Bioware’s save file import system for the Mass Effect franchise was revolutionary- it allowed the company to tell an epic, sprawling saga across multiple games that nonetheless remained uniquely tailored to each player who played it, and made playing through all the games a much more rewarding experience. The same system also carried over to Bioware’s other series, Dragon Age, but presented significant issues with Drgon Age: Inquisition- since the game would also be on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and those two systems aren’t compatible with their predecessors, it was unclear how Bioware would retain save data and choices.
Their answer to the problem is Dragon Age Keep, and today they detailed exactly what it would entail and how it would work. And how it will work is not cloud storage and importing, but basically via a questionnaire that covers the choices over the first two games in the series, and lets you recreate your story. According to EA, this system will “let [players] generate their unique world history, eliminate inconsistencies, and store multiple playthroughs.”
Personally, this sounds like a less than ideal solution to me, almost like that interactive comic for Mass Effect that EA introduced when it ported later games in the series to systems that didn’t have the earlier ones (such as Mass Effect 2 on the PS3, or Mass Effect 3 on the Wii U). I would much rather have preferred cloud access for this, especially since it seems to be such a simpler and more intuitive solution for the end customer, but hey, maybe there was some incompatible code or something.
Hopefully this won’t be an issue with future games in the series though.
