A immersive DreadWolf Tone

Inquisition was perfect in terms of light and dark, hope and fear, grit and beauty.

Bethesda makes some really good games. Skyrim still remains amazing even after all these years.

I did think about my answer a little bit more after I posted and I think part of the problem is trying to define 'tone' in the first place. Almost to unintentionally prove my point, to me anyways, what you are talking about is gameplay related and not tone. To the specific complaint though...well I'm not a big Bethesda fan either, indeed ingeneral they are one of my least favorite game...developers?...and their games typically aren't my cup of tea (though for some reason I keep finding excuses to play the Fallout games). However, for me DAI represented a perfect blend between the BioWare style and the Bethesda style. Yes, there were problems with the open worlds and the side quests but generally the game had a lot of exploration which the player could partake in but it still had the staple BioWare characters and story. The exploration wasn't the main drive for the game like it is in Bethesda titles, just a side dish.

Back to the original point of the thread and thinking about it, while I still more or less stand by the above...as far as DAO, DA2, and DAI, I think Inquisition had the best most balanced tone...if I were to change things I'd add more humor but also more 'fear'. Humor in the sense that, while I loved the Inquisitor, they couldn't be as much of a smart ass as Hawke or Ryder...there weren't a lot of those sarcastic/ casual options. Fear in the long standing complaint of mine that after Haven Corypheus really isn't that big of a threat. Hopefully BioWare does more in the next game to not only make their antagonist(s) more fleshed out but also more threatening to contribute to fear and tension of the tone of the game.

I want a mix. DAI color palette and DAO musical atmosphere. I like the tone of DAO but it is to brown.
So DAO with DAIs optic. Would be my choice.

Another example would be baldur's gate 1 or Pathfinder.
Baldur's gate 1 is amazing but a little bit old.

If you are talking about the overall appearance of the game, then it was largely bright but there were occasional contrasts, such a Crestwood when we first get there or the Fallowmire. As for the overall feel of the game, Origins was more gritty and grim than subsequent titles, particularly when following the main plot, although DA2 had its moments. However, some of the side-quests in DAI, particularly the Temple of Dirthamen, were very dark in tone, both visually and mentally.

We will probably discover the mood they are going for in the opening few scenes. With DAO the origin stories followed by the Battle of Ostagar were brutal and gut wrenching at times with a real sense of jeopardy. I must admit I didn't really get the same sense with DA2, even with the death of my sibling, and DAI also seemed to lack something that I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps it was the fact that there was no real sense of urgency despite being told the breach was a continuing threat. Then after the high stakes of the Battle of Haven, we immediately get given a castle to replace our former HQ. We didn't have to win it; it was just there. Corypheus was also a disappointment after his first appearance, which wasn't helped by his sidekicks who stood in for him. I felt the Templar path was definitely better for at least giving us some insight into his character and motivations.

Anyway, judging by the concept art and teaser trailer, they do seem to be going for a contrast between the dark and the light in DA:D, both visually and the mood. They have also promised a focus back on characters, which I hope includes villains and well as heroes. At the end of the day, it is the characters that will set the real tone of the game and that includes how they approach our own hero. I'm hoping for greater scope to role play our PC, not just in my own head but actually acknowledged by other people in game.    I felt there was a distinct difference between my various Wardens, which was not just down to their different origin stories. There just seemed the scope there to develop them in different ways that didn't just amount to choosing X over Y or a particular character trait.   Still, at least Hawke did have that degree of differentiation.    My Inquisitors seemed very homogenous and when I did try a different approach, I ended up not liking the person I had created and never finished that run.

Inquisition seemed sanitized in comparison to Origins and 2. I'd like something in between, leaning a bit darker.

Pretty vague OP. I've always said if open word isn't working out for Bioware, return to the overworld map and hub design, but make those hubs much bigger like the Divinity games. My biggest gripe with Origins is there is no organic exploration. It wouldn't take much to implement that while keeping narrative progression under control. The first Witcher game did this pretty well.

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I think it is a case of how the plot develops. DAO has origin stories that were pretty brutal no matter which background you chose. Variously, it could have your entire family slaughtered; being kidnapped/your fiancée kidnaped from you wedding and your cousin raped; you contracting a deadly disease and your best friend going missing; going through the Harrowing and your best friend revealed as a blood mage; being betrayed by your brother and condemned to die in the Deep Roads; starting as a non-person in your society and being condemned for participating in a privileged activity. Some were more brutal than others but it still set the scene that Thedas is a rough place to be. Then we move onto Ostagar and they allow us time to get to know our companions before they kill them off in the Joining. I found what Duncan did to Jordy particularly shocking. Finally, we had the whole Battle of Ostagar, which effectively showed what the stakes were when it came to the darkspawn horde and the betrayal of the King by Loghain. That set the tone for the rest of the game and it felt dark because we had actually witnessed bad events.

By contrast, we never spend any time at the Conclave before the explosion, so we don't have any sort of personal connection to the people who were killed. We see various dead bodies and the actual site of the Temple of Sacred Ashes wasn't pretty but it didn't connect in the same way as if we had actually known these people, even if only briefly, beforehand. Demons fell from the sky but otherwise the landscape looked normal. People looked at our character with suspicion but otherwise they seemed pretty chilled. Maybe it was the fact, as we later discover, that we had actually been unconscious for several days after the explosion but people didn't seem as emotionally affected as they should have been by events. It didn't feel dark because most of the bad events happened off screen and we only heard about them instead of actually being part of them.

The Anchor might also have something to do with it. Once we had established that we had this special item that could close rifts, allegedly from Andraste and making us her Herald, everyone had a reason to keep us alive and even senior figures, like Cassandra and Leliana, were willing to differ to us with decision making. So, our status wasn't earned, just handed to us and even improved upon by Josephine. I've already mentioned above how after losing Haven we just get given an even better HQ with no effort at all on our part. Contrast that with DAO where we had to deal with our name being blackened by Loghain, who was also actively trying to kill us, and at the same time had to convince various factions to support us by our own efforts, all the time having to deal with the darkspawn threat as well. Everything we achieved felt genuinely earned by blood, sweat and tears. So, from that PoV, it definitely had a darker, grittier tone than DAI.

I liked DAI's epic high fantasy tone the best. At this point it's clearly where the series is headed and it fits better than the grimdark fantasy genre of DAO.

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I think it is a case of how the plot develops. DAO has origin stories that were pretty brutal no matter which background you chose. Variously, it could have your entire family slaughtered; being kidnapped/your fiancée kidnaped from you wedding and your cousin raped; you contracting a deadly disease and your best friend going missing; going through the Harrowing and your best friend revealed as a blood mage; being betrayed by your brother and condemned to die in the Deep Roads; starting as a non-person in your society and being condemned for participating in a privileged activity. Some were more brutal than others but it still set the scene that Thedas is a rough place to be. Then we move onto Ostagar and they allow us time to get to know our companions before they kill them off in the Joining. I found what Duncan did to Jordy particularly shocking. Finally, we had the whole Battle of Ostagar, which effectively showed what the stakes were when it came to the darkspawn horde and the betrayal of the King by Loghain. That set the tone for the rest of the game and it felt dark because we had actually witnessed bad events.

By contrast, we never spend any time at the Conclave before the explosion, so we don't have any sort of personal connection to the people who were killed. We see various dead bodies and the actual site of the Temple of Sacred Ashes wasn't pretty but it didn't connect in the same way as if we had actually known these people, even if only briefly, beforehand. Demons fell from the sky but otherwise the landscape looked normal. People looked at our character with suspicion but otherwise they seemed pretty chilled. Maybe it was the fact, as we later discover, that we had actually been unconscious for several days after the explosion but people didn't seem as emotionally affected as they should have been by events. It didn't feel dark because most of the bad events happened off screen and we only heard about them instead of actually being part of them.

The Anchor might also have something to do with it. Once we had established that we had this special item that could close rifts, allegedly from Andraste and making us her Herald, everyone had a reason to keep us alive and even senior figures, like Cassandra and Leliana, were willing to differ to us with decision making. So, our status wasn't earned, just handed to us and even improved upon by Josephine. I've already mentioned above how after losing Haven we just get given an even better HQ with no effort at all on our part. Contrast that with DAO where we had to deal with our name being blackened by Loghain, who was also actively trying to kill us, and at the same time had to convince various factions to support us by our own efforts, all the time having to deal with the darkspawn threat as well. Everything we achieved felt genuinely earned by blood, sweat and tears. So, from that PoV, it definitely had a darker, grittier tone than DAI.[/quote]


Adding to the above, in ORIGINS the systematic abuses of elves, castless, and other commoners were laid bare for all to see, whereas in INQUISITION they felt like an afterthought. DA:I ignored and retconned the dangers of magic and constant threat of possession to hype up mages as an oppressed minority, a move I found eye rollingly hypocritical, given their inborn advantages over normals. Basically, the X-Men's adolescent power fantasy of "they hold us down because we really ARE better than they are".

Seriously, how often in INQUISITION did we hear of various sexual assaults, some of which went unpunished? Where could we sell people into slavery, or wipe out whole towns, including children? And no, this isn't another "let us play villians again" argument, but a recognition of what kind of world Thedas is. How can you take in all this, along with everything else mentioned, and not see ORIGINS as dark fantasy?

Ironically, what solidifies DRAGON AGE:ORIGINS as dark fantasy for me lay in it's nuances. While there are exceptions, for the most part people aren't simple; good people can fall to fear and desperation, heroes can make bad calls, and villians can have sympathetic motives. ORIGINS said, "here's everyone, the good, bad, weird, ordinary, and everything in between. Make up your own mind". By contrast, INQUISITION had a more "these are the characters you are meant to like and sympathize with, and these are the ones you should hate" vibe. Most of the antagonists felt like they came out of a Saturday Morning Cartoon to me. It feels less and less like the DRAGON AGE I grew to love, and something being twisted into what it was meant to critique. So again I have to ask: if you don't like dark and complex adult fantasy, why have you engaged with DRAGON AGE thus far? If you prefer more idealistic stories, why not seek those materials out, and let DA retain it's own unique identity?

Oops, sorry Gervaise. My previous post should have been directed at Hanako, not you. Didn't get much sleep lol.