Contains minor spoilers for the Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect
and Dragon Age series.
The title of this article is a bit of an aggressive
statement, so before we go any further let me make it clear that I am a massive
fan of Bioware. I love each and every one in their own way and they are easily
some of my favorite games. For anyone who has yet to try a Bioware RPG I
highly recommend all of them.
It's not my
intention to bash Bioware with this article. Not at all. Instead, I just want
to take a look at one element of their recent work that I think they've never
really been able to stick the landing with, and that's the Save File Transfer.
The promise of a persistent world state that lasts between games, and with it
the promise that player choice will have some kind of significant pay-off.
The origins
of the Save File Transfer goes back, way back, to the dawn of pen-and-paper
role-playing.
While
tabletop games were destined to be self-contained stories, even from its early
days, Dungeons and Dragons always gave dungeon masters the opportunity to have
players deal with the consequences of their actions. Even long term if they so choose.
For example, If players killed an innocent character instead of using stealth
or diplomacy then the DM could always, at their discretion, bring up this
action several campaigns down the line as a blot on the player's reputation.
Likewise,
players would always keep hold of their character sheets between games, enabling
them to carry forward their experience and loot from one campaign to another. Down
the line players could regale new groups with tales of their former exploits.
Essentially,
pen-and-paper always had persistent worlds; it was just really up to those
playing how hard they wanted to lean into it.
Come the
dawn of the first Bioware era, it was clear that many compromises would have to
be made when adapting from tabletop to digital. Baldur's Gate was Bioware’s
first success at creating a virtual recreation of a Dungeons and Dragons
campaign. The game came complete with twists and turns, multiple solutions to
problems, and the freedom to play good, evil or somewhere in between.
Baldur’s
Gate, however, could only recreate so much of its tabletop inspiration. The
compromise came, of course, with the campaign now being limited by technology
rather than imagination. Baldur's Gate could never hope to accommodate the myriad
ways a tabletop player might approach a problem, and likewise it could never
hope to offer the scope of options that a dungeon master might bring. Indeed,
even today there is only so much freedom a video game can allow without
limiting it elsewhere.
As such,
the first form of Bioware's Save File Transfer, if you could consider it that,
was the character Import/Export System. While Baldur's Gate 2 gave players the
option to import their characters from the first game, carrying over skills,
experience and potentially some loot, that is the be all and end all of what
would be carried over, and the plot would remain unaffected.
While
Baldur's Gate gave players the choice in who lives and who dies, which factions
succeed and which fail, Bioware didn't have the resources to tailor its sequel
to take all these choices into account. Instead they opted to create a 'canon'
version of events somewhat influenced by popular choices, and moved the plot to
another part of the world. Any discrepancy was written off as a side effect of
your character's torture by series' villain Irenicus. Black Isle's Fallout 2
took a similar approach, as would most other choice-and-consequence stories.
As the
first Bioware age rolled by, most developers sidestepped the issue entirely.
Both entries in the Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights duologies were
separated by significant time-skips, rendering the need for a save-file
transfer pointless, while Knights of the Old Republic 2 kept the events of the
first game at significant arm’s length.
All in all, the popular RPGs of
the day managed to get by without feeling the need to acknowledge player
choices over multiple games, and there didn't seem much of a desire by developers
to experiment any further.
All this
changed with the arrival of Mass Effect, the game that heralded Bioware’s
golden age. Mass Effect was a much more cinematic, grander experience than
previous games, and upon release Bioware made a statement advising players to
keep hold of their save files, as the choices they made in the first game would
be important in the second. Given that Mass Effect was a game where players had
to make many difficult and morally debatable choices, it was a given that
players were left believing these choices to be more significant than they
actually were.
Likewise, its
sister game, Dragon Age: Origins was released with the same caveat, making the persistent
world state a signature feature of Bioware games going forward.
Once launch
day had arrived, however, many were somewhat perplexed with the degree Mass
Effect 2 acknowledged the choices of the first game. Many big choices, like
whether the council lived or died, got little more than a mention in a handful
of scenes. Often when choices you made during the first game were brought up,
it felt little more than fan service. How the game chooses to treat characters
that have the potential to be alive or dead, like companions Ashley and Kaiden,
is a good example of this.
By choosing
to acknowledge player choice, Bioware had also sacrificed the opportunity to
tell certain stories. If it was possible for a character to live or die in the
first game, then that meant said character’s importance in the plot would have
to be reduced, as Bioware didn’t have the resources to essentially make several
completely different stories that only some players would experience.
As a
result, the main plot of Mass Effect 2, and player’s relationship with its characters,
remains generally unchanged regardless of player choices. Had Bioware chose to
make Mass Effect 2 without instituting the safe file transfer the main game
probably wouldn’t have looked all that different.
Still Mass
Effect 2 ended with significantly raised stakes and the possibility of multiple
dead characters, leading many to believe that Bioware were saving their big
consequences for the third game. Pre-release interviews seemed to suggest as
much.
Following
Mass Effect 2 was the sequel to Bioware's second flagship title, Dragon Age 2.
While sharing many similarities to Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins was a very
different game with a lot of nostalgia for the past in comparison to Mass
Effect looking forward.
While
Origins was well received by RPG veterans and had a much more self-contained
story, few were surprised to hear that it would be following in Mass Effect's
footsteps with a Save File Transfer system.
What did
surprise many was how different Dragon Age 2 turned out to be. It was a
smaller, more focused story that involved a brand new character in a different
part of the world. The few loose plot threads that were left from Origins
remained untouched. In retrospect there was even less justification for a
persistent world state to feature in Dragon Age 2.
Indeed,
most references back to the first game were little more than that. References.
Alistair would appear as a King or a drunk depending on your choices, but this
was in a simple cameo, separate from the main plot. Even worse, some choices
you could make in Origins were even outright ignored in 2, such as Leliana
appearing at the climax despite her death being possible in the previous game.
Like Mass
Effect 2, Dragon Age 2 was a game that could have survived without a persistent
world state, but also like Mass Effect 2, its ending hinted towards the Save
File Transfer having a greater importance in the following game. Upon
completion Dragon Age 2 is revealed to be a glorified prologue to the third game
in the series, suggesting that player choices would be noted upon more
thoroughly next time around.
A year
later, Mass Effect 3 would finally arrive and the worth of the Save File
Transfer would really be put to the test. In the run up, multiple interviews
said that there would be serious consequences to certain choices from other
games, and one even suggested that the ending would have over a hundred
possible combinations, leading most to assume that the multiple endings would
be modular, rather than limited to a choice of two or three.
Of course,
the ending would go on to become Mass Effects 3's most controversial element,
and while I don't have time to discuss it here, I think the reason for that
controversy comes from the same failure to aptly implement the
choice-and-consequence system that was promised.
To
Bioware's credit, the execution of Mass Effect 3's Save File Transfer was much
better than it had been in Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age 2. Certain elements
would result in actual gameplay consequences, such as having to fight Legion as
a reprogrammed mini-boss had you handed him over to Cerberus, or saving the
Salarian councillor becoming impossible if both Thane and Captain Kirrhae died
in previous games.
While it
has its disappointments, Mass Effect 3 does have one sequence that manages to
live up to the promise of a persistent world and this is during the Krogan
Genophage portion of Act 2. Here multiple choices from the previous games can
pull the plot in a variety of different directions, and while it doesn't affect
the gameplay or the layout of the missions, the story does feel otherwise
dynamic.
Not only
can multiple characters live or die depending on seemingly innocuous decisions
from Mass Effect 2, it can also influence the player's final choice on whether
to keep the Krogan sterilised or not. Should Wrex survive Mass Effect 1, he
begins to lead the Krogan in a more peaceable direction, yet if he died he is
replaced by Wreav, a much more viscous warlord. A paragon player could be more
easily lead down one route under Wreav, than they would be under Wrex, and I
think it's really cool that these choices can make such a thematic difference.
Likewise,
should Dr Mordin Solus have survived Mass Effect 2, this sub plot becomes the
story of his redemption, yet should he die he is replaced by Padok Wiks, an
equally interesting and fully formed character who has their own agenda and
even some fresh info on Mordin himself.
Had Mass Effect
3 managed to deal with its climax in the same way it did with the Krogan plot
then the promise of the Safe File Transfer system would have been fulfilled,
but unfortunately, the rest of the game mostly squanders the potential. Other
character deaths are either squeezed to the sidelines (Tali, Miranda, Garrus,)
not mentioned at all (Samara, Grunt, Jack,) or even worse, badly covered over
with a nondescript character performing their role (Jacob).
Whoever out
of Kaiden and Ashley survived, they rejoin the game as a squad-member this time
around, but are relegated to a hospital bed for the first two acts. Should the
council die in the first game they are replaced by non-identical copies with
the same lines and personalities. Should the Rachni queen have died in the
first game she is replaced by an identical clone. A pro-Cerberus Shepard is treated
no different to an anti-Cerberus Shepard.
As the game
goes on it becomes abundantly clear that most of the player’s choices had very
little meaning, and most of the consequences manifest not as plot or gameplay
but as part of the player’s 'Galactic Readiness Score', a generic number that
locks off some of the endings if it is too low, though the game easily offers
enough side-quests to build it up to a sufficient level regardless of any
penalties your previous choices may have brought.
While Mass
Effect 3 may have showcased the very best of what a persistent world state
could offer with the Krogan subplot, it mostly revealed that it could never
live up to the promises made in the previews. Now this is understandable,
Bioware only has so many resources and couldn't exactly make a thousand
different games for a thousand different choices, but after three games of
hype, it's also understandable that players were starting to feel misled when
it came to the importance of save files.
“Surely,”
some began to argue, “a simple set of tick boxes at the start of the game and a
modular plot based only around the biggest choices would be a more reasonable
idea?”
With Dragon
Age: Inquisition, Bioware disagreed, and ultimately sealed the Save File
Transfer's fate.
Inquisition
would see a slightly different approach to the persistent world state. Instead
of having to keep your save games on file, Bioware instead would log your
choices on an online database called Dragon Age Keep that you could check and
tweak at your leisure.
This system
came with an upside, and a downside. The upside was that players would have
at-will access to the details of their world state and have the freedom to
change those details should they so choose. The downside, possibly unforeseen
by Bioware, was that access to these details would lead player to an
unrealistic expectation on how significant their choices would be.
After all,
why give players a log of all these choices if they weren't going to mean
something further down the line?
Already
hyped after the cliffhanger ending of Dragon Age 2, Bioware had put themselves
in an even more impossible position with the fan-base.
Like Dragon
Age 2, Inquisition benefited from featuring a brand new character in a brand
new part of the world, but it also suffered from having to deal with the
previous game’s plot threads. Just like with Mass Effect, Inquisition
sidestepped most of the significant choices of the previous games. In
particular, the Mage vs Templar plot that dominated the climax of Dragon Age 2
was rather unceremoniously concluded at the end of Act 1, and previous player
character Hawke would appear in an entirely separate subplot.
It wasn't
all disappointments though, while Inquisition’s use of choice-and-consequence
would never reach the heights of the Krogan subplot from Mass Effect 3, it
still managed to do some interesting things with its Save File Transfer.
Hawke's personality and history would be referenced often and it was fun to see
a previous character return in the way they did.
Perhaps the
most interesting use of the Save File Transfer was the identity of the Wardern
ally, which depending on the player’s choices at the end of Dragon Age: Origins.
Should Alistair, a fan favourite of the series, remain in the Warderns he would
appear as a returning veteran, the image of the man he always hoped he would be.
Should Logain, villain of the first game, have been conscripted into the
Warderns instead, he appears as a pariah, longing for redemption. Both of these
are really cool character developments that are influenced heavily by the
player's previous actions.
Unfortunately,
most players will meet neither Alistair nor Logain, as a popular choice by
players in Origins was putting one on the throne and executing the other. In
this instance, their ally is Stroud, a Wardern who played a minor role in
Dragon Age 2's DLC. While Stroud is by no means a bad character, he certainly
isn't as interesting as Alistair or Logain, and it's a shame he's the Warden
most players ended up interacting with.
Likewise,
there are other interesting outcomes for choices most players didn’t make, like
refusing Morrigon's dark pact or failing Sabastain's personal quest, so the
consequences are experienced by fewer players.
Like Mass
Effect 3, most of the player’s choices are relegated to offhand mentions or
included in the War Table missions, similar to Mass Effect's Galactic Readiness
score. There's no special items or bonus bosses based on past choices, and as
with all the other games, the plot unfolds the same regardless of anything
carried forward in your save file.
Like Dragon
Age 2 before it, Inquisition ends on a cliffhanger and hints at things to come.
Dragon Age Keep has all of the player choices logged, but it remains to be seen
to what degree they will manifest in future games. Will we see a story arc like
Mass Effect 3's Krogan sub-plot? Or will we simply be treated to numerous
variations of 'Hey, remember when you chose to do this in a previous game?'
There's a
glimmer of hope, of course, that Bioware will be able to pull off a
Rube-goldberg of consequences that finally lives up to the promise of true
choice-and-consequence gameplay, but after four games of mostly squandered
potential, it's not hard to look forward with a more skeptical eye.
Indeed, it
seems Bioware, to some degree, agrees, with its most recent game, Mass Effect:
Andromeda dropping the save file system and persistent world state entirely.
Now Andromeda justifies this due to it taking place billions of years apart
from the prior games, but I think it's still a decent hint that Bioware is
becoming less interested in trying to accommodate a billion different choices
in place of making a decent game.
Looking
back, it’s my opinion that most of Bioware's games would have been just as good
without the Save File Transfer. Mass Effect 2 could have started with a simple
checklist of “Did the council die?”, “Who became the earth delegate,” and “Who
survived Virmire,” and left it at that. Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition both could
have been kept as their own distinct stories without the need to reference
previous player choices. Sure we'd be missing out on cool little cameos and
moments, but if that means the resources otherwise going into getting a better
game out there, I'm happy to let it go.
Where
Bioware goes next remains to be seen. I anticipate Dragon Age 4 will
incorporate Keep pretty heavily given that the Inquisitor has unfinished
business with antagonist Solus at the end of the DLC, but beyond that, who
knows? Andromeda's lacklustre reception has put that series on hiatus, and
should future games decide to explore new characters in new parts of the world
I think it's highly possible that Bioware will phase out the persistent world
states and focus on more self-contained installments.
And do you
know what? That's okay. While there'll always be a part of me that would like
to play an RPG where every last choice the player makes has a knock on effect
that develops through several games and creates an ending with thousands of
differing variables, I know it's unlikely that such an RPG is ever going to
happen.
For now I’m
happy to wait and see what Bioware does next, whether they choose to continue
the Save File experiment or not.
Jack Harvey 2018. Mass Effect and Dragon Age are (c) Bioware/EA
