Should Dragon Age Dreadwolf be Open world?

I'm sure most of us, including me, are very excited for Dragon Age Dreadwolf. But while we got a title a few months ago, the game itself remains a mystery. We know we're going to Tevinter and we'll see Solas again, but we still have a lot of questions. Will there be something similar to origin stories? What will the gameplay be like? One question in particular really interested me: Will the game be open world? Should it be?
Well, that's what I'm going to talk about in this video. So grab yourself a nice warm cup of Chai tea and let's discuss: Should Dragon Age Dreadwolf be open world?

Intro: 00:00
My opinion on open world in general: 01:53
My opinion on open world in Inquisition: 02:30
Dragon Age Origins (non)linearity structure: 06:14
Dragon Age 2 (non)linearity structure: 09:14
Inquisition & Andromeda open world structure: 10:13
Should Dragon Age Dreadwolf be open world?: 13:48
Outro: 17:25

Sources:

[mysticonthehill]

We all have our biases and I would love to see DAD be tighter and more story, character, choice driven.

Ironically I love exploring, but.... locals rather than huge expanses. Dive me 30 unique small-medium sized ones appropriately sized to the quest to take place there over 10 huge ones.

PS Enjoyed hearing your thoughts as always.

[Flair]

Your videos never disappoint Lisa! I tend to agree with you on bioware going back towards past games and having a more story driven approach rather than going for an open world and kinda overdoing it. I can play DAO and DA2 so many times over but I've only finished inquisition once and I think it's because there's too large of a scope

[LamboDA]

"I'm a completionist" whilst showing the Hinterlands, oh you poor child.

[Seedmember]

DA needs more quality over quantity. Big, open, beautiful areas are nice for a wallpaper, but you need something to do in them, and just running around to gather stuff or activate "points of interest" doesn't cut it. Even mmos nowadays are putting effort in their fetch quests. Heck, Final Fantasy XIV's latest expansion had a bunch of random side quests that were as interesting as the main story, because they showed you aspects of the world that you wouldn't normally see if you didn't do them.
There is no excuse for a single player story focused game (not saying rpg anymore because Bioware seems to want to move away from that genre) to have generic filler content, like gathering sticks and mushrooms. They need more substance and less show.

[TheReptain]

I want both, like a big map to explore but when story plott will come then it should be linear. Like when something important come that the map will change or you go throught smaller places because of plott and then after that progressive you can go back to explore this area again

[TheReptain]

If you like open world games, i can recommend Dragons Dogma. One of my favourite games of all time, of course after Origins

[ShandorDavies]

You've hit the nail on the head with your criticisms of open world and why they're overwhelming. That's my experience with them too - too much to do and a feeling that I need to complete the area before I can continue with the next section.

I'd prefer a return to more linear areas. The open world of Inquisition feels like a knee jerk response to the repetitive levels of DA2. Anyone else remember the hype around how the Hinterlands was several times larger than Kirkwall?

[not]

As somebody who's gotten a bit burnt out from open-world games, playing a linear story driven game would be refreshing. Although, having something similar to Inquisition would be nice;

Imagine being able to climb buildings as a Tevinter Crow to stealth take down your enemies 🤤;

I think my biggest gripe with the way Bioware handles "open-world" is that navigating regions is super confusing. I always dreaded the "find this treasure" or "use this note you found to find this area!" and you have NO idea where it could possibly be because of how massive the map is. But that's more of a personal thing, I suppose. Hopefully if the game does end up being open world, they'll lower the amount of collectables there are. I'm not a completionist, but I sure as hell will want to do as much as I can so my Inquisitor is a few levels higher than the upcoming enemies :"D

[YoshtTheAwesome]

My preference scale-wise would be around that of Origins. It was the perfect size for me to explore but not get discouraged by just how much stuff I have to do in an area on repeat playthroughs, because I'm going to do all the things I know can be done in an area as soon as I can on every playthrough.
I also feel like they'd have to find an activity that would fit as well into the overarching story as the Fade Rifts in Inquisition. It made sense they were scattered throughout the world and also why the PC has to be the one to attend to them.
My fondest wish for Dreadwolf is for unread codex entries to be marked far more visibly than in Inquisition. Related but a lot less important to me, I'd like the return of the "Mark All as Read" button for both quests and codex entries.

[ioannismarkoulakis]

Hi Lisa, thank you for the video.
I share a lot of the same thoughts for DAI as you. It is one of my favorite games and it took me around a year to beat it, half of it i spend it in the hinterlands. I spent 112h in my playthrough, the only one. I haven't played the games multiple times, except for Origins which i played when i was 14 and when i was 23, 9 years apart. You clearly love these games and I do to.
But anyway, Whether it is open world or zones I will still play Dreadwolf. I would be interested to see how they will do it. I liked that in DAI there were different big zones that felt like open zones and I hope to get the same system in the following games.

[adnanrivera]

I don’t mind the zone size, but if I don’t play a Qunari I get bored. However, I do get the completionism OCD. I do get overwhelming feeling from Assassin’s creed, DAI, Skyrim, the legend of Zelda.

[Nijonibi]

I'm the kind of person that has to systematically look under every rock, and to climb every tree. And I want all of the known world of Thedas in one single map!

[RandomWandrer]

I want the same as inquisition. It was beautiful. And there was always more content for anyone (like me) who just couldnt bear to end their adventure.
I want to continue the Inquisitors story. Tresspasser got pretty dark. I want it to go darker before the final victory

[edwormn]

Dragon Age: Inquisition's environments are absolutely beautiful, for the most part (I am especially in love with Hissing Wastes), but as mentioned, they are asbolutely devoid of meaningful content, adn very much filled with fetch quests that are indeed reminiscent of generic MMO quests.

I definitely prefer their classic approach of smaller, meaningful zones. I do want them to be bigger than your average Origins and Exodus zones, but I don't care for mini open worlds for these sorts of games.

I would love Minrathous to be fairly big mind you; if you put all the chunks of Kirkwall you could explore together, that would be a decently sized portion of city. Give us a few of those for the Tevinter capital.

Btw, your Inquisitor is gorgeous!

[B.B.Digital_Forest]

I only prefer open world if it's fun to keep going back throughout the game. If the zones change significantly after each chapter then I can enjoy it. I love Skyrim, but there a civil war in the game. I wanted to rebuild places like Winterhold and various keeps afterwards.

[the-dark-side.]

I remember when Inquisition came out. I was 12.
I'm 34 now...

[hausofjohan]

Great vid! glad i stumbled upon your channel!
Leaning more towards a hybrid between Origin's and Inquisition, with region based exploration. Not one full scale open world ala Skyrim or the Assassins Creed games, but areas that are big (smaller than Inquisition) with more meaninful content, that suits Dragon Age better. Bioware hopefully have learned from Inquisition that having a massive first area, like the Hinterlands, is not ideal. Several developers at Bioware have acknowledged the Hinterlands flaws, so hopefully it won't be repeated in Dreadwolf.

[TyrbeTrost]

I would love open world, but ONLY if it's done properly like in Skyrim and The Witcher 3. They were fun open worlds, always discovering new stuff and it's like you wanted to explore of your own free will not just because you felt like you had to as a completionist. If Bioware can't make it perfect, I would just like for them to go back to their roots like it was in Origins.

[Zuernaxashyr]

I also gotta agree with your comment about the Inquisition burn out. I've started many play-throughs as well but ended up abandoning them because of being too overwhelmed and burnt out.
So for Dreadwolf I hope they make it more like Origins (my personal favorite) that game feels big/open enough whilst being somewhat linear but not to much so.
Imho I think DAO pretty much nailed it's world and how open it was whilst having many different paths to take and discover for more variety in terms of stories, outcomes ect.
Being a bit more linear too allows Bioware to focus more on details and choices in the world, which I think we all want more of in the Dragon Age series.

[denniss]

Hello Lisa😊,
I like the small open worlds from DAI and would like that Bioware continues with it in Dreadwolf. But they should replace the power system from Inquisition, so that you are not forced to do side quests in order to continue the main story. I hope Bioware does not create an overwhelming open world like in Elden Ring. By the way i can definitly top your 526 hours in DAI.
Greetings from Germany.