Russ Boswell
Posts: 109 +0
Many of us welcome the Holiday season as an opportunity to enjoy time with family and catch up on some well deserved sleep. But for the dedicated team at Bioware, the end of the year brings an important milestone in the development process. This season focuses on Dragon Age: Inquisition, and according to Bioware's latest blog post, the "Holiday build," for their upcoming fantasy-epic is complete.
A Holiday build is something that Bioware developers port for each of their games and it serves as a long standing tradition. Teams attempt to craft a title that is as "complete as possible," so that other team members, and parts of Bioware, can play the "completed product" over the Holidays. The details for the Dragon Age: Inquisition build are outlined by Mark Darrah, and it seems that the company has been very busy since we last saw the project at PAX. So what exactly has the group been working on, and how much of the game is really finished?
The main storyline has been completed, and is currently playable from beginning to end. Letting team members experience this aspect of the game will give the development team a better look at how well they have paced the storyline, and if anything seems consistent or out of place. Keep in mind that this is the "main storyline," so any side-quests or alternate missions are most likely still in development. This isn't just an interactive story though, all of the gameplay elements will work together, allowing employees to experience "finished gameplay." There is still a lot of voice over and sound work that needs to be done, but team members managed to sneak some of the voices and musical elements into the build.
The blog post also makes a brief statement about class design, and the build will focus on making sure that each class provides a specific role, complete with helpful team-based abilities. Developers want to ensure that you need a specific team composition, and that you don't end up dominating the battlefield on your own without using some of the more creative class tools that will be at your disposal.
Bioware closes with a glimpse at some of the content that is being worked on for the title, and developers released a slew of new screenshots to celebrate their progress
