EA first announced Dragon Age: Inquisition as Dragon Age 3, but during the EA E3 press conference, EA dropped the number all together.
In an interview with IGN, Frank Gibeau, EA's Labels president, explained why the next Dragon Age title won't feature the 3.
“I think there’s always this debate over numbers versus no numbers, what works, what doesn’t work. We felt like we wanted to bring more attention to the word Inquisition, because that’s more the story arc of what it’s like." To explain what exactly Inquisition meant, Gibeau added, "there’s a whole bunch of gameplay and features and big story choices related to how you go through this Inquisition that happens in the world.”
Like many naming schemes of popular franchises, Gibeau explained that the name changes acts as a "tactical marketing decision."
Outside of marketing, the name change will also indicate that Dragon Age: Inquisition will come as an "all-new chapter inside of the Dragon Age universe, as opposed to people expecting a follow-on to Dragon Age 1 and 2 in a literal, linear sense."
Like many of EA's new titles, Dragon Age: Inquisition will use the Frostbite 3 engine and will release on PS4 and Xbox One as opposed to the original platforms of Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
Because of the awkward stage of the current consoles, Gibeau said that EA "didn’t want to launch a “current-gen” game in a next-gen market.' They will instead take the new technology which will raise the studio's expectations with the title.
Source: IGN