BioWare Giving ‘Dragon Age: Inquisition’ Patch 5 A Beta And The Black Emporium
BioWare is opening up its doors to the Dragon Age: Inquisition community slightly for patch 5. The developer announced Friday that it is launching a beta program for the next update to the hit role-playing game, but only PC gamers need apply. Sorry, PlayStation and Xbox owners. But, you do get an early look at the Black Emporium.
The Patch 5 beta program for Dragon Age: Inquisition will be opened to a “select group of PC players,” according to BioWare. Sign-ups aren’t available yet, but players will be able to sign-up through the Keep “in the near future.”
Introducing the Patch 5 PC Beta program http://t.co/ZwVUlRwejr A new way we’re working with players to make @dragonage even better.
— BioWare (@bioware) February 13, 2015
The beta program is described as a “closed, developer-like environment” that will be a way for BioWare to “more quickly identify and respond to future issues.” It will the developers “a great, new way to work directly with our players.”
One of the new Dragon Age: Inquisition features that will be tested in the Patch 5 beta is the Black Emporium. It’s described as a “mysterious underground shop run by an immortal proprietor. There, Inquisitors can find powerful artifacts and tools to aid their cause, purchase epic weapons, powerful accessories, new crafting materials, and schematics, and even change their voice and facial appearance using the Mirror of Transformation.”
The Black Emporium first appeared in Dragon Age 2 via a DLC update. Like what is being planned for Inquisition, players could change their appearance and purchase items, weapons, and crafting materials. While that game may not have been as well-received as its predecessor, the prospect of the Black Emporium returning for the latest Dragon Age is being well-received by fans on reddit already.
Other important gameplay features being introduced include party storage being added to the Undercroft and the ability to change armor color through a new tinging system that uses crafting materials.
While the above applies to PlayStation and Xbox Dragon Age: Inquisition players too, BioWare is offering some specific customizations for PC players.
“In efforts to support different playstyles, we’ve also included the ability to bind additional mouse buttons, as well as an auto-attack key for single player. We’re also including the option to adjust the size of subtitles, and added a shader quality setting to the graphics options, giving players more versatility when running Inquisition,” the developer added.
BioWare also recently began development on the first DLC for Dragon Age: inquisition, as the Inquisitr reported. There’s no word on when that may be available, however.
