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Former Dragon Age lead writer and series creator David Gaider has shared some insights into the difficulty of importing player choices from previous games in a series into the new entry, calling the practice "a sucker's game."
Over on Bluesky, Gaider shared a lengthy thread about an issue that arose during development on Dragon Age: Inquisition. There was a decision from all the way back in Dragon Age: Origins which can lead to Morrigan having a baby that has the soul of the Draconic Old God Urthemiel, and Gaider knew players who made that choice would expect to see "monumental" and "world-shaking" consequences in Dragon Age: Inquisition.
"It was a decision from *two games ago* that only a small minority (hello telemetry) would even choose," Gaider said. "To the rest, they probably neither knew about it nor cared... so how many resources could you invest? To do what? Set up an even bigger divergence for the NEXT game?"
Gaider then spent three days writing "probably the most complicated scene" in his career in an effort to fix the Old God Baby Problem. The Dragon Age: Inquisition scene tackled Morrigan's reckoning with Flemeth and the ensuing fallout complete with three fully fleshed out branching paths for Old God Baby Kieran, normal baby Kieran, and the option with no Kieran at all - each with their own branching sub-paths. And even that Gaider said was "underwhelming," but he said it's "about as good as it gets" when it comes to creating a truly divergent plot.
"Here's the thing about honouring previous game choices, from a design perspective: it's a sucker's game. What many fans picture, when you mention it, is divergent *plot* -- the story changes path based on those major choices. How exciting! But you will never be able to deliver divergent plot.
"You can deliver flavour differences (usually in the form of divergent dialogue), character swaps (character X appears instead of Y), and extra content (such as a side quest) -- but plot branching, particularly the critical path? It's a question of resources, and there's never enough to go around."
