I really want to play theDragon Agegames. In fact, I can’t believe I haven’t yet, despite owning all the games on PCandhaving access to them on Xbox Game Pass. And withDragon Age: Dreadwolf potentially being released later this year, it’s starting to feel extremely pressing that I get on it.
But I don’t have time to play all three games. The first few months of the gaming year have already been packed with great games that I haven’t finished – I’ve barely dug into Pacific Drive, I haven’t finishedLike A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, I want to playFinal Fantasy 7 RemakeandRebirth, and I’mstillworking on wrapping up my firstBaldur’s Gate 3playthrough. Also,Helldivers 2calls me. There’s always too much to play, too much to think about, and it’s not feasible for me to fit in an entire trilogy of RPGs.
So I turned to TheGamer’s Slack, which is where I direct all my gaming enquiries. I asked if it was likely I’d have to play all the DA games, or if I could get away with justDragon Age: Inquisition. I don’t know a thing about the games, so it feels a little intimidating to be starting the series on the fourth entry, especially sinceDreadwolfappears to be a direct sequel to Inquisition. Also, Inquisition is considered by many to be the best in the series.
I was then informed about the existence ofDragon Age Keep, and in the span of a single evening, I devised a way to maximise my preparedness for Dreadwolf with as little playtime as possible. I hadn’t heard about Dragon Age Keep before, since I never got into the games. I know very little about the series, but I do know that your choices in previous games would impact the world of later titles, and I wasn’t sure if other people historically had less satisfying experiences playing with fresh worlds. Dragon Age Keep helps mitigate that, while helping me learn about the series’ lore as much as I can.
Dragon Age Keep is a free online browser app that allows players to edit the decisions they made in Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. Setting up your game allows you to choose your character and run through an animated video that sums up the events of the first two games, editing all the major choices as you go. This allows you to play around with the state of the world, choosing who your characters side with and therefore who lives and dies. There’s also a Tapestry tool that allows you to make changes to smaller branches, like if you saved or helped people in certain side quests, or killed them.
You can create multiple world states and change which one is active, if you want to see how the outcomes of certain events change things.
The video will give you an overview of events, but if you want to get deep into the lore – which you should, because Dragon Age has a lot of it – I recommend readingthis Kotaku guide from 2014. Without a working knowledge of the tensions between and within different organisations in Thedas, you’re making choices without a proper understanding of what they mean.
It’s important to note that in its current state, Dragon Age Keep won’t get you all the way through the series. It’ll get you to Inquisition, which is where I intend to start playing, but you won’t be able to edit your choices in the Tapestry until you’ve reached them in the game. The app is also buggy, so you may end up refreshing your page a few times as you attempt to get through the animation, but it’s still helpful if it works. It’s not a perfect solution, but I think it’s better (and more efficient!) than watching playthroughs and countless lore videos on YouTube, and it gives you some control over your game. Hopefully, the world state you end Inquisition with will be imported into Dreadwolf, otherwise I did this all for nothing.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
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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.
