In Brief - The Dragon Age Keep

The release of Dragon Age: Inquisition is just around the corner and, with the title coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4, fans have been wondering how they'll be able to get the stories of their Warden and their Hawke in the game. Last week, EA gave us the answer in the form of the Dragon Age Keep. It's a website that allows you to replay the story of the past two games and customize the choices that will make an impact in Inquisition. It's similar in concept to the Mass Effect Genesis DLC, included with PlayStation 3 copies of Mass Effect 2 due to the fact that ME1 was an Xbox 360 exclusive at the time.

Under the Nature of the Beast section, the Tapestry says that Amastacia "brokered peace" between elves and werewolves.

There was no option for, "was so indecisive that they worked it out on their own just to be rid of him."

At first glance, this seems to suggest that any saved games you have are useless but, if your Origin account is linked to your Xbox Live or PSN account, you can import your characters' appearance as well. Also, it should be noted that importing save files between Mass Effect games wasn't exactly flawless. Appearance options for a Shepard created in the first game would sometimes glitch by the third game, and Conrad Verner would get confused if he survived, too (though Bioware cleverly chalked that up to him being an idiot).

This is just one of several points in the narrative that can be changed depending on your preferences.

All things considered, I think this was a pretty good way of dealing with continuity and cross-platform issues. Also, it clearly doubles as a marketing tool for DAI and does pretty well at that, too... as long as you're willing to sign up for an Origin account. Varric's narration is a great way of introducing people to the story of the series and it's a shame that can't be shared outside of the site itself. Still, I'm hopeful this tool will provide a relatively seamless method for us to personalize aspects of DAI, regardless of which platform we use.