Preview by: Todd Brakke

Two weeks ago I, and a handful of other gaming journalists, were flown out to Bioware’s Edmonton-based office to see a selection of hands off demos of Dragon Age: Origins and its world-building toolset, spend some time talking to various key figures working on the project, and devote a good twelve hours or so playing the final PC code.

What I took away from the experience is not just that Bioware very likely has a holiday winner on its hands come November 3rd; it’s that the company is clearly thinking bigger than a single video game or even series of video games. Much bigger. Dragon Age, as a property, represents nothing less than a sword point aimed squarely at the Dungeons and Dragons franchise, even though no one would come out and say as much on the record.

Sure, the Dragon Age video game is the biggest piece of the pie and most of this feature is devoted to it, but it also didn’t take much time in the great white north to see that the scope of Bioware’s plans for the IP are much broader. This is just the first cannon salvo.

The game’s lead writer, David Gaider, already has two Dragon Age novels out on the market. Talk to lead designer Mike Laidlaw and you’ll hear all about extensive plans for official downloadable content for Origins, which we now know should keep coming for at least the next two years. Co-founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka are more than happy to talk up how excited they are about the world-building toolset and social networking site, and how they’ll work together to make the mod-community for the original Neverwinter Nights look like a mere proof of concept. Talk to executive producer, Mark Darrah, and you’ll hear plenty about all the non-video gaming plans they have for Dragon Age, whether it’s the pen and paper RPG system or even a likely board game and card game. And one can only assume that there’s plenty going on behind closed doors that they won’t begin to speculate to us press wonks. Who has time to talk sequel when every available finger is already stuck in a different pie?

One cannot underestimate the pressure this must surely put on those tasked with making the game a huge success: The designers, programmers, artists, and writers, not to mention the folks who market the game or handle its PR. Were it to flop, a lot of other carefully laid plans are likely to go right down the drain along with it, not to mention a handful of careers. Fortunately, if the reactions of the eleven of us that spent those few days at Bioware are any indication there’s not much chance of that particular doomsday scenario coming to pass. To a person, there was not one of us who didn’t lament the fact that when we took our leave that it would be weeks before we could continue our adventures in Ferelden.