Dragon Age II Boxshot, Screenshots, Concept Art, and More

EA and BioWare have taken advantage of GamesCom to release a selection of new Dragon Age II imagery and content, including the official box artwork (with a slightly modified Hawke on the cover), three new screenshots, four new pieces of concept art, and information about Kirkwall and a Strider creature.

Any ship approaching Kirkwall will first see the cliffs the (wall) that the city is named for from many miles off. This sheer cliff is made of the same black stone that the city was built on, a pantheon of vile guardians representing the Old Gods carved into its face. Over the years the Chantry has effaced many of these profane sentinels, but it is next to impossible to destroy them all.

A channel has been carved into this cliff, allowing ships to sail through a dark corridor with sheer walls hundreds of feet high into the city’s interior. Flanking either side of this channel are the (twins of Kirkwall), two massive bronze statues that are present for more than show: the city sits next to the narrowest point of the Waking Sea, and a massive chain net can be erected between the statues and the lighthouse on the nearest outcropping of rock that marks the edge of the narrow navigable lane. This stranglehold on sea traffic is jealously guarded by the ever-changing rulers of the city for the wealth of tolls, taxes and extortions it has allowed; the transitory politics of Kirkwall are as brutal and treacherous as the sea currents below.