In a post-mortem interview with 1UP, Dragon Age 2’s lead designer, Mike Laidlaw, addresses some of the game’s flaws, admitting that “no game is ever ‘perfect.’” He explained that the motivation behind Dragon Age 2’s narrative was to “kick over the sandcastle” established in Origins, but many fans feel that Bioware kicked a bit too hard, destroying what made the original special.
Discussing the game’s combat, Laidlaw said that while the warrior and rogue classes were made as fun and flashy as the mage class, “There’s still tons of work to continue to do about how the different classes can interact and so on.” It’s a strange thing to say, considering the game is already on shelves. “We can even deepen the tactical depth of it, but for now, I’m happy with the steps we made thus far,” Laidlaw continued, suggesting that Dragon Age 2’s combat design is a work-in-progress.
Eventually, the interview delved into the issue of incredibly repetitive dungeons. Laidlaw justifies the decision as a choice between giving players “more plots, more content, some side stuff that we knew would be optional” versus focusing on making environments that were totally unique.
“I think the one thing that caught us a little bit off-side was, with the caves having much more interesting features than just ‘generic cave with left bend’—you know, having things like collapsed or old masonry and so on—is that end up probably creating a larger sense of repetition than we thought would originally occur,” Laidlaw explained. “The end result is something I look at and go, ‘Okay, I think that is a shame, and that is a fair critique, and something we can easily address in the future.’”
So soon after release, it may be a bit too early to start talking about addressing flaws in the future. Dragon Age 2 has some serious detractors (our own review largely praises the game), and there’s definitely a consensus among fans that the title was rushed onto the market. Laidlaw’s comments only fuel those sentiments.
