What Pride Hath Wrought - How Dragon Age: Inquisition Broke My Heart

*I'm cleaning up Hamartia and The Fall, sit tight.

Bioware have been in the RPG business for about twenty years now. They made classics both old and new and are widely considered to be masters of their craft. What that craft actually is however, I’m still trying to figure out. You see I am not an old gamer. I don’t have the long storied history of my peers who remember when having a story was a new invention. And although I’ve tried my best to go back and play those classics from before my time on this earth, I will never be able to experience nor wholly comprehend the cultural landscape of the time in which these games were first released. Why does my personal history matter? Because I have a strong feeling that at least part of the reason that Dragon Age: Inquisition was received with near universal praise from games journalists is because critics are carrying some sort of nostalgia with them. Mind you, I’m not saying that Inquisition is a bad game, but there is a clear disparity between the quality of the game Bioware produced and the glowing reception that met it upon release.

Laurels

It should come as no surprise to long term readers, but I enjoy the Dragon Age games. Or more accurately, I enjoy the world and characters of the Dragon Age games. Tolkein-inspired fantasy (and western fantasy in general) never appealed to me as a child. It was always so dirty, and seemed so desperate to want to be just like reality but with magic, to which my ten year-old self would think, “why would you want to be like reality. The real world sucks!” But, Dragon Age: Origins (the first in the series) made a convincing argument that persuaded me to give western fantasy an honest shake one more time: To me they said, “Yeah, reality sucks! So, we won’t just copy it, but place it within a more interesting socio-historical context to help you understand people and the psychology of folklore. Also, you can slay some dragons!” I didn’t know it then, but cupid’s first arrow had already pierced my heart.

In Origins your goal is simplistic, save the world from the archdemon...and you can be damn sure that nothing about that sounded appealing in the slightest. To side-questing! The majority of my time was spent not gathering weapons or slaying monsters, but talking to each and every NPC. I wanted to know about this world I was to play a part in; to learn about the people, their struggles, their opinions, and their prejudices. It was more engaging than any other reality I’d deigned to set foot in and gripped me more tightly than any other that I was compelled to inhabit. Undoubtedly, my choice to craft an avatar that closely matched my perception of myself (City-Elf Warrior Reaver and Champion) offered some additional enjoyment from my interactions and colored my perception of the world I was gradually becoming encultured in. And, yes I’m aware that the NPCs and party members would have given me nearly identical lines of dialogue had I played as a Dwarf, or a Human, or a Dalish Elf (all of which I eventually did), but that first experience will always be my canon, my introduction to the world of Thedas. Though mechanically and narratively Origins has its issues, its world building is nothing short of exemplary.

Then came Dragon Age 2. Many fans felt it was a step backwards. I saw it as a step forwards. Despite the change in art style and largely recycled environments, the player characters were more "textured" than ever. While speaking with party members in Origins was highly informative, there wasn’t much more to the majority of the cast. They were an excellent source of information about the world, but most lacked the underlying humanizing idiosyncrasies (preferences, prejudices, personality quirks, etc.) making them not necessarily characters, but exposition tools (and occasionally plot devices) masquerading as them. In DA2 the characters are still very knowledgeable about the world, but they also all have their own quirks, pasts, preferences, fears, likes, and most importantly dislikes. For not only does Dragon Age 2 improve upon the characters and mechanical elements of Dragon Age: Origins, but the story as well.

Though it’s hard to call Dragon Age 2 a direct sequel to Origins as it takes place in a different setting, with few returning characters, and doesn’t follow from any of Origins’ major story beats, it transforms one’s perception of a significant element of the Dragon Age universe and one related to fantasy in general: magic. Unlike in Origins where magic is almost glossed over as something that merely “is” (outside of one questline), in DA2, magic and the ways to control it are a hotly debated topic that parallels the reaction seen to superheroes in the X-men series. Mages are feared, but too omni-prevalent to be outright exterminated, so people have devised religious and political systems to control powers that they have yet to fully understand. And even more realistically, many mages have rejected these systems and chosen to either live in hiding as Apostates, or among other more accepting peoples like the Dalish. The player, is thus charged with understanding this complex issue and ultimately deciding whether it is better to eliminate the mages of Kirkwall or lead a revolution to free them.

Unlike in Origins, In DA2 the fear of apostates and blood magic is justified by the external and personal tragedies that engulf Hawke (the player character). What’s more, the templars - mage handlers/jailers/hunters - aren’t portrayed in any more favorable of a light, what with their extreme methods of subjugation and outspoken prejudices. The result is a dark-gray morality that bleeds into every crevice of the central conflict, as well as a feeling of frustrated impotence during the final sequence of the game. In a word, the story is powerful.

I’m largely glossing over the brilliance of Dragon Age 2’s plot and character dynamics, however that last clause should illustrate the point that I’ve been casually reminiscing around: I do not merely have nostalgia for the past Dragon Age games, but a hardened love of them. I have recognized and criticized these games for their flaws and shortcomings, yet only expect the best from this franchise in one area or another. And yet despite the still burning passion I feel for both Origins and DA2, I am loathe to say that I do not feel the same fire burning for Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Pride

What sowed the first seeds of discontent was the change in how the player character establishes themselves among the people. Unlike in the games prior where Hawke and the Warden were recognized for the extraordinary deeds they performed and lives they saved, the Inquisitor is not only recognized, but seen as a prophet because you just happened to be present (for reasons that no one questions or even attempts to explain) when a several thousand year-old eldritch abomination materializes, performs an (apparently volatile) ritual that assassinates the in-game equivalent to the pope, opens a giant hole in the sky, and leaves you with a glowing green mark on your hand.

While this is certainly the lowest hanging fruit of criticisms levelled at this game, one which many a comedian has picked, it’s emblematic of a larger problem with the game’s story as a whole: The plot relevant situations that occur are a matter of chance, and the protagonist is only as dumb or intelligent as the writers want him to be. 

For example, during the infamous time travel sequence where the player learns what will become of the world should they fail to close the Breach, they run into Leliana. She has been tortured day in and day out over the last three years so that her once lovely features have been twisted into a sickening pitiable visage; the utter denigration of her once beautiful face symbolizes the poisoning of the world. It’s blunt, but the message and imagery still elicit sympathy and understanding.

My first thoughts upon experiencing this sequence were, “this is horrible. I’m sorry that everyone had to suffer this way. I must make sure that this future never comes to pass.” And yet, the dialogue options all force one to either dismiss her suffering as if it’s not real or just ignore it (at which point Dorian will put his foot in his mouth instead), both triggering Leliana to chastise the player for not appreciating the gravity of the situation.

This is absurd. The Inquisitor does not have a fixed backstory or predisposition. He is not Hawke; he is supposed to be the Warden (i.e. an empty slate) with a voice. There is no sensible reason for the avatar to be so ignorant towards other people if the player herself is not equally ignorant, other than to serve as an excuse for Bioware to make their NPCs demonstrate the “excellence” of their dialogue writing. This approach to dialogue is not conducive to role-playing. It is just self-aggrandizing on Bioware’s part.

As if to go in hand with the dearth of Role-Playing options, NPC dialogue trees were stripped to the barest of essentials as well. Rather than being able to explore dialogue to learn about an area or the NPC, you can only ask for specific pertinent information on finishing whatever quest(s) the NPC is associated with. This sort of pragmatism would have been appreciated had the quests all been diverse (more on this in a moment) and if it weren’t the ONLY set of options available. Alas, in DA:I deeper inquiries about the quest are only ever occasionally utilized to justify an NPCs presence, while the ability to ask about the NPCs is outright absent.

To clarify, in DA:I quests (outside of story related ones) come in exactly four flavors:

1.) Slaying quests in which you must defeat a certain amount of specific enemies.

2.) Gathering quests in which you must gather a certain amount of a specific set of resources (often by killing an unspecified amount of certain enemies)

3.) Fetch quests where you must retrieve specific items from a known location

4.) And exploratory quests in which you must find a certain (set of) items within a vague circular location

It’s one more mission type than that of the original Assassin’s Creed, but considering that you have several orders of magnitude more quests in this game than the thirty or so in AssCreed, it’s only slightly less mind-numbing than reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s exposition. And yet, despite the blatant copy-paste nature of quests, Bioware barely makes an effort to disguise the fact that they are all so damn similar.

Part of this is due to Bioware’s laziness with the camera. Unlike in previous games where there would be a basic shot reverse shot between characters, Inquisition has an automated zoom-in that basically flags a conversation as “unimportant” and alerts the player to just thumb through the dialogue to accept the quest and get the rewards later. As much as I dislike basic shot reverse shot, it is undoubtedly better at delivering SOME form of individuality and importance to each character, than slightly zooming in and watching a repetitive, unnatural idle animation. This apathetic approach to quest design worsened by the inability to abandon accepted quests marginalizes the experience of interacting with the world’s people, and more broadly makes you, the Inquisitor, out to be an incurious obedient nob who doesn’t understand what it means to delegate menial labor. Even if you wanted to ask impertinent questions or assign others to do your work, the game simply will not allow you to do so.

And, of course, this manufactured ignorance plagues conversations tangential to the plot and quests as well. No more clearly is this demonstrated than during the inquisitor’s formal introduction to Krem by The Iron Bull at Skyhold. 

Player choice, according to Bioware

For those unfamiliar with the game, Krem is a transgendered man who works under The Iron Bull. I don’t have much of an opinion on him, because frankly, like most of the NPCs, he’s pretty boring and primarily serves as an exposition dump (oh, did I forget to mention that we’re back to doing THAT again?). But what’s infuriating about him is the way Bioware forces players to acknowledge that he is transgendered.

As evidenced by the screencap on the left, during this introduction three of your four dialogue options are questions about Krem’s status as a transgendered man. This alone would not be offensive had they placed the inquiry within an investigative subtree (i.e. making it the player's choice to ask about). But instead, as you can see, Bioware makes limited queries about his gender the only possible avenues for discussion, as if it’s such a foreign concept that my feeble mind couldn’t possibly comprehend it and desperately needs an explanation. What if I wanted to know about his fighting ability? Or about his family. Or joke about him working under The Iron Bull? Or offer my support? Or voice my disdain? Nope, I must be too sheltered to know what a trans person is (despite the game being rated M and the intended audience being full-bodied adults).

I don’t have a problem with Krem being trans. He can be who wants to be and I won’t question his decisions. But, I take serious offense to the idea that Bioware thought I’d be too stupid or ignorant to notice what he is, or worse that I couldn’t empathize with him for making that decision. My Inquisitor was a Dalish Elf living in a human’s world. He faces discrimination and raised eyebrows every day; he knows what it means to live a life that others are not comfortable with. And yet, Bioware only allows me, the “ignorant player,” to be shocked or confused by Krem’s life choice so that they can proselytize at me. It’s not the poor options’ existence that is egregious, but the fact that they are the only available options and that you HAVE to deal with them to advance the dialogue. THAT is offensive.

--

Not only have the NPC discussions and taken a tragic step backwards in terms of depth, but so too has the plot. Dragon Age 2 raised the bar in demonstrating what kind of stories Bioware was capable of designing. What’s more, it openly sequel baits, leaving you with a massive nation-spanning problem to solve in Inquisition (the mage-templar dilemma). And how does DA:I deliver on this promise? By sweeping it under the rug within the first tenth of the game and presenting you with a Saturday morning cartoon villain to square off against instead. I wish I were being reductive; the frustrations I have with the dialogue trees, are wholly dwarfed by the game’s asinine plot and absurd mishandling of its villain, Corypheus.

To summarize, In DA:I the mages and templars are about to meet at a peace summit mediated by Divine Justinia (the in-game equivalent to the pope). At this summit Justinia is assassinated (or more accurately, nuked) before the talks begin and away from any spectators (of course) by an unknown male assailant. You are present at this summit for some reason (despite being neither a Templar, nor necessarily a mage) and survive the explosion with a glowing mark on your hand. This Mark of the Rift is the most important item in existence as with it, you alone have the power to close fade rifts and save the world.

The Inquisition then finds you and "asks" (forces) you to do just that by closing the big hole in the sky opened by the explosion, as well as the smaller holes opened across the country (again, for no reason). However, after closing the sky hole, you and the Inquisition are attacked by an army of mages or templars (depending on who you took the brief moment to recruit), an eldritch abomination named Corypheus, and his pet not-an-archdemon dragon who was apparently the assailant during the peace summit and creator of the Mark of the Rift.

And I’ll stop right there, because Corypheus’ appearance at this point in the story is already nonsensical. Corypheus has a bloody high dragon, one of the most powerful creatures in the world, at his disposal. As soon as he realized the Mark of the Rift was no longer his (which should have been apparent the moment his experiment back-fired and the breach was formed), he should have attacked the Inquisitor and attempted to reclaim it. Instead, he leaves the Inquisitor to his own affairs and makes back alley deals attempting to amass a private army because of reasons. With the Mark of the Rift he could become a god. With an army he can wage formal war on a ragtag troop of apolitical mediators. No, rational creature would choose the latter over the former. Even if he was too weak to fight the entire Inquisition alone (which he wasn’t), he could easily have conducted a covert operation or set a trap to wipe the Inquisitor out alone (which he didn’t). And this would actually be consistent with his character as he already demonstrated such cleverness in the previous game Dragon Age 2, when he fooled Hawke into believing that he was dead by possessing one of the wardens in his cell.

He knew that he couldn’t beat Hawke in single combat, so he hid and he waited. In this time, he should have been amassing a private army while constructing the Mark of the Rift then, instead of during this game five goddamn years later. In DA:I he could have been a recurring villain who ruthlessly pursued the Inquisitor. He could have forced you on a globe-trotting adventure in which you travelled across Thedas working to unite the mages and the Templars against a common threat that few could see. He could have made this game a better Dragon Age: Origins. But no, instead he is a goddamn mess. There is no reason for the story to have followed the trajectory that it did.

And yet, the actual story Bioware chose to tell still fails to make Corypheus anything more than a parody of a villain due to his lack of a motivation, simplistic goal, and extraordinarily counter-productive plan to achieve it.

Let’s walk through it step by step: Corypheus wants to take over the world and restore the Tevinter Imperium. There’s no real reason to do this as Tevinter is still doing just fine, and is later revealed to be working with Corypheus (plus it’s just an immature goal for a supposedly “dark fantasy”), but fine, that’s his goal. To accomplish this, he plans to enter the Fade (a spirit world) in person and return to the Black City – the game’s equivalent to Eden. And yes, I do mean “return” – he has been to the city before, but somehow going back will make him stronger. Nothing in the game suggests that going back to the Black City would grant one god-like powers, so players just have to take his word that it will work and, for the purposes of discussion, we will too.

His initial plan to achieve this involves using Divine Justinia as a sacrifice to create the mark of the rift and tear a hole into the fade, so that he might march in and do…whatever it is that he needs to do. So, considering that he manages to both construct the Mark of the Rift (or as he calls it, “The Anchor”) and tear open a breach in the fade, why doesn’t he just visit the Black City at the start of the game? I honestly do not have an answer to this question. Based on his actions from this point onwards, we can assume that he still needs the Mark for something, but it is never made clear what that is. In any event, let’s operate under the assumption that he still needs it.

After Corypheus loses the Mark to the Inquisitor, he leaves to continue conscripting Mages and Templars to join his cause. This again, makes no sense and outright contradicts his stated objective. In Dragon Age II we learn that Corypheus can control Darkspawn who are regarded as the most dangerous threat to the entire world. What would he possibly need an army of Mages and or Templars for when he already has the most powerful army on the planet? Had they retconned this ability or drawn tighter limitations around it, this plan would have been acceptable. But instead, they not only restate it for those who hadn’t played DA2, but demonstrate that it’s even stronger than originally portrayed by showing that it can even influence/control Grey Wardens – people with only a cup of Darkspawn blood in their system, and supposedly the only ones capable of wholly defeating Darkspawn. He has both the strongest army and its kryptonite. There is literally no reason for him to be conscripting anyone.

But wait, it gets worse. Corypheus is already working with the Tevinter Imperium to seize control over the mage rebels and already has control over the top members of the Templars’ hierarchy; He has a foothold in both factions which makes interrupting the peace summit entirely counter-productive. By assassinating the Divine he is actively driving a wedge between his two forces and making it more difficult to maintain control over both. It’s possible that he specifically needed the Divine Justinia to be a sacrifice, but nothing in the game suggests this, and even if it were true he could have waited until after the peace summit to make his move. Doing so would have not only united his forces, but more importantly, would have avoided drawing attention to himself; it’s easy to accept that disgruntled pro-mage or pro-templar terrorists would take umbrage with the results of a peace summit and assassinate the Divine for retribution, but it’s a little more suspicious that a high-profile event which both parties agreed to would be interrupted (in a such a grandiose fashion, no less) by an unknown third party. As it stands both parties blame each other and raise questions about each other’s structure; exactly what someone manipulating both from the shadows SHOULD NOT WANT.

 And then in what can only be described as incalculable stupidity, Corypheus largely refrains from utilizing his incredible manipulative abilities throughout the entire game. Instead he relies on Demons, one of the only things in this world he cannot control, to do his bidding on good faith – beings whose only defining traits are inhabiting the Fade and deceiving those who do not. Luckily for him, they never backstab him, and always attempt to carry out his will. However, each and every time they come face to face with the Inquisitor and his forces they are utterly decimated. Corypheus has a superfluous variety of other troops and armies at his disposal, yet continually relies on the one thing that never works to get things done.

Given that Corypheus’ ultimate goal is to become omnipotent, it doesn’t make any sense for him to not attack the Inquisitor at the peace summit. It doesn’t make any sense that he interrupts the peace summit in the first place. It doesn’t make any sense that he attacks you long after the peace summit when you’ve recuperated and stripped him of one of his armies. It doesn’t make any sense to erect an army to begin with, let alone more than one. And it doesn’t make sense for him to not utilize his other armies when his initial one has proven time and time again to be insufficient. Nothing about Corypheus’ plans make any sense at all. And considering that the entire game revolves around the Inquisitor foiling Corypheus’ plans, nothing about this game’s plot makes any sense either.

You have the power to make the Inquisitor consistent in his emotional state and actions, but his intelligence level fluctuates as the plot dictates, regardless of what you say. And at the same time Corypheus remains consistent in his intelligence (read: stupid) throughout the entire game, yet is wholly incompetent, and incapable of being taken seriously. The hallmarks of good storytelling, these are not.

Gone are the meaningful conversations, the windows into the lives of common people in Origins. Absent are the darkly comical quest lines of Dragon Age 2. And missing are the complex socio-political underpinnings that run the nation of Thedas and served as the foundation for the plot of the Dragon Age universe. This is a different Dragon Age. This is the Dragon Age of Hollywood; Of SPECTACLE!!!! Where simplicity and political correctness cannot simply be present, but must be on display, in the most unsubtle, ostentatious fashion imaginable. Nor can there be anything of substance with which to adorn such moral superiority.

Let’s for a moment suppose, however, that a player found none of the aspects of the story or “role-playing” consequential and that they were solely interested in playing a classic Role-Playing Game, because the gameplay looked engaging. Assuming that these mythical individuals exists and got their hands on the game, they too would feel slighted by the game’s disregard for their time and needless obfuscation and exacerbation of unlocking its fundamental gameplay systems. Conveniently, these systemic problems are all expressed through the combat via the subservient systems governing it: the characters’ level progression, crafting, item gathering, revisiting locations, and (above all) the Power system.

Hamartia

As with past Dragon Age games, one must fight and read codexes to gain experience and eventually level up (often around 20-25 times by the game’s end). However, unlike in the previous titles, enemies in DA:I do not scale to match them, meaning that a player has to enter new locations to continue to advance their character. What’s more, all locations are not automatically available to the player and must be unlocked both over the course of the story and via the Power system (which we’ll return to in a moment). Lastly, access to story missions must be purchased with Power as well; one cannot simply progress the story at their own pace. As a result of these restrictions, players cannot freely level up to their hearts content and will reach plateaus in accordance with their story progress, which itself is linked with their Power acquisition. Thus, character progress and story progress are intrinsically tied together. 

From a design standpoint, this should actually be advantageous as it allows the developer to more accurately design scenarios suitable to the player’s power level at any given point in the story. But, this doesn’t actually work or even make logical sense in DA:I predominantly because a character’s level has no inherent bearing on their combat prowess.

Similar to Mass Effect 2 and 3, when a character levels up their stats don’t actually increase (or in this case, don't increase consequentially). Instead they gain an ability point which they can apply to one of their class’ skill trees to learn a new ability. These abilities encompass all of the actions a player character can make in and out of combat (this itself has a number of problematic implications attached to it, but they are beyond the aims of this specific critique). The attack strength of every attack in the skill tree, however, is based on the strength of a character’s equipped weapon(s), making weapons the de facto root of a character’s combat prowess. Thus by extension, the freedom in which a player can acquire weapons is the true determining factor for the gameplay balance.

First off, you can't easily get great gear in this game. At all. There are certainly some named unique items that can be found on quests, but they are rarely at the top of their tier, and quickly lose their effectiveness as the player levels past them. But ignoring this, if you aren't crafting gear, then the gear you find will always come with a level requirement. While that isn't inherently problematic, because gear is objectively broken up into three set tiers of strength, acquired loot is always relatively weak if the player isn't at the <i>exact</i> level at which the acquired gear reaches a new threshold. Thus, found gear is subpar the vast majority of the time. This is not good as it is, but should be offset by the existence of crafted gear.

And while it does succeed in doing so, it only leads the player to engage with the most broken part of the entire loot system. Every component of the crafting process (schematics, materials, masterwork materials, and runes) is designed to waste the player's time.

Schematics are necessary to prevent players from simply finding resources and crafting game-breaking gear, but the cost of the schematics one needs are always prohibitively high relative to the time they are relevant. No one playing through the game normally (that is, sans grinding), is coming up with 3000+ gold for one class's armor and weapons (let alone 9000+ to fund the other two) before finishing Haven, and nor are they just sitting on 15000+gold (for a single class) by the time they have access to the Hissing Wastes.

Again, this wouldn't be inherently offensive since it's clearly just a mechanism for preventing people from accessing these materials early (which is arguably problematic), but it's entirely arbitrary anyway because the locations where you buy the schematics are gated through both the gameplay progression (after the fall of Haven) and the enemy difficulty (the 2 most difficult areas in the game). If they simply prevented you from accessing The Hissing Wastes until after you finished the story mission at the Western Approach, then they would have achieved their goal of preventing players from becoming OP early without needing to charge players an insane amount of money.

The issues continue with the materials. Since materials are also broken into tiers you can only make gear at the maximum efficacy after you've reached the later portions of the game.

And to round things off fade-touched gear is a crapshoot. There is no guaranteed way to acquire most Fade-Touched equipment

The Fall

People often say that the opposite of love is hate.  They are wrong. It is apathy. And no game released in 2014 left me with a more powerful feeling of indifference than Dragon Age: Inquisition.