Dragon Age: Inquisition

Dragon Age: Inquisition returned BioWare's series to the sprawling fantasy world of Thedas, conceived for the first time as open-world, with several large regions to explore, while the player, as leader of the Inquisition, confronts a rift in reality unleashing demons and navigates intrigue among mages, templars, and noble factions. The player creates their own character from several races and classes and, over the course of the game, decides on political alliances that affect the balance of power across the entire continent. The party is joined by both returning and new characters, such as the storyteller Varric Tethras and former templar Cassandra Pentaghast, whose personal quests and relationships with the player's character are among the strongest parts of the game.

Combat combines more action-oriented direct control with a tactical top-down view that lets players pause the game and issue commands to individual party members, similar to previous entries in the series. The open world brought sprawling maps full of side quests, collectibles, and a camp system, a significant change compared to the more linear predecessors Origins and Dragon Age II, and one some players saw as an unnecessary padding of content at the expense of pacing. The game also included a cooperative multiplayer mode with its own separate characters and missions, apart from the main singleplayer campaign. Visually and musically it was one of BioWare's most ambitious projects at the time, featuring extensive voice acting and cinematic cutscenes.

Inquisition received numerous awards after release, including Game of the Year honors, and became the series' most commercially successful entry. Despite criticism from some players over the sprawl of the open world, it remains valued to this day for its breadth of content, well-crafted party characters, and political intrigue, making it one of the significant representatives of fantasy RPGs of its generation. The Trespasser expansion later closed out the Inquisition storyline and hinted at the direction the series would take in its next entries.

Why play it: Its breadth of content, well-crafted party, and political intrigue make Inquisition one of the significant representatives of fantasy RPGs of its generation, despite the sprawl of its open world.