A look at the rich art of Dragon Age: Inquisition

Just in time for the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition comes an amazing tome from Dark Horse on the art of the upcoming Bioware role-playing game.

The Art of Dragon Age Inquisition is an over-sized coffee table book packed with more than 260 pages of concept art, oil paintings and storyboards. The book features forwards by Matthew Goldman, the game's art director, and Mike Laidlaw, the game's creative director. Inside, you'll find the book divided into seven chapters that dig into things like the inquisition, the Grey Warden fortress and the Fade and Breach.

And of course it's not just the art that makes this book so interesting, it's the explanation of that art, things like how the artists would crank out roughs to try and land on a final design for an animal, or how demons are each inspired by a separate human emotion. It's fascinating stuff both for fans of Dragon Age and people who like to dig into how a video game transforms from ideas into playable art.

Dragons, at the top of the food chain, were redesigned from the ground up for Inquisition.

The desert provides gamers a chance to explore, excavate and get caught in the open.

The move to a new engine meant classic locations could be explored

The Western approach is filled with mysterious ruins, like The Door.

These stained glass windows retell the key moments in the Chant of Light

The book hits Tuesday, the day of the game's release, for $39.99. And make sure you check out our full review of the game to see why we awarded it a 9.5.