A Reddit user has posted the image of what seems to be a PS3 release list someone took from Gamestop. While that is all nice, what stands out here is that we have the release date for some games which don’t have a release date yet.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII comes out this June, the list reads. This seems to be a fake because we all know the game is a vapourware but maybe it means the game will be shown at E3 and a release date will be announced then?

Dragon Age 3 was rumoured to be a next gen game but that is a rumour for now. Call of Duty 2013 and Battlefield 4 is listed for December 31st 2013, which we know is fake because they will be released in October or November.

The dates and the pricing on the list seems to be a placeholder so take it with a pinch of salt.

Via SPP.

“Clearly we still hammer up against the limitations of the hardware on a daily basis and if you push those parameters back, as I’m sure the next-gen will do, we’ll hit them again,” BioWare art and animation director Neil Thompson told OXM UK.

“I think the main thing is that the industry doesn’t get itself into a corner where it becomes economically unviable to make a game. The last technology iteration caught folks by surprise – especially the number of people you needed and the skillset jump that was required to do the work that people expected.

“In the last generation the perception was that it was going to be a ten times improvement over the previous generation. For the next generation there will be a big leap, but it won’t be as obvious.”

He also issued a warning to the industry.

“People will do things in a cleverer fashion. I think they’ll be better prepared, shall we say – but we can’t see a ten-fold team increase again as the budgets would just be ridiculous. You’d have to sell 20-30 million copies before you broke even.”

BioWare announced Dragon Age 3 last year and revealed that it will be running on DICE’s Frostbite 2.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Bioware has come out and praised Dragon Age 3’s visuals which is set to be released in 2014, probably for next-gen platforms. The previous games were made on Bioware’s Eclipse engine and it didn’t really make these games shine.

“Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 were both done using BioWare’s own Eclipse engine, and it was starting to creak a little bit when Dragon Age 2 came out,” Bioware’s Thompson told OXM. “Inquisition is being done on the Frostbite 2 engine and it is an astonishingly powerful engine.”

“The Dragon Age artists were always slightly disappointed at how their work was visualised in the final product with Eclipse, but with Frostbite, they’ve just done some amazing stuff.

“There was a pre-production period where almost on a weekly basis I’d be sitting in the environment reviews and being blown away by what was coming out – it looks stunningly beautiful. So I think when we do start releasing screenshots, people won’t be disappointed.”

Earlier we reported that the game could be delayed to next-gen, and there were some concept arts leaked along with new details.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

BioWare has been taking fan feedback into account while developing their next games, but recently, the developer feels the feedback has become more harmful than constructive due to its overly negative nature.

Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider admits that BioWare no longer uses the BioWare Social Network forums for feedback since people there are becoming “increasingly toxic” and reading some of the negative comments their “depresses” the devs. He says that BioWare does take constructive criticism into account, but after a point it becomes a bit too much.

“Spending too much time there starts to make me feel negative- not just about the games we make, but about myself and life in general,” Gaider wrote in a blog post. That’s not a good feeling to have.”

“I’m sure there are folks there who would bristle at that comment, suggesting that all negative feedback is justifiable and that ignoring it is the equivalent of us sticking our heads in the sand,” he continued. “How will we ever improve unless we listen to their scolding and take our lumps like good little developers?

“That is, of course, ignoring the idea that we haven’t already digested a mountain of feedback- both positive and negative- and there’s really only so much of it you can take. Eventually you make decisions (informed by that feedback, though only in part- it can only ever be in part) and move on.”

“I imagine that can happen to any online community,” he went on. “Eventually the polite, reasonable folks stop feeling like it’s a group of people they want to hang around. So they leave, and those who remain start to see only those who agree with them — and, because that’s all they see, they think that’s all there is.

“Everyone feels as they do, according to them. Once the tipping point is passed, you’re left with the extremes… those who hate, and those who dislike the haters enough to endure the toxic atmosphere to try and combat them. Each clash between those groups drives more of the others away.”

He then assured readers that BSN is not the only place BioWare goes to for feedback. “At any rate, rest assured that the BSN is not the only place we go to see what ‘our fans’ think about something,” he wrote. “I suspect you’d get a skewed opinion of almost any game if you went solely by its dedicated online community.

“They certainly serve their place, and if you want to gauge the temperature of the hardest of the hardcore’s opinions about core matters there’s probably no better place to go… but representative of all fans? Not in the slightest.”

You can see the cynicism and bitterness in his post, and it’s completely understandable. Despite what the haters have been saying, BioWare has been doing an excellent job over the decades, and equally so in recent years. The hate has become a bit too much, and people are forgetting the good stuff and choosing to focus on the negatives, and in turn, they’re spreading this negativity.

You can read the full blog post here.

BioWare Edmonton general manager Aaryn Flynn recently spoke to Game Informer about this, and stated that, “I think so. When we look at Frostbite and the success we’re having with it with Dragon Age 3 and the support we’re getting from teams around EA, it’s fun being a part of an organization and community that’s doing good work with that technology.”

Frostbite 2 has been used in a plethora of EA titles since its introduction in DICE’s Battlefield 3 such as Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Need for Speed: The Run, Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel, Command & Conquer and even Battlefield 4.

BioWare’s new general manager Aaron Flynn, however, wants to reassure fans that the devs have taken all criticism into account and that DA3 will tackle all the problem of DA2, and that it will be more like Origins than its direct predecessor in terms of story.

“We definitely take the criticisms of Dragon Age 2 very seriously and into great consideration,” Flynn told Game Informer (via RantGaming). “We spent weeks and weeks poring over it and and figuring out not only the mistakes we made but also what we had to do to really show fans that we’d heard it and were going to do better with Dragon Age 3.

Dragon Age 2- Destiny Trailer 

“In [DA2], we tried to tell a very intimate story. We did some good things, but we made some mistakes, as well. With three, we’re going back to a very grand and world-beating kind of story that has broad scope and epic things in it.”

When asked if the 2011 smash-hit open-world RPG Skyrim serves as any sort of inspiration to similar games such as DA3 itself, Flynn said: “You can’t look at a game like Skyrim and not think about how impressive what they’ve accomplished is – or [think] that’s an interesting new direction or that there was something that didn’t work well for them that we could take in a new direction.”

“I think we have to get back to more exploration in our games,” Flynn continued. “I think that’s not just because of some of our shortcomings in Dragon Age 2, but because there’s a heritage there, something we used to do in a lot of games like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights, where exploration was one of the key themes.”

According to a recent report, Dragon Age 3 might be releasing on next gen consoles in 2014 or near the end of next year itself. Read the report here.

Dragon Age 3 was announced a few months back for an early 2013 release, but now it looks like the development of the game might have shifted to next generation platforms, meaning the release date might also get delayed.

EA Shanghai level designer Tao Gu- who, according to Kotaku’s report, worked on Dragon Age 3 earlier this year- has updated his CV to mention that DA3 is now being developed for next generation home consoles. “[The] scope of the DAIII has been chaged, which will target next gen platform and will be postpone [sic] to 2014,” reads his CV.

Kotaku’s report says that the game’s release might have been shifted from an alleged late Fiscal Year 2013 release (ending March 31st 2013) to FY 2014 so that it could fall in the late 2013 slot- around November, which is considered to be the best time to release a game.

The game’s being developed on EA’s in-house FrostBite 2.0 engine, which is targeted at next-gen systems specifically.

There’s not much to back this rumour right now, but it seems legit. It looks like Dragon Age III: Inquisition might be releasing late next year for the PS4 and Xbox 720, or whatever the hell they will be called.

However, this has not been confirmed yet. So stay tuned, we will keep you updated.

After its recent announcement and the reveal of several details on the game, we have received little information on Dragon Age 3: Inquisition. Or Dragon Age III: Inquisition, if you’re anal that way. We know that it runs on DICE’s Frostbite engine, and that it comes out next year, though.

However, last night at the Bradford Animation Festival, BioWare revealed a screenshot of the game, which was on the screen for like 3 seconds (thanks, Eurogamer!).

“That is Dragon Age: Inquisition,” said BioWare art and animation director Neil Thompson. “It’s the first time anyone has seen a frame of it outside BioWare studios.”

When asked by someone in the crowd how development at BioWare had changed thanks to the Frostbite engine- which Mass Effect 4 will also be running on, as BioWare has confirmed– Thompson said: “Mass Effect was done on Unreal of course.

Dragon Age was done on the proprietary engine Eclipse. I think anyone who played Dragon Age 2 would agree that engine was starting to creak a little bit by the time that was released.

“Obviously Frostbite is the Battlefield engine built by DICE. It’s a beautiful, beautiful engine. And what we’ve found is an improvement with DA3, is the artists who were really battling with the Eclipse engine have just embraced Frostbite. The work they’re doing now is stunning.

“I think the screenshot I showed earlier is pretty stunning. That’s unusual for pre-production. Usually you don’t get to that kind of quality until a week before gold master.

“It makes my job easier because then it’s all about discussing the aesthetic and what you want to achieve. When you’re a character artist or an environment artist you’re focusing on a small aspect of the greater whole of the game. As an art director you’re concerned about the whole, the frame and everything it contains and how everything sits and the consistency. An engine like Frostbite allows you to focus more on that rather than the technological challenges of just getting the damn thing to run.”

Get more info on Dragon Age 3 here.

There’s a ton of info leaking out from the Edmonton Comic & Entertainment Expo panel, where some BioWare overlords are releasing a bunch of details on Dragon Age 3.

You will be pleased to know that the linear levels from Dragon Age 2 won’t come to torture you in this game, and in its place there will be huge levels, and you will also be able to control your castle. Sounds fun innit?

There’s a lot of focus on customization and players will also be able to customize their followers as well, according to Mike Laidlaw. He said it’s going to be bigger than Dragon Age: Origins in that department–which by the way was friggin’ awesome.

There was a hint regarding Flemeth, too. Dragon Age players will know who she is tsk tsk, and Bioware folks are hinting that she may be in the game. Here’s what Mike Laidlaw said:  “It feels wrong to not have a “little” Flemeth in your game *grin*”

He was also asked about the sex scenes, to which he replied: “You mean how much boobie?” … I admit that was funny.

Jon Perry the designer of the game revealed that the game had a longer pre-production period than any BioWare game he worked on which shows that they’re serious after the critical mauling Dragon Age 2 received. Going back to the drawing board I guess… but something tells me they’re gonna come out all guns blazing.

Perry also said that one level in DA 3 is is as big as all of DA2’s levels. It really looks like a pretty ambitious game.

All this info is being released by Cameron Lee via Twitter; he is the producer of the game. These details sound absolutely fantastic, now let’s just hope they execute it well.

Question: how much control will you have over your character... Mike "you will be human" #DA3

— Cameron Lee @BioWare (@Cameron__Lee) October 20, 2012

John Perry said he's had a longer pre-production on DA3 than any other BioWare project he's worked on.

— Cameron Lee @BioWare (@Cameron__Lee) October 20, 2012

David answering "backgrounds will be in DA3 even though you will be human, it's not playable but it does significant impact on the story"

— Cameron Lee @BioWare (@Cameron__Lee) October 20, 2012

Via Kotaku.

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.