14 DAY TRIAL // Dragon Age: Inquisition is such an engrossing experience at times that I nearly forgot to push the core story forward for a while and I ended up exploring a lot of side quests and talking to my companions before I took the important step of going to the ball at which the empress of Orlais is threatened with assassination (minor spoilers follow).
The event and the narrative built around it allow BioWare to introduce some interesting ideas to the game and to try and shift the focus away from pure combat and towards the Orlesian Great Game, in which powerful politicians with solid backing threaten, send messages, plot moves, and execute coups, all the while never forgetting to keep a smile on their face and to dress up.
The studio manages to create an interesting culture that mixes royal France in the XVIIIth century and Austrian pomp with fantasy elements and some very interesting decisions.
During the ball, the player needs to interact with some well-crafted characters, and my protagonist, who was both rather direct and did not believe in the Maker, made a relatively negative impression on the court and managed to upset some important figures.
Still, I was able to secure all the relevant info I needed and managed to create a solid and long-lasting alliance with the Empress of Orlais.
Dragon Age: Inquisition needed more politics
Unfortunately, all the politics that the court talks about are featured relatively little into the story and the player needs to solve the problem once again by using force, with only a very small advantage for those who are willing to actually pay a little attention and learn more about the Great Game.
I would have loved for the ball to be a section in Dragon Age: Inquisition that featured no battles at all and forced gamers to learn a little about the history of Orlais, about the characters they are meeting, and about the way they need to behave in order to get the results they want.
BioWare would have probably annoyed some gamers if such an important game moment changed the mechanics so much, but a game as big as Inquisition needs some changes of pace and of ideas.
Even in its more limited actual implementation, the ball sequence is impressive and shows that future BioWare titles might be more focused on politics than on straight-up action in the future.
