Next-genverschil Dragon Age: Inquisition zal enorm zijn

Volgens BioWare is het verschil tussen Dragon Age: Inquisition op de huidige consoles en de nieuwe generatie consoles en pc enorm. De next-gen versie, EA noemt deze generatie 'gen four', krijgt namelijk een veel levendigere wereld.

BioWare Edmonton producer Cameron Lee: "On gen four you'll see far better graphics and, more importantly, a much more immersive world."

"It's a lot richer, and there's more depth to it. We can put more things on screen. There are more NPCs. There is more life to the world.

"That, while a subtle thing, really does over time build up into quite a strong connection to the game compared to the other gen three platforms."

Lee legt uit dat BioWare Edmonton op pc, PlayStation 4 en Xbox One een veel dichtere wereld kan maken, met veel mooiere en betere grafische effecten.

"The visual fidelity differences are huge. For example, the shaders you can put on the characters through different weather systems. The build up system we have, like when you walk through mud, the mud builds up on the leg, then if you're in a fight, blood goes on top of the mud.

"One of our graphics programmers took a nug and overlayed all these different things on it. Eventually it looked like a nug that had been dipped in chocolate because there was so much stuff that was put on top of it. That's all the power you can get from the gen four stuff. You'll see that sort of a difference."

"The spell visual effects are incredible on the gen four and high-end PC. On gen three they will be much lower fidelity. Seeing Vivienne bringing up that big fire storm is brilliant on gen four and high-end PC. That's the kind of stuff that will make this a gen four experience."

"You get a more interesting landscape. You get more foliage. And that provides more of a sense of discovery."

Op het moment is zijn de verschillen tussen beide versies voor esthetisch, maar volgens Lee zou ook gameplay beter kunnen worden door de sterkere apparaten.

"Really, gen four is about, how much can you do with the game? We've got these big open worlds. How much content we can put in there and how big that can be and how complex that environment can be can be pushed farther on gen four. You get a more interesting landscape. You get more foliage. And that provides more of a sense of discovery.

"If you're walking around a corner, because you couldn't see through all the trees and lush foliage on gen four, when you walk around a corner there's suddenly something interesting and cool there that you didn't know about. You get that sense of, oh my god, I found something!

"On gen three, if there's less foilage you can see farther. It has this subtle influence over the experience you have. Fundamentally they're still the same game, but just a better experience on a higher end platform."

BioWare ontwikkelt Dragon Age: Inquisition in de eerste plaats voor de nieuwe consoles en pc. "We build it on really high-spec PCs, which just melt faces. Then we're looking at ways of how we can bring that down to gen three platforms."

Toch zouden mensen niet bang moeten zijn dat de game op de huidige consoles heel veel minder zal zijn: "fundamentally it will be the same experience across all platforms. We won't be limiting anything on the gen three because we don't want the significant number of people who will still be on gen three to feel cheated," aldus Lee.

Dragon Age: Inquisition mag grafisch dan de stap naar de nieuwe generatie maken, functies zoals het tweede scherm, Kinect en PlayStation Move worden niet ondersteund.

"We're coming out a year after launch of gen four," zo zei Lee. "We definitely have some ideas about it, but until we see how people respond. We're just going to wait and see what happens. So right now there's no difference between platforms."

Dragon Age: Inquisition komt uit op pc, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3 en Xbox 360 in de herfst van 2014.