Over at Kotaku, there’s an article examining the differences between the release version of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and the version of the game shown off at PAX Prime in 2013. Basically, the article summarizes several locations and features that were removed from the game in the year or so between the PAX demo and its release.

And while I’m frankly not chagrined that certain areas weren’t included in the game, some of the removed features would have been quite excellent to encounter:

Aesthetics aren’t the only major change here. In the PAX demo, the player got to make some big choices involving his army’s movements, choosing whether to send the Inquisition to save Crestwood, have them stay with injured soldiers, or return everyone to a nearby keep. (Keeps were emphasized heavily in this incarnation of Dragon Age: Inquisition, as we’ll see in a bit.)

The PAX demo also showed a timer bar called “Inquisition Keep Strength”—a visual representation of enemy forces attacking one of your keeps, which presumably would have a big influence on how quickly you had to complete missions and what decisions you could make. None of this is in the final game.

Antivian Fire is real, but it’s a combat grenade—you never use it to burn down boats. There’s very little environmental interaction to the extent that was shown here.

Wouldn’t this have been cool?

And then there was the environmental destruction:

As the demo player approaches the keep…you can weaken enemy defenses by doing things like drawing out their troops or poisoning their wells. None of this actually shipped with the final version of the game, although in the Dragon Age we played, once you claim the keep you can get a quest called This Water Tastes Funny, in which your keep’s well has been poisoned and you have to go find fresh water. Now we know who to blame for that.

During PAX, BioWare put an emphasis on environmental destruction: There’s a section during combat where the player can spot archers on a rickety bridge, then take them out by smashing a ladder and knocking them all down.

Eh, I’m sure it’s still a very interesting game; I’ll play it at some point. But what can I say? This is an Ultima-themed website…little features like that that take the player into the world, and that let him interact with the world, are important. It’s a pity that the ones listed above were cut.