Mass Effect's emotional lessons will be brought forward into Dragon Age, says BioWare boss

Speaking to videogaming247 at yesterday's EA Games Studio Showcase in London, BioWare CEO Ray Muzyka said that the lessons learnt from the "digital acting" in Mass Effect are most definitely crafting the much-anticipated swords and sorcery RPG, Dragon Age, set for PC release in 2009.

"Dragon Age is like BioWare's bread and butter," he said. "It's appealing to the sweet spot of all the great games people love from the past, like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights: this aspirational fantasy fulfillment. People that play Mass Effect are also going to love Dragon Age, but there may be a bit of overlap, and there may be some people that flit from one to the other, and that's all good: they have different needs and tastes. But we're certainly taking the things we've learnt from digital actors and emotionally compelling narrative, things like that, and we're trying to apply that back to Dragon Age."

Muzyka, presenting the PC version of Mass Effect at the event, said that it was a "studio mission" to make each of BioWare's games better than the last, and that Dragon Age will be no exception.

"Every game we develop we build on a strong foundation from the past, and we're also simultaneously trying to do new things," he said. "We're also considerate that every game has a slightly different demographic or audience target.

"But the way we tell the story may be different as well, and that's because it's a different game, it's a different IP, we have different writers and a different aesthetic. We have a portfolio map: we're not trying to make clones of the same game over and over. Instead what we're trying to do is innovate, every game better than the last, each one aimed at a different audience."

You can listen to the full interview with Ray by hitting the play button below.