A warrior Hawke tears up some hurlocks

Dragon Age Origins Blog rsz 988968 20100907 790screen001 UPDATE2: Dragon Age 2: Gameplay Review

Gametrailers.com unleashed some early gameplay footage from one of the Dragon Age 2 demos on console. In the demo, a female Hawke warrior tears up a group of hurlocks with support from Bethany. And if there’s one thing to take away from this quick gameplay glimpse – the game moves fast.

UPDATE: The videos are back. See below for links!

Or check out the footage HERE or HERE. (Hopefully these videos won’t be removed.)

One of the first things we can look at from this clip is at the character select screen, and that’s noticing the difference in armors between the three classes. The mage is still decked out in robes similar to the robes that mages of the Circle wear. The warrior is wearing the heavier armor that we’re more familiar with from promotional material with the default male Hawke, looking to be composed of chainmail and light plated greaves and pauldrons. And then the rogue is in the light armor with similar style to the studded leather models from Origins.

It’s also important to note the weapon selection. The mage appears to have nothing (but is not selectable), although we know that mages will be restricted to using a staff. The warrior is boasting a two-handed sword and the rogue is dual-wielding. In Dragon Age 2, warriors will only be able to use two-handers or sword and shield, while rogues are restricted to dual-wield or archery. More about class roles here.

The demo opens with a short introductory cinema, with Bethany lightning-ing a Hurlock before Hawke rips two apart with her sword. The gruesomeness of the attacks are apparent. In redesigning the game’s art, the BioWare team has noted that the level of raw power your characters exhibits is something they want to keep and increase. That’s pretty apparent here.

As the actual gameplay begins, note that this is a console version of the game. The normal attack is mapped to the XBOX’s A button while three skills are set to the other three (on the right side of the screen). As spells or abilities are cooling down, the greyed out icon slowly fills clockwise indicating the cooldown, similar to Origins. On the console, it appears that an additional three abilities are located behind the ones that are up, allowing a player to shift between six special abilities or spells at once.

The character GUI with the health bar and stamina/mana is located in the bottom left with actual bars instead of the wrap-around indicator in Origins. Also there is listed what skill the character is using at that time.

As Hawke attacks, her two-handed sword is doing damage to multiple enemies at the same time, so those big looping swings aren’t magically missing adjacent enemies like before. As for specific skills, we see:

  • Fireball – Bethany’s fireball explodes over an area and blows some of the Hurlocks to pieces.
  • Mighty Blow – Hawke leaps into the air and brings her two-handed blade down in and overhead strike.
  • Charge – Hawke bursts forward at high speed, covering ground and attacking.
  • Whirlwind – Hawke attacks in an arc around her. This attack appears to have a similar range to something like the Warrior’s Massacre skill from Awakening.
  • Threaten – Either is a taunt or a similar skill to the Threaten sustained ability of Origins, can’t tell.
  • Spirit Bolt – A spell, Bethany shoots a white/purplish bolt at a single enemy. Appears to be very similar to Arcane Bolt.
  • Knockbak – Hawke kind of pounds the ground. I assume this would do what the name suggests, knock back enemies who are surrounding you.

The combat in the video is fast and frenetic. Attacks are made quickly unlike the lumbering two-hand attacks of Origins. The enemies swarm fast and attacks and skills appear to be made very shortly after the commands are issued. BioWare has touted its more responsive combat system and it appears to run very fluid and very fast.

Also remember though that in the demo, it opens with Varric’s much exaggerated tale of Hawke’s escape before it transitions into the more accurate version. So a lot of the battle is highly exaggerated here to Hawke’s benefit. In the thread on the BioWare boards, lead designer Mike Laidlaw notes that you won’t normally be ripping through hurlocks in one swing.

We’ll let you draw your own conclusions on what to think about the gameplay you saw. Check out the discussion on the BioWare forums and BioWare’s responses here. Feel free to discuss and comment below!

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