Explore Realistic Environments in Dragon Age: Inquisition

Last Updated: April 12, 2014

Dragon Age screenshot 5

Bioware keeps revealing more screenshots from Dragon Age: Inquisition, and the company has a right to be proud. While there is much we don’t know about Inquisition, we can definitely say it has some beautiful environments.

These environments and the technology behind them was the subject of a recent blog post. Lead Environment Artist Ben McGrath cited the realistic water effects as one of the graphical advances they’ve made. It has “realistic reflections, and also realistically ripples and splashes as you walk through it.”

A technique called displacement mapping is what makes this possible, by pushing texture details out to make them more noticeable. Water and terrain will be much more vivid and realistic as a result. We’ve also seen some impressive lighting effects in the latest screenshots.

Dragon Age screenshot 4

Of course, you’re probably wondering what gameplay in these environments will be like. Well, in that same blog post, Senior Environment Artist Andrew Farrell made it clear that players should “look under all the rocks, under all the bridges, and in all dark corners of the map. Take the path less-traveled and you might something interesting… or surprising.”

We can’t wait to explore these new locations in Dragon Age: Inquisition and see how our actions affect them, as each location has its own ecosystem influenced by the Inquisitor’s actions.

If you’re planning to play Inquisition on the Xbox 360 or Xbox One, rather than the PC, PS3, or PS4, we’ve got another piece of news for you: you’ll be able to use Kinect voice commands, similar to those used for Mass Effect 3, and there are plans for SmartGlass integration, as well.

Share your thoughts on Inquisition in the comments below.