Recover Your Lost Worlds With Dragon Age Keep

The other day, I took part in a trebuchet building competition with some friends. When the Grand Tosser was finished, there was much discussion about what to toss. After some Crabbie's, it was decided that my PC should be the Tossed One. We loaded it up and flicked it through the air at the castle. As I watched my main source of entertainment and work splinter against the ancient stone, I suddenly remembered that I hadn't backed up my Dragon Age saves. When the blubbing had stopped, and the cuts I'd received from hugging my broken PC were tended to, I was told about Dragon Age Keep, Bioware's new thing that means even save games that have been trebuchetedededdd, corrupted, or wiped aren't the end of your Dragon Age journey. The Keep is a cloud-based service that will let you set-up the story for 2014's Dragon Age Inquisition.

The Keep will allow the player to carry the world state between the previous two games and the next game. How? It's explained in this blog post, but the salient details are here:

Within the Dragon Age Keep, you’ll be able to customize a Dragon Age historical world state to your exact specifications drawn from Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II story decisions. These include hero attributes, companion details, quest results, and more. Customize as much or as little as you wish. Then you'll be able to import your saved world state into Dragon Age Inquisition at the start of a new game. For new players, the Keep will serve as a great way to understand the people, places, and events that shaped the world leading up to DAI.

It sounds like a lot of work, but a handy thing to have for people to explore the decision-making process in the games, and it looks like Bioware needs to do it to help the old engine communicate to the new engine. You can remake your old games, or set-up entirely new "What If?" scenarios and see how they play out. Here's one for them: "What if I hadn't allowed my PC to be smashed and my save games were still around?" That's not something that has been solved, yet. But they're working on it, and it looks like they'll allow you to tweak your story from a previous save when they've nailed it.

You can sign up to the beta now, but it won't be live until the beginning of next year.