The testing of Beta updates by players is a long standing thing among the PC gaming community, with a lot of games offering an opt-in beta program so players can try out the new versions before they officially release and also point out bugs that the developers might have missed. It’s a good practice overall and now Bioware are looking to bring such testing to Dragon Age Inquisition in order to “foster better communication between our players and developers.”

The program will give access to patch 5, which will be the largest update to the RPG since it released. This is mainly down to introducing an entire new area known as the Black Emporium described as “a mysterious underground shop run by an immortal proprietor”, and will sell powerful items as well as something called the Mirror of Transformation that lets you change the voice and facial appearance of your character in case you’ve grown tired of the one you chose in selection. You can also use crafting materials to change the colour tint of your attire.

As well as this, new controls have been added with shader quality now available in the graphics menu and also the ability to bind an auto-attack key to the mouse has been added. The other changes Bioware are keeping quiet about though.

Signups for the program will be available via the Keep program and will open sometime “in the near future”. It’s not yet known if Bioware plan to continue the program past this one update or spread it out to other games. Nor do we know just when patch 5 will release, as it needs to undergo the certification processes on the console versions.