More immediately, what the heck is a Dalish Elf? I'm not really sure, but my character during this demo was one, and evidently their beef with the werewolves is on the biblical tip. This simmering conflict was the basis for showcasing the consequence of player choice in Dragon Age, though again, Tudge sternly discouraged all present from spoiling specifics. In broad strokes: The Dalish Elves have been fighting the werewolves again, and a whole bunch of them have been stricken with lycanthropy. Their leader charges your party with ripping out their den mother's heart so the elf apothecaries could concoct a cure. As a reward, the Dalish Elves will join the army you're raising.

Once our hosts plowed through a few werewolves, though, they found they were willing to talk. Though I'm teetering deadly close to Tudge's boundaries, let's just say that, depending on how you play your cards, your army could just as easily be bolstered by a pack of werewolves.​

Muzyka describes Dragon Age as a dark, heroic approach to high fantasy with a "mature, gritty" setting. Throughout the game you'll have to make choices with lasting consequences to each choice you make. From what we were told, the game is also full of racial hostilities between the various factions, including humans, elves, and cursed werewolves, and although we're told there'll be romantic relationships, there is as yet no word yet on whether there'll be intimate inter-racial relationships (such as the now-infamous alien liaisons of Mass Effect).​

We saw a practical example during our demo, and while we were frustratingly sworn to secrecy over the plot details, suffice to say a whole quest objective was completely subverted along the way, leading to fundamentally switched allegiances and what appeared to be long-term knock-on effects for the politics of the entire game world and the player's position within it.​

Basically, BioWare showed off a moral choice that's comparable to the one found in last year's Fallout 3 from Bethesda Softworks. In that game, you were given the choice of destroying the town of Megaton; if you did, it opened up Tenpenny Towers, a part of the game you wouldn't have access to if you spared Megaton. That, in turn, affected your story considerably, and that's the idea behind what BioWare showed us with Dragon Age.​