BioWare's Gaider: Dragon Age Returning To Baldur's Gate Roots

Author: by Staff

Talking to Gamasutra, Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider has been discussing the upcoming fantasy RPG, noting that "we're looking at our Baldur's Gate roots" for inspiration on the new title. In the interview, Gaider talks about the evolution of BioWare's game making process since he joined the company in 1999 (for 2000's Baldur's Gate II) through to today. The company is again moving into that same high fantasy territory with Dragon Age: Origins, which is due on Windows PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 this October, and the writer specifically tackles influences in the interview: "Every BioWare game gets compared to the last one that comes out. And there's potential that when Dragon Age comes out, it will get compared a little bit to Mass Effect. But I hope that the people who do that keep in mind that we're going for something that's a little different here. Mass Effect is great -- it's more cinematic -- whereas with Dragon Age, we're definitely going to something that's a little more traditional. There's nothing wrong with traditional. We're looking at our Baldur's Gate roots. I know they whip that out in the marketing a lot, but Baldur's Gate II was my first game. I think nothing compares to your first. For me, it was this wonderful experience where we were working with a tried and true engine, which is a great place to be because you can start creating content and test it right from the beginning. We haven't really been in that situation since. Mass Effect 2 is there now, which is good for the team. Hopefully, for Dragon Age, we'll get there, too. But [with Baldur's Gate II] we were in this great place where we could just generate content and be a little bit experimental in terms of what we tried. We tried romances -- we just said, "Can we do that?" Or, "I like working on this Drow setting. I'd like to try this." It was very permissive, allowing the writers and designers to have ownership over what they were working on. The idea was that a lot of the story was told through your followers, the ones you had in your party." The full Gamasutra interview with Gaider is now available, including lots more specifics on the creation of the game, its just published prequel novel, and more.