Laidlaw: Dragon Age 2 is "more tactical", watch him prove it

Dragon Age 2 lead designer Mike Laidlaw has said the sequel will be a more tactical experience than Dragon Age: Origins - and if you tune into the livestream in about half an hour, you can watch him demonstrate the game.

The BioWare Twitter announced another demonstration stream for about midnight GMT - that's 7:00 PM EST, 4:00 PM PT, and 11:00 AM AEDT.

Unlike previous sessions, today's event will be hosted by Gamespot's Now Playing.

Previous demonstrations have been recorded, so if you miss the livestream, you may be able to watch a replay at a later date.

Perhaps Laidlaw will show off some of the combat options to players seeking a more tactical experience belied by the RPG's action-style interface.

"We wanted to make sure that we held onto the elements that made Dragon Age: Origins strong – party-based, tactical," the designer told The Guardian.

"Even going so far as to replace spell-combos with cross-class combos so that now, when a mage freezes someone, a mage can't blow up that guy like you could in Origins; now a warrior or rogue has to get involved.

"So the whole party becomes part of this concert of death, which makes the game even more tactical," he explained.

Laidlaw also said the game's increased emphasis on speed and rapid control "takes care of a convention we could do without".

"Frankly, action games have been stealing from RPGs for the past five years – levelling up, and getting a badge so that you can get a new weapon, that's an RPG mechanic.

"So it's time that we, as a genre, took a look at some of those elements that action games have done exceptionally well and asked what we can learn from them."

Thanks, Eurogamer.