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The really nice thing about doing your own mechanics is we can design it from the ground up to suit what the world needs and what the story is. "With Awakening we expand that more, fast forward in time a few more months and it's in a different geographical location, but it's still a relatively small spec of what the bigger picture looks like. "So far with Origins, as massive a game as that was, we revealed a sliver of time in a very contained place in the world," said Melo. It sounds as though the team is also keeping an eye to building out the world in the future. And you can't help but wonder if those are going to be reflected some point down the line." Those concerned this expansion content might strike a different tone from what they grew used to in Origins should be happy to hear it's the same writing team fueling the content. "You might not even realize that as you're playing the game, you're making decisions, you're enjoying the story and what's going on, and towards the end you'll realize you've made some pretty epic decisions much like with Origins. Awakening will feature some of the same kinds of choice and consequence gameplay Dragon Age fans will be familiar with, and according to Melo it can have a dramatic effect on the way thing develops. Eventually these things converge and paint a much bigger picture." But each of the downloadable content types, even down to the really small items, will usually be very rich with lore or they'll foreshadow other things that are to come. Awakening is something that is a massive way to add not just a chapter to the story, but a volume, like a new book to the world. "We spent a lot of years developing the world of Dragon Age, and Awakening has a very defined place of what it's trying to reveal both geographically but also in terms of storytelling and timeline it fits into.
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It's also firmly rooted in the fiction of the game world, as Fernando Melo, online producer for Dragon Age, explained. You'll find new class specializations, new skills, an increased level cap, plenty of new items, and obviously new quests, enemies to kill, and areas to explore. How much content can you expect in Awakening? It seems like everything is getting an upgrade. Throughout the course of your adventure you'll run into a number of new party members, including one returning character from the base game BioWare wasn't willing to reveal. Or, if you either don't want to or lost your save, you can start a new character, a Grey Warden from a neighboring country. If you're one of those people who have seen everything they wanted to see in Origins and are hungry for more, then you should know you can import your base game character into the expansion.
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