Dragon Age 4 will see the player face down the Dread Wolf, a companion-turned-villain from Dragon Age: Inquisition. Despite picking up a past plotline, the game will star a totally new protagonist and take players to a part of the series' setting unexplored in the games so far, the Tevinter Imperium.
Dragon Age 4 has to tie up multiple plot threads from the previous games, or risk disappointing longtime fans. Its a position BioWare has put itself in before, most notably with Mass Effect 3, a game which infamously failed to deliver the satisfying ending many fans expected. Here's a breakdown of Dragon Age 4's predicament, how it shows some of the same issues as Mass Effect 3, and what that might mean for the next chapter of BioWare's fantasy franchise.
Mass Effect 3's Challenge
Mass Effect 3 isn't entirely to blame for its poor reputation in comparison to the first two games in the series. The plots of Mass Effect1 and 2 may be some of BioWare's best, but they also kicked some major cans down the road, reveling in some of the mysteries that the games' writers, by their own admission, hadn't come up with answers to yet.
In a VGS radio interview Mass Effect 2's leader writer Drew Karpyshyn explained that the second Mass Effect was written without answers to some major questions. Regarding the motivation of the Reapers, a mystery the second game inherited from Mass Effect 1, Karpyshyn discussed some of the varying ideas still floating around during Mass Effect 2's development:
"Maybe there’s an inevitable descent into the opposite of the Big Bang like the Big Crunch or the end of the universe. And [ the Reapers ] realized that the only way they can stop it is by using biotics [...] They are trying to find the perfect group to use biotics. The Asari were close but they weren’t quite right, the Protheans, maybe, were close […] Again, it’s very vague and not fleshed out […] but we went in a different direction.”
For all its success, Mass Effect 2 barely pushed the overarching Reaper plot forward, and the can was kicked down the road to Mass Effect 3. Although there were other reasons Mass Effect 3 failed to live up to many fan expectations, it was faced with the task of answering questions many of which, until the game's development, simply didn't have answers. The first two games weren't written with answers to some of the mysteries they were setting up in mind, and so finding an answer which would retroactively and satisfyingly fit with the story so far became an almost insurmountable challenge.
Dragon Age's Unanswered Questions
The main plot of Dragon Age 4 is a continuation of one plotline from Inquisition. Inquisition reveals that companion Solas is in fact the Dread Wolf, an ancient and extremely powerful Elven mage who plans to tear down the Veil between Thedas and the Fade, the magical realm. The next game's main plot will have to explain the details and potential consequences of Solas' plan, how he hopes tearing down the Veil will restore the Elves to power, and the mysterious transference of energy between Solas and Flemeth at the end of the last game.
Not only that, but Inquisition set up some other major additional questions which fans will be expecting answers to. Inquisition's main villain Corypheus makes comments which hint at an upcoming reveal regarding the origins of the Qunari, saying a Qunari Inquisitor's "blood does not belong to [their] people." Corypheus also mentioned that when Tevinter's Magisters Sidereal breached the Fade, they found the Maker's throne empty.
By dealing heavily with the Fade, the next game also faces questions about the origins of the Darkspawn, which were somehow created when Magisters Sidereal first breached the Veil. Inquisition also heavily hinted that the next game would reveal the identity of the Executors, a shadowy faction representing powers beyond the sea. Fans are also hoping for answers about Red Lyrium and the Titans among other Dragon Age mysteries set up so far.
Just like Mass Effect 3, answering these questions has been kicked down the road to Dragon Age 4. While Dragon Age 4 isn't obligated to answer all of the questions Inquisition left hanging, the game certainly has to deal with the expectation that it will do so. Making the Fade central to the plot without exploring the true origins of the Darkspawn, for example, will likely leave fans unsatisfied.
Dragon Age's Disadvantage
Not only has Dragon Age 4 been left with multiple major questions to answer, but it's doing so with one disadvantage Mass Effect 3 didn't have. Unlike the original Mass Effect trilogy, Dragon Age has changed its protagonist with every game. Dragon Age 4's new protagonist will be thrown in at a pivotal point in a multi-game arc. Dragon Age 4 will have to find a way to resolve major overarching storylines set up in the previous game in a way that also feels satisfying within the context of the player character's single-game story.
Mass Effect 3's destination may have left many fans unsatisfied, but the game is at least partially redeemed as the final journey of a player character and crewmembers that the player has gotten to know over the course of the trilogy. Aside from returning characters like Varric and Solas, Dragon Age 4 doesn't have that consistent cast to fall back on. Even the returning characters cause a problem. The new player character doesn't have the same relationship with these characters that the player does at this point, and BioWare will need to find a way to tie them into the new protagonist's story.
When it comes to many of the unresolved questions and storylines now hanging over Dragon Age, the series does have an option that Mass Effect 3 didn't as the clear end of the original trilogy. With some of these questions, Dragon Age 4 could simply kick the can down the road again. In the long-term, however, this will only further impede Dragon Age's ability to tell new, self-contained stories. Whether or not the series has already taken on too much by continuing the Dread Wolf plot remains to be seen, but if Mass Effect 3 is anything to go by, it is unlikely that Dragon Age 4 will be able to deliver satisfying answers to all the questions the last game left it with.
Dragon Age 4 is in development.