Which would be your preferred setting style for Dragon Age 4?

Open-world games present many new opportunities for exploration and character development. It also serves as a medium to better represent the various settings and lore of a particular franchise. From rolling hills, to massive cities, fiendish hellscapes, to vast deserts. Over recent years, the genre has exploded in popularity, with many developers trying their hand at making a good open world game. Notable giants that have excelled at - or have redefined - the genre include games such as The Witcher 3, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption, and TES: Skyrim (among others). These games have created not only an engrossing world to be in, but have also brought great stories and gameplay into the mix.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are open-world games that have either disappointed gamers, or have been flat out terrible. Games such as No Mans Sky and Mass Effect Andromeda, which were touted with much promise, failed to live up to player expectations (rightly or wrongly), while others have gone down in history as flat out terrible (ex. Two Worlds). From a narrative standpoint, a sizable number of open world games have failed to capture the interests of the player. Story missions and sidequests are often the most heavily criticized narrative elements within open world games, with gamers often stating they hate the "fetch quest" style of exploration that some open world games give the player. With the genre demanding a large playspace, developers need to be able to fill that playspace with meaningful content; a task several studios have failed to live up to.

Dragon Age: Inquisition being open world was meant to open new doors for the player in exploring the world of Thedas. While the game certainly had imaginative landscapes, upon release, one of the most polarizing aspects of its narrative design were the sidequests; which didn't leave a memorable impression for many players. The open world that was designed was also criticized for being "MMO-lite" by  a number of players and reviewers, as well as having too many fetch quests. Though this doesn't mean that the game turned out bad (it actually won Game of the Year), the way the quests were handled did touch a nerve with fans of the series.

With the next Dragon Age game (DA4) hinted at being open world, questions are arising as to whether the game will be able to improve upon its various quests and narrative design. There are - certainly - many successful open world games to draw inspiration from, and Bioware (within the Dragon Age series) has at least gotten a taste for what players are expecting from their open world games now. Still, there is concern - among the fanbase - regarding Bioware's move into the open world genre. Some fans want the series to return to its semi-linear roots, in fear that the narrative quality of the game will suffer due to being open world, or that the game may simply lose their interest by having too much to do that isn't meaningful.

As someone who's played the main Dragon Age games, I wanted to gauge what the community feels Bioware should do with the setting of Dragon Age 4. Elaborating on my opinion of this, I personally liked Dragon Age: Inquisition. While I did think the side-quests needed more cinematic quality, and far less fetch-quests, the world was designed well enough to bring me in. I also liked the combat as well, something I know also polarized many fans of the series. If the next game is to be open-world, I hope they get it right this time.