Dragon Age II: The New Art Style and Map of Thedas

GameInformer is apparently the official source of all things Dragon Age II, as they’ve kicked out another article that takes us through the game’s revised art style. A couple pieces of artwork and lots of commentary from senior artist Matt Goldman are included within:

On the updated look for Dragon Age II:
Before, I think Origins was kind of like Death Dealer meets The Hobbit. It was half really (raah, scary) and half really whimsical. We wanted to take it into more of a desolate feel and kind of strip it down to a hot-rod Samurai look. Not only visually, but in terms of the actual storytelling motifs that appear in those movies. The cautionary tale was really appropriate for DA2.

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On realism:
The combat is really over the top. It looks crazy, but when you’re actually playing it’s very satisfying to do the whirlwind and see all those legs standing there that don’t know they’re dead yet.

On spell effects carrying over to cutscenes:
I personally argued against that a lot. There are various game reasons why [we did that]. It would be cumbersome to cast all of those spells again. But I think it really takes you out of the moment when you’re standing there, talking to a guy and he’s wrapped in glowing red plastic and there are flames shooting out of him and rocks falling on top of him. I absolutely agree that that needs to not happen.

They’ve also provided us with an interactive map of Thedas that spotlights ten notable locations in the world.