10 Things You Should Know About Dragon Age II

BioWare will be kicking off their live webcast of Dragon Age II in a little over an hour now, but in the meantime, you might want to read through GameInformer’s “10 Things You Should Know About Dragon Age II” editorial. A few notable ones:

1. Combat Feels Like An Action/RPG
Battles in Dragon Age II feel like they evolved more from the console version of Origins than the PC. Instead of a deliberate and tactical approach, fights take place in third person and focus more on fast-paced action. This is true even if you’re playing on PC, so don’t be surprised when you can’t find your zoomed-out isometric view. Yes, this is a significant change from the last game.but being different isn’t necessarily bad.

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4. Skills Are Gone
When you level up, you allocate ability points and talent points. You no longer get skill points, because skills as they existed in Origins are no longer present. Your character can still do many things that used to be skills, like crafting and lockpicking, but these have migrated to other parts of the game. For instance, the rogue’s ability to pick locks automatically increases for every 10 points in their Cunning ability (simple locks at 10, standard locks at 20, etc.).

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10. It’s Shorter, But Not Short
I finished Dragon Age II, along with every sidequest, in approximately 40 hours. While that isn’t the 70 hours it took me to play through Origins, it’s still a large chunk of time, and I certainly didn’t feel cheated by the amount of content.