Xbox Community Network ci ha fornito una intervista agli sviluppatori di Dragon Age II: ve la proponiamo di seguito, in inglese.

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1. Are you preparing any additional content after the release of the game?
We’ve already announced two downloadable content packs for Dragon Age II – The Exiled Prince, and The Black Emporium – which will be available starting Mar 8th. And in the case of The Black Emporium, this is actually included with every original game copy purchased. So whenever players choose to extend their game, be that hours after the game ships, or months later, there will be some great content waiting for them. We do have plans to continue to support Dragon Age II beyond those two packs but we’ll talk more about that in due time.

2. Why did you decide to change the graphic style in Dragon Age II?
Quite a few reasons, but notably near the top of that list was the feedback from players and press alike, and this reaffirmed our own feelings on the matter as well. The art team really took up this challenge and ultimately created a visually distinct style that sets Dragon Age II apart from other games. Now when you see an image from Dragon Age II, you know it is a Dragon Age II image – there is no mistaking it for any other game.

3. Why don't you place camera above the Hawke's group at the console version? I think that many players wants to a Bird's-eye view in game.
Having something like the top down camera view on console comes with a lot of restrictions to what we can do in terms of levels, and how many creatures we can have for combat due to some of the hardware limits, such as memory. In other words, we would have had to compromise quite a few other aspects of the game which we felt would be more important – not only for us, but to all our players as well.

4. In Mass Effect 2 we can unlock the blood dragon armor with a code. It is possible to get some extras in Dragon Age 2 too if the player has a save game from Mass Effect 2?
There are certainly quite a few bonus extra content items that can be unlocked – including some surprises, to tie back to your question. I won’t spoil it here, but from the Dragon Age II main menu go to Extras, and then check out the Unlockables option for more details on how to get a portion of some of the items.

5. Tell us the differences between the PC and the console versions...
With Dragon Age II the PC and both console platforms are all developed internally by the Dragon Age team (unlike Dragon Age: Origins). Amongst other things, that means a lot more time and people have been dedicated to each platform ensuring that the game plays like a native game on each, rather than a port. Some specific examples, include DX11 support for PC, improved frame rates on the Xbox 360, and improved loading times and performance on the PS3.

6. There are some story elements (decision from the end game for example) that carry over from Dragon Age Origins if you have a save game. Are there things that carry over from the Awakening expansion or any of the DLCs (maybe from Witch Hunt) as well? Maybe a small bonus for those extreme fans, who had and played through all the DLCs?
Though Dragon Age II is a brand new story with a brand new hero, Dragon Age itself is really about the evolving story of the world that it is set in, through the 100 year period that is the Dragon Age. The choices and impact that players have on the world in one game – through playing the central character at a given important time period that the game is set in – are written into history and carry forward to the next game, and so on, ultimately creating a very unique and personalized tale of the Dragon Age world for each player.

7. Combining magic spells (fireball + grease = firestorm)was a cool, but underutilized feature in the first game. Can we expect combinations like this in greater number in the sequel?
I think one of the more interesting new features in Dragon Age II, which adds a subtle but very deep tactical layer to combat (for those that want it) are cross-class combos. This allows players to use specific upgraded abilities of one class to setup critical opportunities in enemies that other classes in the party can take advantage of. If you thought magic spell combos were cool, there is nothing more satisfying than having a warrior ‘stagger’ an enemy and then have your rogue or mage finish them off.

8. When you announced the first Dragon Age in 2004, it was a big feature that linguistic PhD students were developing entire languages for the game. These were not utilized in that game, but in DA2, there are quite alot qunari words - are these using those languages developed for the first game?
As part of developing Dragon Age: Origins, there was a lot of effort and time spent in the creation of the world itself and grounding everything so that it felt real and purposeful. The Qunari language was just one of many elements developed as part of the original world design, some of which you do encounter in Dragon Age: Origins, but that we get to explore much more of in Dragon Age II.

9. Why will friendly fire only be implemented in the Nightmare difficulty mode?
The short answer is overall accessibility and fun factor. Our data shows our audience is changing – we noticed a lot more players were skewing to easier difficulty levels in Origins than we expected, or leaving the game early despite high engagement and enjoyment up to that point due to difficulty. Second, with the improved combat system in Dragon Age II we noticed quite a lot more fun combat encounters and tactical challenges and variety, which was the point – however, being a much more dynamic battlefield it also made it harder to avoid overly punishing players with some of our previous systems like friendly fire damage. Fundamentally, we look to find a balance – it was equally important to keep this feature for players that do enjoy it. In the end, as game developers we ultimately need to not be shy about siding with ‘fun factor’ over frustration. And from our focus testing and feedback, we think we found a nice balance in Dragon Age II.

10. What will be the playable character-classes be?
Similar to Dragon Age: Origins, players can play as a Warrior, Rogue or Mage. Each has several ability trees to customize that base class, in addition to three specialization, sub-classes which open up further unique abilities.

11. Will there be specialised skill trees?
Yes. Each base class has three specializations available, each with several new abilities to pick from.

12. How did you refine the battle system?
The most notable change since Dragon Age: Origins is the immediacy to which characters respond to commands. In Dragon Age II characters will now leap or rush into combat range and immediately execute attacks or abilities. It creates a much more dynamic battlefield, and actually adds a huge amount of depth to it. Because characters are actually responding right away, you can now really setup some interesting party strategies that simply were not possible with Origins. Beyond that, the rest is actually a collection of quite subtle improvements and virtually all under the hood – I think players will be very surprised at just how much it still feels like Dragon Age: Origins, and on purpose. We did not want to lose any of the aspects of Origins combat that was great!

13. Why did you decide to make the sequel more console-friendly?
I can see where the question comes from, but I don’t think it would be fair to say that it’s accurate. The truth is consoles were lacking the most in Dragon Age: Origins and felt like ports of the PC version, and now in contrast they look to have received the most benefit or improvements in Dragon Age II. But that only appears the case because PC was already a great ‘native’ experience so its improvements are much more subtle this time around. So the key difference with consoles this time is us working on them all in parallel with PC, and having dedicated people on each console to ensure they feel like a ‘native’ experience too. The end result is the console versions SHOULD feel a lot more console friendly, just as the PC version should feel at home on that platform.