14 DAY TRIAL // The Fade was always an important part of the lore of the Dragon Age video games, but it seems that it will become more prominent in the upcoming Inquisition, judging from the most recent lore update delivered by the team at BioWare.
The studio continues to offer information from the point of view of characters that inhabit the world of the game and this time, it quotes, on the official site, from the bookFrom Tranquility and the Role of the Fade in Human Culture, created by Josephus, who is the First Enchanter of Orlais.
He states that, “The study of the Fade is as old as humankind. For so long as men have dreamed, we have walked its twisting paths, sometimes catching a glimpse of the city at its heart. Always as close as our own thoughts, but impossibly separated from our world.”
The enchanter explains that despite their best efforts, which involved huge quantities of gold, slaves and lyrium, even the mighty Tevinter Empire was unable to map the Fade, the space inhabited by spirits, because it exists in a constant state of flux.
Despite their failure, they managed to meet and interact with some demon lords and then find out more about a few hundred types of spirits.
Josephus adds, “The spirits who dwell there, however, can, and as the Chantry teaches us, the great flaw of the spirits is that they have neither imagination nor ambition. They create what they see through their sleeping visitors, building elaborate copies of our cities, people, and events, which, like the reflections in a mirror, ultimately lack context or life of their own.”
In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the Fade is important because demons from the realm are invading the world of the other races using a tear in the separating Veil that no one can explain.
The player character is the one who needs to lead the effort to close it down, which means that he needs to get as many allies as possible, recruit capable companions and also mediate between the Chantry, the Mages and the Templars.
BioWare is also introducing a wide array of side quests for players who want to explore more of the world and influence it in the long term with their decisions.
Dragon Age: Inquisition will be launched on October 7 of this year on the PlayStation 4 from Sony, the Xbox One from Microsoft, the PC and current-gen consoles and will use the powerful new Frostbite 3 engine from DICE.