Dragon Age Director Says Old Player Choices Haven’t Been Forgotten

Dragon Age: The Veilguard‘s creative director John Epler has specified that world states haven’t been forgotten just because they weren’t addressed in The Veilguard.

In an interview with IGN, Epler revealed that choices going back as far as Dragon Age: Origins may become relevant once more in future Dragon Age titles. We were only able to import a couple of choices from Dragon Age: Inquisition into The Veilguard, to the disappointment of many. This was a departure from the series’ roots, which established subsequent games as being reactive to player choices made in previous entries.

World States May Return

“The big thing for us is we wanted to make this story, every single choice you make, feel relevant to it. One that we could have stated more clearly or maybe alluded to more clearly in the game is the idea that just because these choices from the past library of games didn’t necessarily impact this particular story, that doesn’t mean they’re gone,” Epler explained. “This is a chance for us to really key in to what matters with these events and what’s happening in Northern Thedas. I do fully expect these choices going clear back to Dragon Age: Origins will again matter. So just wanted to be on record with that. Everyone one of your choices that people have made throughout their Dragon Age journey, those are still your choices.”

That’s assuming that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has a follow-up on the horizon. The Veilguard took a decade to develop, and rumours have been swirling of lukewarm (“solid”) sales figures. Epler and game director Corinne Busche said they weren’t allowed to speak about the game’s commercial success in an interview with Eurogamer. BioWare is currently developing Mass Effect 5, so we likely won’t see a new Dragon Age title for several years at least.

The narrative of Dragon Age: The Veilguard was separated from the events of previous games by an arbitrary division of the game’s setting Thedas into “Northern Thedas,” where Veilguard takes place and “Southern Thedas,” the setting of the previous games. Then, the events of half the continent were more-or-less hand-waved to eliminate the need for choice reactivity. It was never going to be an easy task to pay homage to every small choice made by players over the years, but some people would say BioWare went too far in eliminating the consequences of every choice made in previous games. According to Epler, our world states may one day return.

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.