On September 25, BioWare revealed the choices that will carry over from previous Dragon Age RPGs in the upcoming fourth game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard. For the past decade and a half, the studio has largely positioned itself as, above all, a maker of games in which choices matter, and that’s extended across multiple series. Both Dragon Age and its space opera franchise, Mass Effect, have given players universe-bending choices that have carried over between games through save data transfers and external apps that let you craft your world state. In The Veilguard, however, only three decisions from previous games will carry over, and that has fans concerned about the sequel’s handling of continuity.
[spoilers for Dragon Age: Inquisition follow]
In The Veilguard, players will import three decisions during the character creation phase. In this menu, you’ll have the chance to create your version of the Inquisitor, the protagonist of 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition. Then you’ll be able to make three key decisions (or report which decisions you made in these situations when playing Inquisition) that will be reflected in the story: who did the Inquisitor romance, did they disband or maintain the titular organization, and are they still friends with Solas, the party-member-turned-antagonist of The Veilguard? Given Solas and the Inquisitor’s past relationship, these will obviously play key parts in how that character reacts to events in The Veilguard, as you won’t be controlling them this time around. But given how many big events have happened throughout three previous games, fans are wondering just how much, if any, impact their previous decisions will have on the story.
In an interview with IGN, Veilguard creative director John Epler explained that the trimming down of imported choices was partially because the fourth game takes place in a distant region of its universe. The Veilguard is set in northern Thedas, whereas previous games were in the south. So maybe it doesn’t matter whether you ended up with the traditionalist Cassandra or the more progressive Leliana as the church’s leader at the end of Inquisition, because that’s all happening elsewhere.
On its face, I buy that explanation for why a large swath of choices from previous games are seemingly not brought up in The Veilguard. If BioWare doesn’t bring up these choices in any dialogue or codex entry, does it really matter what, specifically, is going on elsewhere in the world? This approach worked for Mass Effect: Andromeda, which was set in a different galaxy from its predecessors, allowing it to carefully write around which of the galaxy-changing choices you made at the end of Mass Effect 3. What I and several other fans are left wondering is how this will affect returning characters in The Veilguard.
There are two major figures in this discussion: The Inquisitor and Morrigan, a party member from the original Dragon Age: Origins and a major supporting character in Inquisition. Both characters have been confirmed to return in The Veilguard and both were part of one of the biggest decisions in Inquisition. Near the end of the game, there is a questline in which either the Inquisitor or Morrigan drinks from the Well of Sorrows. This magical well is said to house elven knowledge, but it will come at a price. Regardless of which of the two of you drinks from the well, one of you is forever tied to Mythal, an elven goddess who has possessed Flemeth, Morrigan’s mother.
Flemeth is seemingly killed and absorbed by Solas at the end of Dragon Age: Inquisition and the decade-long theory has been that Solas may have some kind of magical control of either the Inquisitor or Morrigan after being revealed as a traitor at the end of the game. Now, without the ability to import this decision into The Veilguard, fans worry it might be going absolutely nowhere, which is strange for a game that centers on Solas and the elven gods. The lack of choices that specifically refer to Morrigan is also strange considering she may have a son depending on if the player romanced her in Origins or conducted a ritual to conceive a child in the endgame. In any case, the inability to import any choices pertaining to her has taken fans by surprise.
The Inquisitor, meanwhile, is one of the biggest question marks leading up to The Veilguard. BioWare has confirmed the character will appear in the game (I may have spent a good 30 minutes trying to recreate mine in the character creator when I played the game earlier this month), but has been tight-lipped on what their deal is this time around. But the fact that you only answer three questions about their journey has fans concerned about both the substance of their role in The Veilguard and whether it’s possible for the game to represent all the variations of the hero players have made over the years.
That’s a tall order, of course. But it understandably matters to players, given that the conflict between the Inquisitor and Solas is one of the most personal in the series. (I’d even argue that they should have still been the protagonist of the game in which you face him, but I digress.) Now, we’ll be meeting a version of our old hero entirely defined by BioWare’s writing team with very little input on our part. If the only questions about them we’re allowed to answer are “Who did they romance?” and “Are they still friends with Solas?” that doesn’t leave a lot of room for nuance. There’s a question now of whether players who weren’t especially invested in Solas are going to get a character who’s a little too different from their own Inquisitor for their comfort level.
But even if you don’t put the Inquisitor and Morrigan under a microscope, it is questionable that the only choices that seem to have any impact on The Veilguard come from Inquisition. This may make sense in context of the full game, but it does feel diametrically opposed to a series that once let you use an app to import every decision from earlier games, big and small, into Inquisition.
Though a lot of fans are understandably concerned, others have been more understanding, saying that The Veilguard should focus more on new relationships and choices as they pertain to new protagonist Rook rather than being overly referential. Others are taking the wait-and-see approach, hoping that once the game is actually out these decisions will make better sense in context or that those choices will come up in another Dragon Age project down the line.
Epler explains that, in selecting which choices The Veilguard would import, the team wanted to pick details that could result in more than just a cameo and some altered dialogue. I could see things like the status of the Inquisition and the Inquisitor’s relationship to Solas having major ramifications, but like many others, I am surprised that some very significant choices aren’t going to be brought up in a game about those related characters and factions. What I played of The Veilguard felt like it had a lot of strong connective tissue between the games of old even without explicitly referencing my choices, but I never met Morrigan or the Inquisitor in my demo. I don’t know how I’ll feel about their roles when all is said and done. We’ll see how it all pans out when Dragon Age: The Veilguard launches on October 31.