It appears that BioWare is tired of tinkering with licensed franchises like Star Wars and D&D, and are looking to thread new ground by basically creating their own fantasy worlds that they'll be able to mould and shape to their heart's content. That's exactly what Dragon Age, their new PC action RPG, is all about.

BioWare cofounder Greg Zeschuk calls the game "a spiritual successor to all of our recent games," and goes on to add that Dragon Age "melds the fun of party interaction from Baldur's Gate, the community and multiplayer aspect of Neverwinter Nights and the tactical combat of Knights of the Old Republic." You can't argue with such a concept, can you?

A charming place indeed.

Looks a lot like NWN to me.

As I said, the main focus in Dragon Age is on the creation of a rich and layered fantasy world that is conjured up entirely by the Canadian developers. From what we know so far, we're still talking about a medieval fantasy setting, but with an oriental twist. The usual fantasy races like the orcs, dwarves and elves will not be present in their original form, though certain variations of those will be included in the game. BioWare says that they're reluctant to make a break from some of the more conventional concepts of Tolkien-inspired lore as they're afraid such a move might alienate many of their devoted fans.

Whatever their influences might be in the creation of the Dragon Age universe, however, you can be sure that BioWare isn't taking this task lightly. In fact, they've hired linguistics PhD students to develop specific languages and dialects for the game. What this means of course, is that we'll get a single-player universe with a rich background and plenty of emphasis on the narrative, which has really become the trademark of all of BioWare's games.

Dragon Age is, like the title says, the age of dragons. The mythical beasts will make their appearance in the game, though details about them haven't been revealed yet. The fact that there is a dragon age also implies that there have been and will be other ages in this new fantasy universe. Clearly, BioWare is taking great care to construct a game world that is not so much unique as it is detailed, elaborate and with a lot of depth. Further corroborating this fact, BioWare reveals that the single-player campaign will feature something like 40-50 hours of gameplay.

Besides creating a rich, new universe, the designers have devoted a lot of time to working out their customary set of game rules and laying the foundation for the combat system that is similar to the one featured in Baldur's Gate. This means that you'll be able to pause the action at any time during combat to issue specific orders to your party members (you'll probably have 4-6 party members available to you), while the actual fighting goes on in real-time. Another welcome change in terms of combat is that, once you enter the fray, the camera will switch to an overhead view from the default third-person perspective, therefore offering a chance to better asses the field of battle and use more strategy than you would by observing the battle from up close. Another nice thing about the combat is the more streamlined option of having to take over just one character while the rest of your party members call their own shots. OK, so this isn't anything new or groundbreaking, but it's fair to assume that BioWare will have some mean AI routines in place before this one's done, and that promises a much more enjoyable and hassle-free combat experience.

As far as the game's graphics are concerned, Dragon Age carries the distinct visual identity of all of BioWare's titles. The good news is that Dragon Age will be powered by a completely new proprietary 3D technology that will allow full 3D camera movement. This doesn't just translate into better looking scenes though, as it actually has a lot of influence on the gameplay. The full 3D representation of the game world now allows for vertical movement and actual depth. Certain scenes will have several events going on on different levels (or planes). So if your character is say crossing a bridge like you can see in one of the screenshots, it's quite possible that there'll be a major battle going on down in the valley below. Though seemingly not as important, the switch to full 3D will give a much epic scale to the game world and actually make it a lot more immersive by offering new cinematic possibilities that just weren't there in previous BioWare's games.

Another important thing to note about the new 3D technology is that it will boost something like 2 million polygons per model (probably when you completely zoom in on them) and that the character animations were done with motion capture to make their movement and acrobatics look incredibly smooth and true to life. When you zoom out, the focus of your attention will shift from the detailed characters to the meticulously designed indoor and outdoor locales that will just further immerse you into the Dragon Age world.

On a final note, I should mention a couple of nice touches that BioWare has planned for Dark Age that will surely appeal to all true ARPG fans. One is that there'll be plenty of customary BioWare humor evident in the dialogue and in the direction of the cut-scenes, and the other is a minor touch that will surely only deepen the illusion of playing in a living and breathing virtual world - your characters will now react to the stuff that's going in their environment, and I don't just mean going "holy hell!" when they see the huge boss creature. Your barbarian character will walk in and a flock of birds will cross his path. As any fearless warrior... oh wait, that's not what fearless barbarians do... Anyway, the point is that the barbarian will be startled by the flock of birds; he'll jerk back uncomfortably and follow them with his gaze as they fly away. Nothing fancy, but still adds a nice touch to the game...

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Dragon Age will, of course, feature a multiplayer component that will concentrate mostly on co-op action, though BioWare has a few other ideas that they'd like to implement before they're done with the development.

As far as the release date goes, nothing has been revealed yet. For now the developer is just saying Dragon Age will be done "when it's done."