After years of agonizing silence for its legions of fantasy role-playing game fans, developer BioWare finally announced some firm details about the new "Dragon Age" game Monday during a press conference hosted by its owner and publisher Electronic Arts at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles.
Now called "Dragon Age: Inquisition," the third console and PC title in the acclaimed fantasy series will be released for next-generation platforms in the fall of 2014, BioWare said. The developed added that the new game, which is powered by DICE's Frostbite engine, will offer players "a vast, open world, where your choices not only affect the story, but the world around you."
It's unclear what this means, exactly, but promising a "vast, open world" will probably make "Dragon Age" fans who were disappointed by 2011's "Dragon Age 2's" limited storyline and game world happy once again. "Inquisition" is also bringing back the character Morrigan, a series favorite who was only briefly mentioned in "Dragon Age 2."
BioWare has been particularly cagey about divulging any information about the new "Dragon Age" game so far. But David Gaider, the lead writer of the series, did give NBC News one tidbit at this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco when he said that he wanted to make the game's occasionally controversial sex scenes seem a little less silly and Enya-fueled.
It's a new hardware generation, after all, so who knows how impressive the human (and elven, dwarven, and many, many more) animations will be by 2014. Watch the reveal trailer here:
Yannick LeJacq is a contributing writer for NBC News who has also covered technology and games for Kill Screen, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. You can follow him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq and reach him by email at: ylejacq@gmail.com.