Dragon Age: Origins Interview

Dragon Age: Origins lead designer Mike Laidlaw tackles some more questions about the Baldur’s Gate spiritual successor in a new interview on Ten Ton Hammer.

Ten Ton Hammer: There are some sexual themes in this game, and while Baldur’s Gate had some in the “romantic” conversations, in the start of Dragon Age you’re literally placed right in the middle of those situations in some of the origins. I played the dwarf commoner, and you’re immediately dropped into a scenario where you’re talking to your sister, who’s a prostitute. Where do you draw the line from being “in context” to beyond that point? How do you know where to stop?

Laidlaw: Our art director actually has a brilliant mantra: “It should be violent, but not sadistic. It should be sexual, but not sexist.” If you define those lines for yourself, you can basically feel like it’s a game you’re prepared to defend. It’s certainly not a game for kids, and some of the origin stories – and the dwarven commoner is one of the harshest – really hit on that.

I mean, you’re a thug and your sister is a prostitute, but is your sister just a sexual prop? No – she’s a real person doing what she’s doing because your family is in a very tough situation. Your mom is drinking herself into a stupor, you’ve been branded at birth…

These are hard times [in the game], so you can understand how that happened. But we, as developers, wanted the player to excel past the limitations that were presented to players at the very beginning. For the dwarven commoner, he probably has the highest rise out of anyone. He goes from being worse than a commoner to a general of armies. Basically each origin ends the game from some sort of “king-like” perspective.

It’s your basic hero’s journey, fantasy adventure, whatever you want to call it. From a youth to a man. From a girl to a woman. It’s all about that maturation of character, and we’re trying to do it from different points of view.