Dragon Age: Origins Interview
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Throughout the demo Chris emphasized that Dragon Age, as an original IP, has a gritty more mature story. Was this a conscious choice or did the story just evolve from creating the world? Does writing a game with this tone allow for more freedom?
It was a conscious choice, probably stemming from the fact that we faced a lot of road blocks whenever we attempted to do even mildly risqué things in the D&D games. Which is fine, right? It's their property; they should get to make sure it's portrayed in whatever manner they wished. Part of the thing about BioWare having its own property, however, was that it was going to have free reign to put out something that was intended for adults right from the start.
Not that you want to go crazy, necessarily. It's not like we have naked people running around beating each other with bloody arm stumps while eating children. Though now that I think of it, wouldn't that be awesome? It's just nice to have the option, and I think that exercising that option made Dragon Age possible.
We've made a world where bad things happen even to beautiful people, where things don't always get restored to goodness and light once the adventure is over. Personally, I like that a lot more. In High Fantasy settings it always seems like heroes are more of less commonplace. Magic is everywhere and an adventurer is always just around the corner. In a darker world, a hero not only rare but needed. That makes them special right there, even without being anointed as such by gods or prophecies.
