Dragon Age 2

I've been looking around online and found a few places where they have some rumors about what's going on with DA:2 coming out next year. Enjoy!

This first part deals primarily with the character that you play in Dragon Age 2, a guy (or girl) named Hawke. This means you don't have the same flexibility in creating your character however you want as you did in DA:O, but I guess that's the trade to make the story more immersive.

5 facts about DA2

1. Hawke will be a voiced character.
Unlike Dragon Age: Origins, the player's character in Dragon Age II will be fully voiced. This opens the door for a more cinematic approach to dialogue and creates an identity for the character outside of the text you see on-screen. It also eliminates those awkward scenarios where you feel like your character should be reacting, but instead just stares blankly without so much as a grunt.

2. Hawke is human.
Yes, that means that you won't be able to select Hawke's race. However, just because that one aspect of Hawke's backstory is set doesn't mean BioWare is eliminating character creation. You can still choose your class and customize your appearance. When we visited BioWare's studio, we only saw (and heard) the male Hawke in action, but the team promises that players can select either gender for the character.

3. Hawke didn't just survive the blight...he escaped it.
As the Grey Warden from Dragon Age: Origins was fighting darkspawn, Hawke was living in Lothering. Fans will remember that the small village was raided and destroyed (an event that occurred off-screen in Origins), and Hawke was one of the survivors. However, rather than stay and fight the darkspawn menace, Hawke flees Ferelden and heads north.

4. Hawke is the Champion of Kirkwall.
Kirkwall is a major population center in the Free Marches, a collection of city-states north of Ferelden. This means that at least some of the action in Dragon Age II will be set in Kirkwall itself, though Hawke will also spend time in other areas of the Free Marches. What exactly Hawke does to earn the honorary title of Champion, however, is up to you.

5. Hawke drives the story.
Dragon Age II is not about killing an ancient evil or about quelling another blight; Hawke is the driving force behind the narrative. Over the course of the game's 10-year timeline, players' actions and choices will determine Hawke's history, relationships, and regrets...all in service to answering the larger question: Who is the Champion of Kirkwall?


Someone else put up a summary of what they read in Gamer Information magazine.

1) We will be able to import our DA:O games into DA2.

2) We will see Flemeth at some point.

3) Pissing off party members won't always be a bad thing. "They won't necessarily leave. They may still join you, but they're going to try to show you up, and that may influence battle in a different way."

4) We're getting the ME2 conversation wheel, but this time instead of having some dialogue be a particular color the center of the wheel will show a symbol to show what kind of reply it is. (The article uses the examples of them being something like aggressive or sarcastic)

5) The way the story unfolds will be very different compared to the past Bioware games. "Dragon Age II has a framed narrative structure, which means that the exploits of Hawke occured in the past, but are being retold in the present." "Narrators with unique insights into the events in question tell the tale of his past adventures."

6) We may get to see some of the DA:O events at the start from a different perspective. "Dragon Age II begins as the events of Origins are still taking place, so you may see some familiar events from a different angle."

7) Because of the game spanning a decade, we get to see the consequences of our actions sooner, rather than in a little text at the end of the game.

8) The PC version's combat system remains mostly the same. "The PC version implements the same strategic approach afforded by a mouse-and-keyboard control scheme." "Rather than try to mimic the PC experience on consoles, Dragon Age II has a battle system more tailored to the strengths of the PS3 and 360."

I don't know how you can have your DA:O games loaded into DA:2 given that you don't follow the same characters or anything. I wonder if your actions in the first game and what happened as a result might influence what options are available to you in this one.