[kujoe]

Anyone else caught the preview on Joystiq?

Here's an excerpt about the structure of the story.

As you know if you've been paying attention to the game, the sequel's story revolves around a character named Hawke, not the customized, silent Gray Warden protagonist of the first game. While you're still able to customize your appearance and your class, Dragon Age 2 consists of Hawke's story, not just one you're making up.

And here's the catch: Someone else is actually making it up. The main characters of Dragon Age 2 are actually Cassandra and Verik, two people ten years down the line from the first game, that have to save a world on the brink of war not by fighting their own battles, but by finding out just what Hawke's been up to since Dragon Age: Origins. In other words, the game is told in flashback, by a not-always reliable third party. Which means that if Hawke's story is flashier, grittier, or more fanciful than the first game, that's okay -- anything that might be a lie probably is. "We wanted to see what happened if a legend is exaggerated," said Laidlaw during the demonstration.

....

That framed narrative is the key, however -- BioWare isn't just turning the sequel into "Dragon Effect," it's actually baking a story into the game that allows the developers to go bigger cinematically and thematically. We don't yet know how Hawke's story will play out -- Laidlaw promised that players would make decisions that show how "the Chantry's fallen to pieces" and the world is brought to war. But however it's done, we'll be hearing about it from an NPC as we play.

That's quite the interesting narrative setup to say the least.


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