BioWare once planned to let you import your Grey Warden hero from Origins into Dragon Age: Inquisition

There’s been a question mark over this one for years, but it seems BioWare did once plan to let you import your Hero of Ferelden, your Grey Warden protagonist from Dragon Age: Origins, into Dragon Age: Inquisition. It was only at the last minute that the studio cut the feature and swapped a Grey Warden character called Stroud in their place.

In Inquisition, there’s a pivotal mission near the end – Here Lies the Abyss – where you get a chance to meet protagonists from previous games. You meet your Hawke from Dragon Age 2, and then you get the chance to meet one of three Grey Warden characters from Dragon Age: Origins – and it’s here the game was supposed to let you meet your Hero of Ferelden. But it didn’t – this is where Stroud was swapped in instead.

“Here’s the thing about honouring previous game choices from a design perspective: it’s a sucker’s game,” wrote Gaider on Bluesky. “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.”

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“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.

“Here Lies the Abyss in DAI was about as good as it gets,” he added, “and even that was a far cry from how I originally pictured it (hello last-minute insert of Stroud when a DAO Warden import got cut).”