For those who haven't fully completed both Dragon Age I and II or, worse, lost or deleted their save files, the third installment of the series will let them build (rebuild) an entire backstory before jumping into Dragon Age: Inquisition.
This is good because it doesn't appear they have a clear solution for actually importing old save files yet. "We are continuing to investigate ways in which save files from previous games could be used to populate the initial world state of the Dragon Age Keep," BioWare writes. The "Keep" is essentially the cloud storage service for Inquisition's gamesaves.
The complicating factor in importing game saves is that Dragon Age: Inquisition will be available on PS4 and Xbox One. That's also the reason for moving the saves to the cloud.
As far as filling in a sequel's backstory with user choices, BioWare did something like this with Mass Effect 3, but not to this level of detail at all. As the studio puts it rhetorically on the game's official blog: "How did you modify your Warden and Hawke? Who were your companions? Who did you choose to romance? Who rose to power, and who fell in defeat?" Well, you can supply answers to all of that.
"Within the Keep, you'll be able to customize as much or as little about the world of Thedas as you wish," they say.
Other benefits of moving to the cloud, says BioWare, is that "issues in plot logic," can be fixed, which couldn't be done under the old system "because of client side complexit or platform holder limits." With everything uploaded to and managed in the cloud, the Keep's "logic validator" will keep things clean.
It also allows gamers to "fully explore what-if scenarios, and become aware of events and consequences in our past games that you may not have known were possible," BioWare said. "You can then fire up the previous games and go exploring for those moments.
There are a few ways to look at this: One is that dedicated players are inconvenienced by having to rebuild their worlds with a questionnaire before beginning Inquistion; another is that it's a big timesaver, bringing a lapsed player fully into the current game without a long slog through the shame pile before launch date. A third is that it's a big spoiler, though BioWare says the Dragon Age Keep "will serve as a great way to understand the people, places and events that shaped the world leading up to DAI."
Dragon Age Inquisition is due out around this time next year.
The Dragon Age Keep [BioWare Blog]