Dragon Age 3 will feature a new protagonist

Posted by

Mike Laidlaw recently revealed that neither The Warden from Dragon Age: Origins nor Hawke from Dragon Age 2 will be the player character for Dragon Age 3. It seems like BioWare is trying to keep the Dragon Age franchise focused telling multiple stories set in the world and lore and less about the development of individual characters in it.

Mike Laidlaw wrote:

Since I'm in a sharing mood, I will put this out there: our intention is that for each major release of Dragon Age, you will take up the mantle of a new character. This does not mean your old character may never appear in future games, but as far as the core protagonist goes, if there is a DA III, it will very likely be neither Hawke nor The Warden.

We want to keep the series about the time and place, rather than about any singular character. While I know not everyone prefers that approach, I believe it's perfectly valid, especially if certain plans of ours to shore up world consistency (import bugs really bother me!) come to fruition, which I believe they will.

And that's all I can say about that.

Thanks to King Cousland @ Dragon Age Wiki for the info.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LE6P5VJXSKTMXLNPZFXTLVJ5DM Johnny Pneumonic

    Lame.  I kind of see what he is doing, however, you need to bring back the old characters before people forget them.  This isn’t a book and it takes forever before the next game comes out.  I hope he doesn’t go that way.

    • Anonymous

      Hey Johnny, thanks for the comment.

      I’m leaning towards agreeing with you. I mean, this wouldn’t be the first series to take such an approach. In fact, it’s very similar to the Fallout games in particular. However, it doesn’t quite jive with the focus on characters that Bioware has placed in its games. DA:O was all about the Warden, DA2 was all about the Champion. Even in terms of the world there seems to be some disconnect – the story was completely focused on Ferelden in the game and in outside sources, and for DA2 we were expected to switch gears and focus on Kirkwall. Our only connection to the world of DA:O was a bunch of refugees and a couple of cameos, and I felt it rather jarring.

      It would be interesting to see where DA3 goes, but I think it would be stronger to focus on more centralized ideas.

  • Wookie_kebab

    i think that they should concentrate more on the story than tie the franchise down to one main character but everything that we went through in DA:O and DA2 should not be forgotten by players or npc’s and in DA2 it seems that no one remembers the warden. it would be interesting however if while the player is travelling the world he recruits hawke and the warden as allies

    • GabrielXL

      I agree with you on this… In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if what you wrote about Hawke and the Warden comes into play. This along with your son/daughter with Morrigan… *Laughs* Crazier things have happened.

  • Matt Videll

    Lame. However I agree with Wookie_kebab that it would be awesome to recruit the Warden and the Champion as allies in the beginning of the game, and then as the game progresses recruit the rest of the Wardens and Champions companions. On top of that I think it would be awesome to give the new protagonist his own companions as well. Now about the protagonist, I think it should be the dude in the blue garbs, not the dude who slices the kings head off. That unsettled me a bit. Plus the dude in the blue garbs looked totally badass. I also think they should put more effort into the relationship process.Make it to where you can actually marry the person you want to be with. Like the Warden and Leliana, or the Champion and Merril.

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3IYAX5EBB3A75VOIVW4R43IKVY CelineT

      I’d love to see the tension between the warden and Hawke.

  • Vuduveera

    There is just so much going on with this world to be excited about!! The Seekers split from the Chantry, the war with the mages…Ferelden is weakened by the blight, Kirkwall is recovering from the devastation of Ander’s actions, Orlais is in civil war…I see not only the trouble with the mages but also perhaps some type of invasion by the Qunari given the now fragile state of the Chantry(so a holy war to boot?) Some retribution from Tevinter? Not to mention whatever infinitely more wretched deviations Morrigan and Flemeth are cooking up…oh! There is just so much potential!

  • Cellonator

    It would be epic for the warden and leliana and hawke and Isabella and the new guy and his romance to team up and fix the world their should also be all of the companions from hawke and the wardens adventures except anders no one likes him except fags but anyway i hope dragon age 3 is better that DA2 origins was the best so far although i do like the new combat system though…. keep that

  • Myvoice 9985

    Could be DA III meant for uniting III protagonists: The Warden, The Champion, And the New Hero? I cant wait to see them met. If not, please make it into DLC. Would be more epic if they have some funny conversation, and do you ever wonder if they could now put our dear warden VOICES???? EPIC!!! I wanna request different voices speaks of our dear warden in our choice. Huuuuuu….T_T

  • Primed4torment

    I’d get the game for sure if the main character is my Warden, That would be Awesome, face it we all know the Warden is the True Champion.

  • Lucifer_the_fallen_anggel

    First I’m sorry if my spelling is wrong…english is not my native language,,but I’m a big fans of rpg (new to pc and western company rpg) but I LOVE the DAO but dissapointed with the DA2 but I’s okay as long as the storyline is epic again!! Continuity please!! And the warden and hawke need to be important for icon in this game.. Storywise angle I mean… Oh and morrigan,flemeth sandal, and all the important lore,and conflict! New hero is okay as long they don’t forget the one who made this franchise famous (origin lore + the warden saga) your fans in the other side continent :) ) (LOVE GOOD STORIES)

  • Ianshadowblade

    there will probably be a game where you play as either a seeker, a templar, or a circle mage looking for the champion. you probably will find the champion at the end of the game and by that point the war will be in full swing. andthere may be a game for that. or a book/show. then you have Orlais’s civil war. between the two wars three countries will be at the brink of bankruptcy(wars expensive). and you’ll probably have a game dealing with the invasion of either the qunari or Tevinter. or both. a game segmented into years to deal with both. DA2 jumped years so its not impossible. theres alot for this world. me personally id like to see a game focused around morrigans son or flemeth. or both. either that or the game dealing with the mage vs templar war. 

  • Vitorsamuel

    Man this is bad….
    I hate when bioware do that, always throwing the main characters away, should do like Baldur’s Gate Series, keep the main character in all games, im really disapointed.

  • CCK

    I like games that focus on 1 character, allthough the concept for the AC games were alright,
    to focus just on the world is too broad a topic, although it gives bioware many opertunities for more games, its obvious Bioware is just doing this for the money: :l, so sad.

  • Myvoice 9985

    so the warden part is no no making character but please consider her/him be companion just in a while. met face to face just a wittle bit. or could be more fun if met him/her in DLC later.

  • Dragon

    I want Sten back, “Sten, rip his arms off.”- best line in Dao

  • Jack

    The reason i loved Mass Effect so much is because its you all the way through, DA:O was such a huge game and you affected the world so much why not have Thedas call out for the one true hero to rise again and if the player have not played origins then let them choose the events of the game and same if they have not played DA2 the fact that Bioware keep making new heroes is wrong a hero is someone who comes along so many 100′s of years not every day! I’m really disappointed with this new information Dragon Age is getting worse each game =(

  • SaphireSlayer

    not that i would mind, as long as i see my hawke. like a lot of other people, i support hawke’s return

  • Arashikage1

    Sooner or later they will have to allow us to use The Warden and or The Champion again or else people will lose intrest in the frnachise and if they chose later they do so risking profits. After the dreadfull nonsense that was DA2, I wrote the franchise off and it will take more than a re-imagined French Revolution in Orlais to encourage me to spend any more money on this franchise in particular or on BioWare in general.

  • FERGIE

    well look alls I know is that isabela was in both games so I better see her again!!! AND!!! they should clash both games together almost so that you see old characters new characters and even newer characters!!! and there needs to be more things to do AND differnt races!!!

  • serious gamer

    It would be beyond freaking epic if SOMEHOW they could get the warden an hawk to fight eachother just once.I hope the new DA3 has more creativitey on desighning the main cherecter. AND PLEASE PLEASE bring back the elfs that dont look stupid. it should have multaple elf people in the new DA3. number 2 really let the elf people go to shit. just saying…. it would also be cool if u could turn into a wearwolf

  • DragonHawke

    That is dissapointing, I was looking forward to seeing at least one of them pop up in that game. It left to much suspence, the ending of the 2nd one. I tried making my imagation, but it doesn’t usely work when this is my favorite game series were talking about. Because, Hawke mostly was a big part of the Templars/Mage war. Without the main icons, what would become of the game? I was really looking for more of lingering old things, or else its a new game entirely, and I probably will have to FIGURE OUT THE WHOLE GAME AGAIN..oh, well. At least you didn’t make it in one loctation. Seriously, though, if I wait a whole freaking year for this game, it should be worth it. I really don’t want to be dissapointed, I wasn’t with the 2nd and 1st, but I saw Allistar, Anders, Sandal, and a whole bunch from the 1st game, so why can’t we have at least Hawke, Fenris, Merrill, (These are charaters I like, I got so annoyed of Anders, sorry Anders fans.) or Varric? It would make things a little more interesting. Just think about it next time, I love this game, and I thank you for asking responases. I’m totally cool if you don’t support my idea, but Hawke was a big chunk in this war. She/he can’t just “dissaper” forever. I think most fans would agree with me, we need to see some of the lingering faces before we call the whole past games off forever. (Please at least stop this uprising between us. Honestly, we need a DLC or something.)