It’s one in the morning and I’ve just completed Dragon Age: Inquisition. But instead of doing what any sane person would and calling it a night, I immediately return to the main menu and begin a new save game.
I’m finally ready to admit it; I’m completely addicted to Dragon Age: Inquisition.
My first save game is around 60 hours long. In total I spent over two days exploring the vast and highly immersive world of Bioware’s newest RPG, and I don’t regret a thing.
What exactly makes DA:Inquisition such an alluring time-sink is a combination of variety, rewards and emotional attachment. A major reason as to why I’m such a slave to RPGs is that you feel a real sense of progression; a good RPG should never seem stale and should promise you great things if you put the time in. “Enjoy chopping up that demon?” DA: Inquisition asks, “well you could chop up bigger, nastier demons if you just level-up again”.
What makes this ongoing struggle even more beautiful is the sheer amount of variety the game presents; the wide range of environments, the varying enemies, the different types of missions etc… The fact that the game rarely holds your hand further adds to this desire to explore; you can enter areas with enemies that will hand your arse to you, which will only increase that craving for delicious anticipation. This sense of randomness is what also contributes to the addiction; you could stumble across an entirely new quest-line if you just wandered over there and spoke to that one person.
DA: Inquisition’s replay value owes a heck of a lot to its variety. The ability to play as a total of four races, two genders and three different classes (as well as subclasses) provides plenty of reasons to pick up the controller and continue playing. This replayability is further increased by the inclusion of choices throughout the game; chose to side with this person last time? Why not side with the other person and see what happens?
A lot of your time playing DA: Inquisition will be spent talking to people, and out of the many people in Thedas, your band of merry travellers are the most important. It certainly helps that DA: Inquisition’s characters are so carefully well written; the desire to quickly check up on each of your team-mates is irresistible because of this. That you can form romantic bonds with them (depending on whether they return your affections), makes you want to restart again just to experience the tender throes of passion with someone else.
So I’m still playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, despite the fact that I have two other games almost completely untouched. Dragon Age is just too good to resist.
