Just like Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is going to have Darkspawn, Archdemons, and Grey Wardens. What it probably is not going to have is ThE Warden, the protagonist of Dragon Age: Origins. Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age: Inquisition both excluded The Warden, but the plot of Dragon Age: The Veilguard means players are going to be forced to suspend some serious disbelief to ignore the fact that their favorite character is absurdly missing.ย
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Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s plot includes a Double Blight, Darkspawn galore, and an Archdemon led by a risen eleven God attacking Weisshaupt Fortress, the home of the Grey Wardens. This alone is enough to justify the presence of the greatest Grey Warden in all of Thedas. The HQ of the Grey Wardens is going to be under attack by an Archdemon and a modern legend of Thedas, who is a Grey Warden, isn’t going to show up? Narratively that sounds absurd.ย
Morrigan is also clearly in the game and likely heavily involved. The Witch of the Wilds is the most popular romance in Dragon Age: Origins. This means in a metric ton of world states The Warden is not only going to be missing during a threat that could wipe the existence of the order, but once again apart from his love interest, and in some cases the mother of his child, as she faces grave danger that includes Archdemons and risen eleven gods.ย
In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Morrigan also showed up without The Warden, and BioWare wrote it off as the character was busy looking for a cure to The Calling. That narrative thread doesn’t exactly hold in this new set of circumstances, especially if BioWare is never going to make good on it. ย
The reason BioWare continues to largely pretend the biggest hero of its universe doesn’t exist is because of the world state permutations that tangle the character. In some world states, the character isn’t even alive.ย
BioWare is in a pickle with The Warden. If you make it canon that The Warden is alive, you will no doubt upset players whose canon world state includes the character dead. However, player data has revealed this is a minority of players. Meanwhile, the alternative is essentially pretending the character is dead, which is going to upset the majority of players.ย
For all we know, BioWare is going to surprise many with a cameo for The Warden in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This seems unlikely though. That said, BioWare can’t continue to hide the character as it is becoming a detriment to the immersion, believability, and quality of the larger narrative it is telling. One way or another it has to make a decision: bring The Warden back or kill them, but no more sitting on the fence and hiding the former protagonist.ย
