Dragon Age “Inquisition” – The Descent Review: Tedious Deep Roads!

While Dragon Age: Inquisition already has tons of content, it hasn’t stopped BioWare from releasing even more content and expanding the lore. The company released the latest DLC (Downloadable Content) titled The Descent, and while it provides players with a new area to explore, it gets tedious after a while.

If you’ve played DA: Inquisition, you would know that the Deep Roads weren’t a major focus in the story, which is contrary to what we saw in DA: Origins and DA2. With The Descent, players get to explore the Deep Roads and collect some powerful weapons and items in the process. The plot is simple and involves the player travelling to the Deep Roads in order to kill Darkspawn and find the cause behind horrible earthquakes.

The first thing you’ll notice is how the gameplay gets tougher as you progress through the area, or the underground floors. This can be a problem if you happen to just start playing DA: Inquisition because then you’ll have to keep coming back to the Deep Roads as you get stronger while playing the original game. I think that’s what BioWare wanted when they designed the new DLC. You can start The Descent anytime during the main gameplay once you reach Skyhold and come back later if the enemies are too strong for your team to handle.

I played The Descent after ending DA: Inquisition and was able to fare well with the high level team of heroes. But that’s not to say things were easy for me. The enemies were leveled up to match my team and while I was able to beat them, it did take me some time to finish off hordes upon hordes of Darkspawn. The length of the DLC depends on your play style, but I think with a well-powered team you can take care of everything the new content has to offer in under ten hours.

Fighting the underground hordes is what made the DLC tedious for me. Even some of the environments looked recycled. I think it is best to complete the couple of missions in the Deep Roads and then head to the surface and come back later to change the pace. Trying to end the content in one go is likely to cause ‘repetitive-gameplay’ fatigue.

Two new characters have been added. One is a stone shaper named Valta and the other is Legion of the Dead commander, Lieutenant Renn. They tend to bicker a lot and have the most dialogue as they guide you through the Deep Roads. I didn’t find either of them memorable.

Extra quests in The Descent also help unlock new areas and special rooms. The Inquisition’s influence can also be improved by sending out scouts and collecting rare items.

If you missed the Deep Roads from the previous installments in the Dragon Age series and want to explore some new areas in DA: Inquisition then you should check out The Descent.

Have you played Dragon Age: Inquisition – The Descent yet? What did you think of the massive enemy count? Let us know!

Developer: BioWare
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platforms: PS4, PC, Xbox One
Genre: Action role-playing, DLC
Release Date: August 11, 2015

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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