Open world video games are interesting lessons in exploration, with clear “eras” of the genre where dozens of games follow the same established formula. Critical games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Assassin’s Creed 2 helped establish the idea core tenets of open world games, but when you look back on many titles in retrospect, they all fall victim to the same tropes and problems. Dragon Age: Inquisition is a fascinating instance in the glut of open world games, on the one hand bending to the whims of what’s popular — on the other providing some wildly unique ideas to the formula. But ten years later, one thing is abundantly clear, Inquisition has aged much better than a lot of other open world games, and its unique vision feels more cohesive than it did all those years ago.
Inquisition is the third game in the Dragon Age franchise, directly building on the world and events established with the previous games. Like with the Mass Effect franchise, player choice and agency has always been central to everything Dragon Age does.
