Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been, for the most part, a welcome new entry into BioWare’s beloved dark fantasy franchise. Yet perhaps, the biggest criticism the game has faced from fans is that fails to carry over the majority of player’s decisions made in the previous games. BioWare has said this should not be a signal to fans that choices from games tracing back to Dragon Age: Origins can’t factor themselves into a future title.
In fact, this latest DA title only imports three choices from Dragon Age: Inquisition, marking a stark departure from its predecessor which used a separate application called the Keep to let you craft a world state based on hundreds of past decisions. Sadly, Dragon Age: The Veilguard offers no support for the Keep, and relies on the character creator to let players invoke some of their choices from previous games.
Game Director Corinne Busche was asked in an interview with IGN if BioWare’s developers wish they could have included more choice carryover in The Veilguard. As of now, the fourth title in the series only implements three choices regarding the Inquisitor, the protagonist from Dragon Age: Inquisition. These choices really only change up a few lines of dialogue. Meanwhile, The Veilguard avoids actually addressing anything else that the player may have done in previous titles. The dialogue of returning characters is written in such a way that they could have feasibly ended up where they do in the sequel, regardless of the choices you’ve made.
The studio has said that it planned on using the geographical distance between the events of the southern regions of Thedas in previous games and the northern setting of The Veilguard to get a narrative distance. However, Busche explained to IGN that just because a decision from Origins, DAII, or Inquisition didn’t factor into The Veilguard’s story, that doesn’t mean it can’t be imported in a future game.
“The big thing for us is we wanted to make this story, every single choice you make, feel relevant to it,” Busche said. “One thing 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. 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 that these choices going clear back to Dragon Age Origins will again matter. So just wanted to be on record with that. Every one of your choices that people have made throughout their Dragon Age journey, those are still your choices. And if you’ve seen the secret 2D ending we talked about, some of these events being quite pertinent. It’s easy to see how those choices can and will be relevant into the future.”
Dragon Age 5 is years out, maybe even a decade, because as of now, BioWare is placing all its focus on the next entry in the Mass Effect series.