Joystiq Top 10 of 2014: Dragon Age: Inquisition

Dragon Age: Inquisition presents a world on fire; fire formed from the spark of lovers, the friction of politics, and the heat of a dragon's breath. It is a game that gives players everything they could have wanted from another entry in the classic RPG franchise. It satisfied our appetites for combat, beautiful worlds, thought-provoking narrative, memorable characters and challenging scenarios.

And then it somehow made us hungry for more. Thedas is a world filled with interesting and unique flora, fauna, cultures, politics and battles. What's more, these facets are presented cohesively, in a manner that feels neither exploitative nor titillating for the sake of entertainment. Instead, it feels, for lack of a better word, real.

Inquisition's superb characters provide excellent examples of this. Dorian is not just "the mage," he's a troubled man with trust issues that ran away from a society of inbred aristocrats. Iron Bull is not "the muscle," he's a leader of mercenaries with a penchant for hedonism hiding under his eyepatch. It's impossible to think of these people as roles to fill in a fight; they have feelings, complexity, and their histories tie intricately into the places you explore.

The pay-off is that even by doing something as small as reassuring someone who is a stranger to your customs, you feel as though you're shaping Thedas. The world may have spun without you before, but by the time the Inquisition is formed, you will become its fulcrum. But of course, this is a game, and you want to know how it plays. The answer is buttery. Beautifully. Bewitchingly. Those interested in a hack-and-slash action game can turn the difficulty down and keep pace with a third-person camera and abilities hotmapped to controller face buttons. Those who long for the days of classic BioWare RPGs like Baldur's Gate can zoom into the sky to watch over their party and pause time, allowing for more tactical control. Rather than compromise between the two styles, BioWare managed to give any player their preferred flavor.

Whichever way you choose, fights are spectacular to behold, popping and fizzling with color and special effects. The Dragon Age games have previously been behind the curve of graphics technology, but the use of Frostbite 3 has resulted in a game that regularly serves up visual treats.

A new-to-the-series, solidly constructed multiplayer mode gives replayability to a game that frankly didn't need it, what with 40-to-70-hour playthroughs being the norm for single-player campaigns. It's fun, fast and – by design – freakin' hard. But it's also well worth the dive. We've listed and described a bunch of things that make Dragon Age: Inquisition an excellent game. What makes it go beyond that is how it made us think, made us reflect, from its cataclysmic first act and all throughout its unforgettable quest.