Hawke’s return in Inquisition set the precedent for former player characters returning as NPCs in Dragon Age 4. The Warden poses some unique challenges – and some big opportunities – if BioWare wants to include them in its next game in the fantasy franchise.

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Where in the World is The Warden?

The Warden from Dragon Age: Origins has not been seen in the series since the first game. For some fans of the series, this will make total sense if they chose to sacrifice their player character to stop the Blight at the end of Origins. For many players, however, the lack of The Warden’s presence in the world seems odd. After all, a human noble Warden could be King or Queen of Ferelden, and at the very least is talked about as a well-known and influential figure after the events of the first game.

Dragon Age: Inquisition gives players some inkling of The Warden’s whereabouts. Depending on choices made in the first game, Morrigan, Alistair, or Leliana can tell the Inquisitor that The Warden is off searching for a way to prevent The Calling. If The Warden went through with Morrigan’s dark ritual at the end of Origins, the Inquisitor can also meet The Warden’s child, Kieran.

Grey Wardens are able to sense Darkspawn and kill Archdemons because they drink the blood of the Darkspawn during their joining ritual, which few survive. Alistair reveals in Origins, however, that even Wardens who survive see several side effects, including receiving the psychic transmissions the Archdemon transmits to its horde, and, usually about 30 years after their joining, eventually succumbing to the Darkspawn’s call and wandering into the Deep Roads to die.

This detail added a level of complexity to Dragon Age: Origins story that the subsequent games haven’t quite matched. The main quest of Dragon Age: Origins is slowly revealed as a suicide mission one way or the other, with even a Warden who survives the Archdemon being doomed to die an early death to the Darkspawn. A truly happy ending, in the long-term, just isn’t an option. The Calling creates a bitter-sweet aftertaste to the story that drives home the true sacrifice the Grey Wardens make and complicates The Warden as a partially unwilling hero.

Ending The Calling would have huge effects on the world of Dragon Age, especially in a timeline where Dragon Age: Origins’ Alistair, a former Grey Warden himself, sits on the throne in Denerim. Inquisition hints that Fiona, Grand Enchanter of the Circle of Magi and former Grey Warden, was able to remove the Darkspawn taint from her somehow, leaving reversing the joining ritual an open possibility in Dragon Age 4.

The Player Character Problem

There are a few reasons that including The Warden directly in Dragon Age 4 might be particularly difficult for BioWare. Unlike Hawke, the player character in Origins had no voice actor, and due to the variety of races and origins the player could choose, it could be difficult finding an immersive voice for that character to have without recording multiple options and allowing the player to choose first.

As a result of the lack of voice, introducing The Warden as an NPC in Dragon Age 4 could serve players with a portrayal very different to the one they imagined while playing Origins, and far from being a great send-off to an old friend, The Warden’s inclusion could feel like it was rewriting the player character from the first game.

Hawke’s appearance in Inquistion also shows one of the problems BioWare has with its Dragon Age protagonists in general. When Hawke shows up in Inquisition, the player is soon put in a position where they can choose to sacrifice Hawke for the greater good. Even if they choose not to sacrifice Hawke, the decision hints at an underlying problem with multiple player characters existing in the canon.

It is understandably hard maintaining a consistent Dragon Age timeline where multiple former player characters exist simultaneously. By having a new protagonist for every game in Dragon Age, BioWare has put itself in a position where it has been necessary to erase any potential for the old protagonist to have too big an impact on current events, as them doing so in a way that is at odds with the player in the current game could make players feel that the former PC character is being uncharacteristically represented.

BioWare tried to get around this in Inquisition by having Hawke appear as one of three versions of themself based on dialog options chosen in Dragon Age 2: diplomatic, humorous, or aggressive. Origins, however, did not divide its dialog into such neat categories, making the depiction of The Warden as a non-player character a particularly daunting task.

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How The Warden Could Make an Appearance

That said, it has also been a long time in the Dragon Age timeline since players were in The Warden’s shoes. It is possible that The Warden’s attempt to end The Calling has changed them in some way by Dragon Age 4, in personality or even physically. Even the effects of The Calling itself could have had an impact on who they have become since the first game, though this path would perhaps necessitate a more tragic depiction of what became of The Warden.

In the worst-case scenario for The Warden, we may even encounter what’s become of them as some kind of enemy, corrupted by their search like Paragon Branka in Origins. For many players, however, this would tip the balance of their Warden’s story from bitter-sweet to full-on tragedy in a way that would perhaps seem too bleak for the series’ tone, especially if it leaves that Warden’s romance from Dragon Age: Origins as a loose end.

Inquisition’s DLC The Descent showed players that there’s far more to the nature of the Deep Roads than they previously understood. The caverns explored in the add-on turn out to be part of a semi-organic macro-structure called a Titan with veins of lyrium flowing through it like blood and perhaps even the power to create Dwarf mages in Dragon Age 4. If The Warden uncovers the true nature of The Calling, these mysteries may well be connected, and it could make sense for the Dragon Age 4 player to find some trace of The Warden if not The Warden themself while trying to uncover the true nature of the Deep Roads and the origins of the Blight.

Directly depicting The Warden as they appeared in Origins is almost impossible, as much of the voiceless Warden’s personality exists inside of the head of the Dragon Age: Origins player. However, with Dragon Age 4 set to explore some of the franchise’s long-term mysteries, and with more and more connections being made between lyrium, the Titans, the Deep Roads, the Darkspawn, and even the Chantry if Leliana returns as a lyrium-ghost, it seems likely that players will get some hint as to what The Warden’s been up to in Dragon Age 4, even if they don’t cross paths directly.

Dragon Age 4 is in development.

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