After initially announcing the upcoming patch for Dragon Age: Inquisition, known as Patch 5, BioWare released an early version of the patch as part of its beta program, which is meant to work out the bugs and get the patch out faster than previous updates.

The patch still isn't out yet, as the developer is still working on it, but BioWare has since decided to release a full list of all the fixes and improvements contained within. It's an impressively lengthy list that will add more than the usual stability updates, alongside the Inventory Storage and Black Emporium detailed a couple of weeks ago. The Black Emporium, you may recall, will be a new shop players (as their Inquisitor) can purchase rare and powerful items from.

Actually, no, the latter of those two gameplay additions won't be part of Dragon Age: Inquisition's Patch 5, it seems, as BioWare states in a blog post. The reasons behind its removal are cited to be "excellent feedback we received from the people in our beta program, we are continuing to work on this feature." This could also mean the emporium was lacking in special inventory items, or it simply wasn't what players were expecting. Either way, it isn't coming out as soon as expected, but it isn't impeding the release of the fifth patch.

A few of the fixes found within the update are:

  • Fixed a case where movement audio was muted after a level transition.
  • Fixed a case where music unintentionally played after a level transition.
  • Fixed a loot exploit.
  • Added an option to control the font size of subtitles.
  • Improved archer A.I. so that they choose to enter melee combat less often.
  • Fixed a conversation where Leliana references being with the Warden to face the Archdemon when she was set to have died in the imported Dragon Age Keep world state.

BioWare also addressed PC players, specifically regarding a new feature that allows players to switch between mouse look options.

"PC Specific: While we’ve added the ability to toggle mouse look, this feature is still under development and does not act optimally under all conditions. We are continuing to work on this feature to improve it for future releases."

The studio not giving Patch 5 a definite release date actually worked in their favor. Instead of announcing a delay of the update, they can just trickle out more and more information, while also detailing changes made since the last status update. Chances are, the same will be done for Patch 6, which will also have its own beta, based on the success of the previous beta. As of Saturday, February 28, there was still room for more people to sign up.

Are you still running through Dragon Age: Inquisition? With a game as large as that, it'll take players a decent amount of time to work through everything it has. Hopefully some single-player content in is the game's future that rivals the size of its patches (in terms of content anyway).

Source: BioWare Blog, BioWare on Twitter (1), (2)