Does Dragon Age Inquisition Have New Game Plus

Does Dragon Age Inquisition Have New Game Plus?

Many players who love Dragon Age: Inquisition often ask, “Can I play through the game again with all my cool stuff?” This question is really about something called “New Game Plus.” New Game Plus is a feature in some games that lets you start a brand new adventure but keep some of the awesome things you earned in your first playthrough. Things like your strong weapons, cool armor, and special abilities can carry over. So, does Dragon Age: Inquisition let you do this?

The Truth About New Game Plus in Dragon Age Inquisition

The straightforward answer is: No, Dragon Age: Inquisition does not have a traditional New Game Plus mode. This might be disappointing for some, especially those who love replaying games with their favorite gear. But don’t worry! Just because there’s no New Game Plus doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy the game in many different ways. Let’s explore what that means for you as a player.

What is a Traditional New Game Plus?

To understand why the lack of New Game Plus is significant, let’s first discuss what this mode usually entails. In most games that offer it, New Game Plus typically includes:

• Retaining Character Progression: You get to keep your character’s level, stats, and abilities from your previous game.
• Keeping Equipment: Your weapons, armor, accessories, and other items are carried over to the new game.
• Some Carryovers: Things like crafting materials, recipes, or codex entries may also be included.
• Increased Difficulty: Often, New Game Plus modes come with an increased difficulty level to make the game challenging even with your powerful character.

This lets players revisit the story with an advantage, allowing them to experience the game differently or focus on aspects they may have missed the first time. However, Dragon Age: Inquisition chose a different path.

Why No New Game Plus in Dragon Age Inquisition?

The developers at BioWare didn’t include a New Game Plus in Dragon Age: Inquisition for a few reasons. Instead, they focused on letting players customize their experience and encouraging multiple playthroughs by choosing different paths. Some reasons behind this design decision might be:

• Story Choices Impact Gameplay: Dragon Age: Inquisition is built on player choices, which heavily impact the story, quests, and overall world. A traditional New Game Plus, that carries over everything, might not sit well with how the game’s different paths and choices are intended to work. Players are supposed to make tough decisions that shape their character’s journey, making each play through unique.
• Focus on Character Creation and Origins: The game places a big emphasis on character creation. BioWare wanted players to feel like each new playthrough was genuinely a fresh start, with different backgrounds and interactions.
• Technical Reasons: Implementing a New Game Plus feature can be complex, and the developers may have chosen to prioritize other aspects of the game. Creating a system where each choice doesn’t disrupt the established gameplay could be an important decision from a developers’ standpoint.

Alternatives to New Game Plus in Dragon Age Inquisition

Although a true New Game Plus isn’t available, Dragon Age: Inquisition offers plenty of ways to replay and enjoy the game:

Starting a New Character

This is the most obvious approach. When starting a new game, you can choose a different race and class, which can significantly change your experience:

• Different Races and Classes: Each race (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Qunari) and class (Warrior, Rogue, Mage) has its own unique dialogue options, quests, and interactions. Playing as a Qunari mage, for example, is a totally different experience from a human warrior.
• New Skill Trees and Abilities: Trying out new skill trees can lead to different combat styles, ensuring that no two playthroughs feel the same.

Replaying on Different Difficulties

If you found the game too easy or too hard the first time, you can change the difficulty level for a new game.

• Easy, Normal, Hard, and Nightmare: Each difficulty adjusts enemy damage, health, and AI, offering different levels of challenge.
• Custom Difficulty Settings: You can further customize your experience by tweaking individual difficulty settings, like enemy health, damage, and friendly fire.

Focusing on Different Story Choices

Dragon Age: Inquisition is well known for its branching narrative. Your decisions have a major impact on the world. You can make very different choices each time, giving you different outcomes. Different choices make the story feel new and fresh. Every decision leads to an impact on the characters and world around you. Making different choices each time can make you feel that you are playing a different game.

• Side Quests and Relationships: Choose different companions to bring on quests and explore different relationships with each new character. This helps you to explore unique personal stories of each character.
• Political and Alliance Choices: Every time you play, you can align yourself with different factions, making the politics of the game vary greatly from your previous games.
• Major Decisions: From the character you make to the ending, you can change the ending of the game based on your choices. Your major decisions help you to explore and see many aspects of the game.

Exploring Different Playstyles

Changing your class is not the only thing you can do. You can experiment with different ways to play the game. Change how you approach each situation and you will definitely find a new way to enjoy the game:

• Strategic Combat: Try different character combinations and tactics in combat.
• World Exploration: Focus on discovering every corner of the map and finding all the hidden side quests, materials, and lore.
• Completionist Playthrough: You can also focus on completing everything possible in a single playthrough.

Using Mods

For PC players, mods are an amazing way to change your game. Some mods improve your gameplay, visuals, or even add features that feel like New Game Plus:

• Gameplay Mods: Some mods adjust game balance, make enemies harder, or even add new items or abilities.
• Visual Mods: Enhance the graphics and overall experience to make the game more refreshing.

Maximizing Replayability

Although Dragon Age: Inquisition lacks the typical New Game Plus mode, the game’s design promotes replayability in other ways. Let’s discuss some tips to make the most of it:

Planning Your Playthroughs

Instead of going in blind each time, plan out your adventures. Think about what choices you’ll make beforehand. For example, you can play as a good guy the first time, and a bad guy in the second playthrough.

• Choose Different Inquisitor Paths: Decide early on whether you want to play as a heroic leader, a ruthless strategist, or something in between.
• Focus on Different Companion Stories: Pick which companions you want to befriend and pursue their storylines more deeply.

Enjoying the Character Customization

BioWare’s character creator lets you make unique characters. The customization options make it fun to create new characters each time:

• Experiment with Looks: Try creating different character appearances, from the color of their hair to the shape of their faces.
• Roleplaying Different Personalities: Create a character with a different background, and try to roleplay them differently.

Trying out Different Builds

The classes and skill tree allows a lot of possibilities. Play around with them to find the best builds. Each time you play, you can experiment and find new ways to play. You can make some extremely powerful characters that suit your own play style. This helps you to change the combat experience.

• Hybrid Class Builds: Mix different abilities and specializations to create unique classes.
• Focus on Synergies: Look for abilities that work well together, and try different combination.

Completing All Side Content

The game has many side quests and locations. Take the time to find every secret, complete every side quest, and see all the locations. This makes the game fresh and fun, even after replaying multiple times. Each region has many side quests, lore, and things to discover. You can focus on specific parts of the game.

• Collectables and Codex Entries: Find every little hidden object, and learn everything about the lore.
• Explore All Areas Thoroughly: Take your time to explore the world fully.

Engaging with the Community

Lastly, don’t hesitate to connect with other players in the Dragon Age community. They often have creative ideas on how to keep the game fun and replayable, and they can give you new perspective. There is much to be shared in a player community and they may offer a new perspective that you never thought about.

• Forums and Online Communities: Discuss different gameplay techniques, character builds, and storylines.
• Share Experiences and Tips: Share what you have learned to help others.

While Dragon Age: Inquisition doesn’t have a traditional New Game Plus, the lack of it shouldn’t discourage you. Each new playthrough is a fresh experience, and there is still a lot of fun to be had.