bringing about disorder and destruction. Out of this confusion emerges The Inquisition.”

The leak says you will be playing as the leader of this Inquisition and will be able to play as a mage, a warrior, or a rogue, in typical Dragon Age (and RPG) fashion.

Here are some more details:

“Set up your crew from up to ten complex companions to lead them against those who attack you by systematically spying on, revealing and destroying them.”

Sounds really good.

ORIGINAL STORY FOLLOWS:

We’ve all been expecting this for some time now, with more than a year having gone by since Dragon Age 2’s release, but it’s still always good to hear good news.

BioWare has announced on its Dragon Age website that they’re officially working on a new Dragon Age title. The third game in the series will be called Dragon Age: Inquisition.

“Inquisition” means an investigation related to political or religious matters, so it’s pretty obvious that the game will be picking up where Dragon Age 2 left off. The story will likely be centered around the conflict between the Chantry and the Templars and how things ended at the end of the second game. This also means that Hawke will probably be a major part of the story.

Also, good news for haters of Dragon Age 2- Mike Laidlaw, the executive producer of the previous, very controversial entry in the series, is not a part of this project. Mark Darrah, the lead programmer of the previous games, has taken over.

“I am pleased to confirm that we are, in fact, working on the next Dragon Age game,” he wrote on the webpage linked above. “Not a big surprise to most of you, I know. We have been working on it in some way for about two years now with the bulk of our efforts ramping up about 18 months ago.”

He says the team has been listening to fan feedback so they shouldn’t have a reason to worry that the game won’t be up to scratch. “We’ve visited message boards, read reviews, and we’ve gone to events to have direct face to face conversations with some of our most passionate fans,” he said. “We’ve been listening, and we will continue to listen.”

He didn’t elaborate much though, and gave very little information, especially about the story. However, he did say that the game might hint towards what it means. It does indeed.

Darrah confirmed the game is being made by much of the same team that’s been working on the series to date, and will also include new talent.

BioWare has also developed a new engine specially for the game, so that they can provide for “a more expansive world, better visuals, more reactivity to player choices, and more customization.” Darrah also revealed that the team started working with DICE’s Frostbite 2 engine to lay the foundations.

No other information was given out. No release date, no systems, nothing. But we’ll keep you updated.

What would you like to see in Dragon Age 3? Tell us in your comments below.