Dragon Age Has A “Master Lore Doc” That Influences The Series
Key Takeaways
- Dragon Age: Origins lead writer and world creator David Gaider has revealed that BioWare has “an overarching plan” ever since Origins.
- Gaider revealed that he “seeded plots in various parts of the world” during the development of Origins, along with an overall “uber-plot”.
- He even wrote most of this down in a “master lore doc” during the development of Inquisition, something that Gaider believes BioWare is still being influenced by to this day.
Dragon Age might have only had four mainline series since its inception, but it’s been going for a very long time, and even longer when you take into account the development of the first game, Dragon Age: Origins. It’s a long time to maintain the plot threads and lore that is strung together through each game, all the way up to the recently released Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and it makes you wonder how much of The Veilguard was planned back when Origins was in development.
To try and find an answer to that question, Dragon Age: Origins lead writer and world creator David Gaider was interviewed by Eurogamer to reveal exactly how much BioWare knew about the future of the series way back then. According to Gaider, BioWare knew exactly where the world and story of Dragon Age was headed, revealing that the studio made “an overarching plan” for the series, despite assuming Dragon Age: Origins would be a one and done game.
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“The way I created the world was to seed plots in various parts of the world that could be part of a game, a single game, and then there was the overall uber-plot, which I didn’t know for certain that we would ever get to but I had an understanding of how it all worked together.”
Dragon Age Has A “Master Lore Doc” That Influences The Series
In fact, that “uber-plot” that Gaider referred to was apparently used all the way up to the development of Dragon Age: Inquisition, though most of it was locked up inside Gaider’s head. With several people at BioWare getting “a little bit impatient” with Gaider’s memory, he explains that he was eventually pinned down and made to write it all down in “a master lore doc” that was only viewed by a handful of team members.
Amazingly, it seems likely that BioWare even used this “master lore doc” during the development of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, despite the fact that Gaider no longer works on the series. Having already seen the events of The Veilguard, Gaider reveals that they “more or less held up” with his overarching plan he set out all those years ago, and that the series could even finish at some point, and create his “the very last plot”.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.