This interview is stuffed full! Executive Producer Mark Darrah talks about development choices made in Dragon Age 2, as well as broader topics, like what sets BioWare apart as a developer. Read on!

ZAM: What about any changes that you had in mind aside from reacting to feedback?

Mark: There are always things you leave on the cutting room floor when you make a game. So we wanted to change around how crafting worked, and we did want more responsive combat, but we were forced to skip those Dragon Age: Origins. Dragon Age 2 is a realization of those desires, to some degree.

ZAM: What about moving forward: you note that you left some ideas behind on Dragon Age: Origins. Were there any ideas that you haven't achieved yet in Dragon Age 2, but you want to?

Mark: We mentioned the fact that if 'we do mounts, we want to do them right,' but we'd also really like to explore the Qunari more. We don't have a Qunari follower or a Qunari playable character. We set the groundwork for that in Dragon Age 2, but I think we could have taken that further.

ZAM: You've said that you wanted to make DLC bigger and more robust. How robust are we talking? Witch Hunt size? Awakening?

Mark: The mistake we made with DLC in Dragon Age: Origins is that a lot of it was basically too big to be a snack, but too small to be a meal. Witch Hunt is actually a sample of something that's too small. This isn't to say that our future DLC will be twice as big as Witch Hunt, but maybe about +50% bigger; basically something where it's a big task when you try to do it in one sitting. I think there are great opportunities to do things that are very small (item packs, tiny quests), but they're more like candy than anything. I just think that there is a bad place in the middle of being too small or too big, and I think we hit that tone a few times, where expectations were high and we didn't meet expectations.

ZAM: The narrative and form of narration (DA2 has a 'narrative within a narrative' style) has dramatically changed from Dragon Age: Origins to Dragon Age 2. What precipitated that change? Was it simply experimentation?

Mark: Partially it was that. Partially it was also to explore different techniques and keep us fresh. Ultimately, however, the big thing that it lets us do is create a game that's far more reactive. In Dragon Age: Origins, you're doing these monumental things and making some very important decisions, like deciding who would be King of the Dwarves or siding with the elves or the werewolves. The problem is that there is very little time passing, so the long term impact of your choices isn't really reflected until the very end of the game when you get a text-generated epilogue. In Dragon Age 2, because we're able to skip ahead by going back to the narrator frame, if you make a choice in Act 1, then the impact of that connection will be reflected in Act 2, so there's immediacy to that change.

ZAM: Obviously none of us have gotten to the end of Dragon Age 2, but Dragon Age: Awakening had some unique endings with long-standing impacts on the world (essentially the existence of further Blights versus no Blights ever happening again). Does Dragon Age 2 have that sort of wide difference in endings as well?

Mark: Well, it's true in a sense. There are events that are occurring, and we can see that from the narrative frame of Varric (much of the Dragon Age 2 game, thus far, is told from the perspective of Varric, a Dwarf who adventured with you through much of the game), but the specifics of each event, as well as your actions and your role in those events, are very much determined by you the player.

ZAM: Jumping forward into the far future… After Dragon Age: Origins, you noted that you were already thinking of making Dragon Age 2. Is Dragon Age 3 already being thought of? Any ideas brewing?

Mark: Actually, if you've seen Cassandra in Dragon Age 2 (the Seeker talking to Varric as he discusses the storyline), our current thoughts on Dragon Age 3 is that she would have a major role in DA3. Some of the things being explored here (Dragon Age 2) are leading toward that.

ZAM: It feels almost like you're rolling these large narratives forward, and then you take a small snippet of that narrative yarn, and you keep rolling it forward for a sequel in a new setting.

Mark: That's not a bad way to look at it!