For those who haven’t fully completed both Dragon Age I and II or, worse, lost or deleted their save files, the third instalment of the series will let them build (rebuild) an entire backstory before jumping into Dragon Age: Inquisition.
This is good because it doesn’t appear they have a clear solution for actually importing old save files yet. “We are continuing to investigate ways in which save files from previous games could be used to populate the initial world state of the Dragon Age Keep,” BioWare writes. The “Keep” is essentially the cloud storage service for Inquisition’s gamesaves.
The complicating factor in importing game saves is that Dragon Age: Inquisition will be available on PS4 and Xbox One. That’s also the reason for moving the saves to the cloud.
As far as filling in a sequel’s backstory with user choices, BioWare did something like this with Mass Effect 3, but not to this level of detail at all. As the studio puts it rhetorically on the game’s official blog: “How did you modify your Warden and Hawke? Who were your companions? Who did you choose to romance? Who rose to power, and who fell in defeat?” Well, you can supply answers to all of that.
“Within the Keep, you’ll be able to customise as much or as little about the world of Thedas as you wish,” they say.
Other benefits of moving to the cloud, says BioWare, is that “issues in plot logic,” can be fixed, which couldn’t be done under the old system “because of client side complexit or platform holder limits.” With everything uploaded to and managed in the cloud, the Keep’s “logic validator” will keep things clean.
It also allows gamers to “fully explore what-if scenarios, and become aware of events and consequences in our past games that you may not have known were possible,” BioWare said. “You can then fire up the previous games and go exploring for those moments.
There are a few ways to look at this: One is that dedicated players are inconvenienced by having to rebuild their worlds with a questionnaire before beginning Inquisition; another is that it’s a big timesaver, bringing a lapsed player fully into the current game without a long slog through the shame pile before launch date. A third is that it’s a big spoiler, though BioWare says the Dragon Age Keep “will serve as a great way to understand the people, places and events that shaped the world leading up to DAI.”
Dragon Age Inquisition is due out around this time next year.
The Dragon Age Keep [BioWare Blog]
Comments
11 responses to “Dragon Age’s Save File Solution Lets You Rewrite Your History”
I need this, lost all my saves of 3+ playthroughs a while ago.
so, so keen.
This is definitely appealing. My xbox 360 hdd was faulty and I had to wipe it. Lost all my saves.
Of course, none of this matters if Inquisition ignores your choices the way DA2 did.
Unlikely. DA2 was set in a completely different country to Origins, which hampered the effect of choices since there was very little you did in Origins that would have had an impact in Kirkwall; it doesn’t matter whose the Dwarven King since surfacer Dwarves aren’t exactly going to get a warm recemption back home, it doesn’t matter if the Arl’s son survived or not since he is an ocean and a few weeks away. Inquisition is set in several countries, including Fereldan, so you’d be able to follow up on what happened in Origins more.
It was actually far worse than that – several characters came back from the dead. They decided that story should overwrite decisions made, but that ignores the fact that consistency is important in any narrative.
I hope that the choices change the outcome for once *Looks at ME3*
I can see alot of reply value here if it’s done right
I played through DA:O but not DA2. So if I can recreate my Warden’s history that’d be cool. As for Hawke though, I couldn’t really care less cause I stopped playing after 4 or 5 hours cause it was pretty average.
Problem with cloud saves is that you will no longer be able to do non-conventional things, such as allowed by the mod community (on the PC, anyway). This is just a ploy to keep achievements “fair”, but that is a joke anyway.
Can I rewrite it so that Hawke died at childbirth and never existed? That would be awesome…
My head-canon Hawke thought ripping off the mercenaries and the smugglers during the prologue would be a fun idea… so Meeran and Athenril both murdered him before he could leave the Gallows. Naturally, the Templars didn’t even notice.
This is a fantastic idea. I hope they have some way of patching it in to affecting DA2. Because I really want to do another DA2 playthrough, but without my DA:O saves? Bleeeh.
I really, really, really hated all the default scenarios you could choose from, none of which even remotely resembled how Ferelden ended up at the hands of my Warden. But playing through the original DA:O on the PC again to port over the save? It was crashing all the time and there were so many additional modules, and just… I just wanted to play DA2, dammit.
I hope this allows changing platforms. Finished DA:O on PC but the laptop I use now won’t be able to handle a next gen game, so will probably end up playing the PS4 version…