Back in early 2012, BioWare revealed that an expansion called Exalted March was in development for Dragon Age II but was cancelled due to “other opportunities” for the franchise. Now, Creative Director Mike Laidlaw has opened up about what was to be the game’s fifth DLC and explained what happened. In a series of tweets, Laidlaw said:
First off? Why did we cancel it? Easy to assume it was “the reaction” to DAII, but not so! It was the move to Frostbite. We had an opportunity to do so at the same time, but knew as it would be the first time that engine did “RPG stuff” we knew it would be hard. As most everything in making games, it certainly was challenging. Great engine, but took tons of time. Had we tried to do both Exalted March and the Frostbite transition, both would have suffered a lot, esp. from lack of engineering folks.
So
@BioMarkDarrah made the call to stop development on Exalted March and go all in on what would become Dragon Age Inquisition.
So what was Exalted March all about? Laidlaw explains:
Exalted March didn’t make it too far past concept. The idea, however, was that it followed the red lyrium chicanery of DAII with the Chantry becoming VERY UPSET while various aspects of the qunari started to make moves on the turbulent Free Marches. And this it fell to Hawke to stop things from going to hell (again) while working with Starkhaven and the pirates of the Armada.
Laidlaw went on to say that BioWare had some “really interesting” stories to tell but cancelling Exalted March was “the right call to focus on the engine change.”
What do our readers think of this?
[Source: Mike Laidlaw (Twitter) via Eurogamer]
