As we all know, the game industry has a bad habit of making sequels rather than introducing new IP?s, but it?s rare that a game comes along that would have truly done better as a new IP. Dragon Age II is one such game.
The question people always ask me is ?Why would BioWare have made it a separate IP??
In order to answer that, you have to look at why a company makes a game a sequel to begin with. Not actually being a part of the game industry I don?t have the inside knowledge on this (I?d love to see Extra Credits do a video on this), but, logically speaking, these are the reasons I can see for making a game into a sequel:
1. To continue developing the story/characters/setting of the first game.
2. To draw in sales from those who liked the first game.
So number one is out when it comes to Dragon Age II. The game features a single returning party member from the first game?s expansion; the story is only tangentially related to the first; and it takes place in completely different part of the world.
It can be argued that the world itself is what the developers wanted to explore further, but that doesn?t hold up. Take any element from Dragon Age?s world and I guarantee it (or at least something incredibly similar) appears in at least a dozen other fantasy stories. Origins was many things, original is not one of them. The game could easily be set in a different world, have all the same basic elements and lose nothing in the transition.
The arguments for new IP are even more compelling when you look at those elements that returned from the Origins. Several characters make reappearances but their designs have been changed so drastically you would never know who they are if the game didn?t tell you. When I saw Flemeth in the demo, my jaw literally hit the ground. Then there are the darkspawn, which make a reappearance as well but have also been radically redesigned (and where are the Genlocks?).
When the only returning elements from the first game in no way resemble themselves, it?s hard to justify calling it a sequel.
In an attempt to wrap this up, other things that were changed to the point of being unrecognizable include: combat, talent trees, dialogue system, weapons and armor styles, etc.
Thus, number two on my list falls flat on its face. I understand that BioWare wanted to produce a more console friendly game and direct it to people who didn?t quite like the first. I get that, and such a thing can be done and done well.
Dragon Age II doesn?t do that.
In order for that approach to work, you can?t alienate those that liked the first game. Otherwise, they?re going to do what fans of Origins are doing, namely, raise a fuss and boycott the sequel. Origins produced a wealth of loyal fans. Those should have been guaranteed sales for the sequel. Instead the game was changed so radically that everything they enjoyed about the first had been stripped away. This produced outrage and boycotting.
This could have been avoided with a new IP. With a new IP, fans of Origins wouldn?t have anything to complain about, because it didn?t touch the franchise. So, instead of boycotting it out of a sense of betrayal, they?d have pre-ordered it because, hell, it was a new IP from BioWare. That used to be an instant sell for tons of gamers.
There was simply no reason to tack the Dragon Age title onto Dragon Age II. The story would have lost nothing transitioning to a new world. It would have saved all those sales from fans of Origins, and it would have left the door open for a more faithful sequel that would have benefitted from the increased attention this game garnered from the console market. By releasing it as ?Dragon Age II,? BioWare lost sales and a sizable portion of its fan base. A shame since a simple renaming could have prevented it.
TL;DR just read the last paragraph.
Then, if you have arguments to make, read the rest first, because I probably already addressed a lot of the obvious ones.
