The horses in Dragon Age were lying to you
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Dragon Age creative director John Epler has revealed that the game’s horses have been lying to us all along, thanks to the magic of creative thinking and camera angles.
In the run up to Dragon age 4more and more gems are falling over the beloved action RPG game Dragon Age Inquisition. On a Twitter after (opens in new tab)Epler dropped some hard truths about how sprinting on a horse didn’t actually make you any faster.
In reality, the game engine that BioWare developed Dragon Age Inquisition called Frostbite “couldn’t stream in levels fast enough,” Epler said. This meant that the team was forced to change the camera angle and add speed lines when you started sprinting on your horse to make you feel like you were faster.
Engine failure
This isn’t the only time Frostbite has let the development team down. According to a [report] by Kotaku, the engine has been the bane of many developers’ existence. “Frostbite is like an internal engine with all the problems that come with it – it’s poorly documented, hacked together, etc. – with all the problems of an external engine,” said a former BioWare employee.
BioWare also used Frostbite for their online multiplayer RPG Hymn. This engine could create extensive and stunning levels, but it wasn’t equipped to handle the finer details. This forced the team to cut many features that couldn’t work because of the engine.
More lies
While the lie about the horse’s speed is certainly shocking to me, it’s not the only mistake Dragon Age Inquisition. This RPG has a slightly complicated story involving rogues, civil war, and a space-bending rift that breaks a hole in the boundary between the physical world and the Fade, a place of ghosts and demons. But one of the most crucial plot points is the mark left on your character’s hand, which is the only thing that can close these rifts.
As you might imagine, this vibrant green highlight instantly gives your hero main character abilities and propels them to the center of this violent story. So I was quite surprised to see this iconic and powerful mark on the wrong hand in all of the Dragon Age Inquisition marketing materials. On the posters, you can see the glowing green light emanating from the Inquisitor’s right hand, when according to the game it should be on the left.
While this isn’t as groundbreaking as discovering that my horse has been lying to me all these years, I’ve always thought it was a weird mistake to make. I’ve seen some reasons why this was a silent nod to The Legend of Zelda and Link, who has the same pose, while others just think it can be hard to tell from side to side at times. Anyway, this adds to the strangely growing list of lies and mistakes in Dragon Age Inquisition, and I find that hilarious.