Dragon Age 3? "There are always ideas"
Multiplayer "absolutely would" work.
Forget Dragon Age II, what about Dragon Age 3 - has BioWare started work on that?
"I'll say there are always ideas, certainly - there's definitely a direction that the franchise has," DAII lead designer Mike Laidlaw told Eurogamer.
"Frankly, Dragon Age II gives Dragon Age a direction in a much, much stronger way than Origins, which largely concluded on the note of, 'Yay, we won! What next?' Whereas Dragon Age II does present a place for us to go and evolve in a fundamental change to the world that I think is going make Dragon Age as a whole more exciting.
"But what comes next is always for us to look at and announce as time comes by." He reiterated: "We can never confirm or deny any sequels until the announcement."
What of the character Hawke, the star of Dragon Age II - can he go on to star in Dragon Age 3?
"It really depends," said Laidlaw. "Certainly we have ideas for him as a character, but where we go from here right now is mainly focused on DLC and for new expansions and new adventures, new additions to his story."
"... multiplayer is something that's a huge undertaking ..."
Mike Laidlaw, lead designer of Dragon Age II
One missing ingredient of BioWare's Dragon Age and Mass Effect series has been any form of multiplayer. But Laidlaw's enthusiasm suggests this may not be the case for long.
"Just from a fundamental idea: [multiplayer] absolutely would [work]," he said. "A big part of that is going back to fundamentals of the Dragon Age series and that sense of team; that we are stronger together than we are divided, which is in many ways a story theme through DA2.
"Any time you have a game that is aware of the advantages of teamwork, what it's like when multiple classes combine their abilities, be it a rogue not just stunning enemies but helping to conceal his friends so that they can take damage better - that's where you do an allegory that says yeah, we could do multiplayer here for sure.
"I do think the changes made to Dragon Age II in terms of responsiveness are going to be things that could translate better into multiplayer than Origins, which had that inherent delay between what I was ordering and what was happening. It's certainly laying an interesting groundwork.
"Long-term that's something we have to consider," he added, "because obviously multiplayer is something that's a huge undertaking, it presents technical difficulty. And frankly it's something that if done, has to be done really well, otherwise it feels very tacked on. So we'll have to make any decision about that within that context."
Dragon Age II goes on sale today. What did Eurogamer think? "Absolutely" a "satisfying epic" and one that builds to "one of the more interesting climaxes in recent memory" - 8/10.
What does BioWare think of the reaction to Dragon Age II? Eurogamer asked the hard questions this morning.