Opinion: Is Greedfall trying to fill the void of Bioware games?

Developer Bioware is famously known for its work on series such as Mass Effect, Star Wars, and Dragon Age. Sadly, these games which once defined this critically acclaimed studio are now lost as the developer's most recent titles received poor receptions.

All of this, however, doesn't take away what the studio has accomplished and has offered to the gaming community in the past decade and thus, many new studios still look up to Developer Bioware when it comes to quality role-playing games. Spiders, a French gaming studio decided to take it upon themselves to fill in the gap which Bioware and other studios left when it comes to true role-playing experience in recent times.

Their latest game, Greedfall seems to be the perfect Bioware game which we sadly never got after 2009's Dragon Age, which the community still believes to be one of the best fantasy role-playing games of all time. Greedfall is set in the 17th century when the Colonial Era was progressing at its peak.

Like in Dragon Age, players will get the opportunity to craft their character in Greedfall and the tweakable features range from cosmetic elements such as gender and physical attributes like hair, skin colour, etc to more substantial elements including one's starting class. The three classes include Warrior which focuses on melee combat from swords to rapiers; Technical which has a wide variety of tools in his/her arsenal such as traps and potion and Mage which can shoot fireballs and much more through their hands.

In Greedfall, players will only have to choose the starting class of their character and since the game offers no level cap, one can mould their characters into a custom build where they shoot magic with their hands as well as specializes in sword fighting or setting traps.

Looking into what really makes Greedfall a spiritual successor to the Dragon Age or Bioware in general, one can understand it is the picturesque island of Teer Fradee: an untamed location brimming with magical creatures and local inhabitants which focuses on its characters. Rest of the world's continents are suffering from a Malichor plague and the colonies are moving to Teer Fradee for finding a possible cure for all the unfortunate happenings around the globe. The fate of Teer Fradee and all of the other colonies lies in the hands of the characters who will be diplomats.

The overall structure of the plot resembles heavily to the Dragon Age series and the DA: Origins in particular, where players travel different parts of the world with their companions to gain support for the upcoming Blight which may lead to the end of the world.

Greedfall features a multitude of companions, each with a different personality and focuses on the way the world they live in is looked at. Taking a decision while one of the companions don't agree with may have them turn hostile.

Siora, for example, is a native of Teer Fradee and if a player's character takes a decision against the natives of that land, she turn against the character. Every companion also features their own quest lines, like in the Dragon Age games, and may even lead to romance.

Greedfall's overarching goal is more than being a Bioware clone.

Studio Spiders, through Greedfall, is not just trying to fill in the shoes of the developer Bioware and their RPGs that once occupied massive storage spaces on our desktops or consoles but is aiming higher. The game is being developed by a a crew of forty people and its handcrafted world carries a sense of magic that reflects the passion and hard work that went into making this game.

Greedfall tries to do a lot at once and is fortunately in the right direction. According to the developers, the game won't feature a single fetch quest since it has become so common in the AAA industry lately.

Looking into what made Dragon Age Origins stand out when compared to its sequel, Dragon Age Inquisition, it would be the world-building. Inquisition for sure offered a pretty world to gawk at with varied locales to explore, but by making it a partially open-world game it lost its authenticity.

Almost all the locations offered similar tasks and if one looked closely, really closely then they would know that aside from the visual differences, everything looked identical. Since Greedfall is not an open-world game, but one that offers a few diversified and visually striking locations to explore, it will not cause any fatigue. In short, quality over quantity is what Greedfall is striving for, and this is why Origins might be better than Inquisition.

The combat in Greedfall looks fun and flashy. It doesn't necessarily offer tactical combat like in the Dragon Age games to make it more welcoming to a wider audience, but it does offer a "tactical pause" option like in DA to give players a sense of freedom and strategy to choose their combat. The game offers three distinct skill trees each for a warrior, mage and the technical(rogue) class but digs deeper when it comes to expanding and deepening the various attributes of these skills.

Greedfall is shaping up to be an ambitious old school role-playing adventure game that Bioware fans have been waiting to p,lay for a long time. Greedfall's goal now seems to be more than just a Bioware clone and it could be speculated that the game might turn out to be a grand hit this year.

Greedfall will be out on the 10th of September on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of Sportskeeda

Follow Sportskeeda for more features on Greedfall and other Video Game News.