Dragon Age 3 to receive multiplayer?

Confused (and deformed) Alistair is confused (and deformed).

Today a significant rumor hit the interwebs, and as a Dragon Age freak enthusiast I have an obligation to write about anything relevant to the Dragon Age franchise. You ready for this? 

Dragon Age is getting multiplayer. 

Now, my first instinct upon reading those five words was to violently punch myself in the ovaries and create as much self-inflicted pain as humanly possible. But I refrained from doing so (for the sake of my body and any possible future spawn), reminded myself that it was just a rumor and read on. 

According to Kotaku, the multiplayer will hit “on or around” Dragon Age 3, but it’s unclear whether or not it’ll be incorporated into DA3 or released as a standalone game. From the sounds of it, the multiplayer aspect will come via an arena-esque mode where players can fight against each other either as characters from the Dragon Age universe, as the monsters themselves or even AS DRAGONS.(DunDunDuuuun…) 

Like I said, my first reaction to this news involved thoughts of hurting myself, but that’s only because don’t want any more harm to come to the Dragon Age franchise. Let’s face it—Dragon Age 2 wasn’t that great of a game, and in my opinion didn’t even come close to touching the epic pedestal Dragon Age: Origins sat its sexy ass on. The cold hard truth is that Dragon Age 3 needs to kick some serious bootay and knock us out of the park. If it fails to do so, I only see the franchise spiraling down faster than an injured High Dragon. 

If Bioware (or EA?) wants to create some crazy, off-the-wall arena PVP mode as a standalone or separate project away from the core story of DA3, good for them. Whatever. That’s all they really could do, right? Otherwise how could cooperative play be incorporated? The only other feasible option I can think of is if they went the Tales series route, in which a second player has the option to control a character only during battle. A silly feature, but hey, at least it’s non-intrusive. 

So, the bottom line is that I’m not against Dragon Age 3 having multiplayer, as long as it doesn’t affect the core story and gameplay in any way.

Just give me my warden from the Origins, give me a non-disfigured Alistair and give me a HUGE map to roam around in. No more repetitive locations or dungeon layouts. Touch base on the Flemmeth storyline. Give me—okay, I’m stopping now. I have enough material here that belongs in a completely separate blog post ;)

7 Comments

  1. It had -better- be some inconsequential, standalone feature, at absolute most.

    I don’t think I have the mental fortitude to see the death throes of another franchise that I love.

    DA is about the story, the characters, and -my- heroes and champions.

    Leave the multiplayer in WoW, tor, and (since they -had- to murder it for me) Fable.

    /roar

  2. MMO or Co-Op? The PAXPrime panel, which had the two leads and lead writer, said they would not go MMO. They did say that they would strongly consider Co-Op play since that ‘enhances’ group strategy. i agree with my sister Beth though, if I wanted to deal with people I wouldn’t be playing a video game.

    • Oh good. I was super lame and missed that panel. But the co-op would have to be limited to combat, right? I don’t want my friend controlling a key character in Dragon Age when that character is their own person and should be able to think and move on their own. Nah’msayin? It would take away some of the awesomeness for me.

      • I think the panel was at about the same time as the GameWorks gathering / bash, so I think I out lamed you by going to the panel instead of hanging out with all the cool geeks.

        I’m not sure how the co-op would pan out, if it is added. Baldur’s Gate let the first person who chatted someone up control the dialog, but everyone else was free to hang around or wonder around to chat up others when played across PCs. That caused some trouble because my nephew Matt was running a rouge and kept picking everyone’s pockets, including the person I was chatting up. One minute I am finding out about a dude’s missing daughter then next the town guards and the dude himself are attacking us. Sucked royal.

  3. PS: Mass Effect 3 will have a stand alone Co-Op game released. Wonder if someone is getting their wires crossed and saying Age when they should be saying Mass.

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