When Dan Tudge describes Dragon Age: Origins as the “spiritual successor” to Bioware’s celebrated Baldur’s Gate series, he’s understating things a bit. Dragon Age is Baldur’s Gate, only prettier, deeper and with no Dungeons and Dragons license. It has party based tactical combat centered on a main character, action you can pause mid-stream to get a handle on everything around you and very traditional dialog trees.

The world is an original Bioware creation but it draws on the fantasy archetypes that most gamers are familiar with. The evil darkspawn are a fusion of orcs and undead hordes, there are elves and fireballs and your mission, which you must accept, involves protecting the kingdom of Feraldan from a spreading evil, herein dubbed “The Blight”. They are shooting for a dark world of danger and intrigue while still keeping many of the high fantasy tropes that rule the genre.

Half of the 30 minute gameplay demo is taken up with cutscenes and limited dialog options, in which you learn the basics of the plot and that Feraldan is ruled by a king that could use a dagger in the head. The gameplay that is shown is very interesting, though, with the promise of interactive magic. Cast a grease spell and then a fire spell and you have an oil fire that damages everything in the grease field. Then cast a blizzard spell to extinguish the fire.

Feats and skills are tightly integrated into combat, with shield bashes and assault tactics essential to navigating the masses of enemies that will surround you. The boss monster we are shown is an ogre that picks up your soldiers and punches them until they manage to break free from his grip.

Tudge emphasizes how your character’s origin story will affect how the game plays, hence the Origins subtitle. They are making a real effort to make you relate to your character, but we are shown no solid examples of how this will work across the long run of the game.