Today we have ourselves another news update for Dragon Age’s narrative inspiration, we have another piece of literature that BioWare are using as an influence for the creation of Dragon Age 4’s story.
Previously, we discovered that Dragon Age 4’s current working plot title is “Tevinter Of Our Discontent” which is derived from Shakespeare’s play – “Richard the 3rd.”
This plot reference brings plenty of ideas to the table for the following narrative of Dragon Age 4, so much in fact, that I’ve already got a separate video on this huge news bomb. However, today it seems we have another plot reference for Dragon Age 4’s story thanks to Mark Darrah.
This new plot reference relates Dragon Age 4 to the fourth book in The Old Testament of the Bible – The Book of Numbers, so without further ado, let’s uncover this story.
As always, in a tweet on Twitter, Mark Darrah was talking about Dragon Age 2’s original title being Dragon Age: Exodus and how in hindsight he actually preferred that name, because it would’ve contextualized the game better.
Mark shows off the initial logos for Dragon Age 2 with its Exodus title, when Patrick Weekes replies saying: “I mean, I’m okay with that not having happened, because trying to explain that we’re working on “Dragon Age Numbers” would be confusing.”
Mark replies with the tea, saying this:
"Numbers is the fourth one... "
"But if Genesis -> Origins
Exodus -> Exodus
Leviticus -> Inquisition
Numbers -> … "
For those we are unaware, Mark is comparing each of the books of The Old Testament to a Dragon Age game.
Genesis is like Origins, Exodus directly is Exodus, Leviticus is Inquisition and.... Numbers is Dragon Age 4.
So, what exactly is the Book of Numbers about? And how can that relate to Dragon Age 4?
As a quick run through of the Book of Numbers, because this isn’t Sunday school and I am not anyone’s pastor...
The book starts following Moses leading the people of Israel on their way to the Promise Land, however, the Israelites quickly start to complain, murmur and disobey Moses’ leadership. For these acts, God destroys approximately 15,000 of them through various means.
They arrive at the borders of Canaan and send spies into the land. Upon hearing the spies' fearful report concerning the conditions in Canaan, the Israelites refuse to take possession of the land.
God condemns them to death in the wilderness until a new generation can grow up and carry out the task. The book ends with the new generation of Israelites in the Plain of Moab ready for the crossing of the Jordan River.
The purpose of the book is to demonstrate God’s covenant plan stays on track even when His people don’t.
The sinful people are blessed not because of what they did or did not do, they are blessed because they are God’s people and He made a promise to them that He is going to keep.
The key themes of this book are rebellion, punishment and forgiveness.
So, how can we relate this literature to Dragon Age 4? Easy, this story can equate to Solas and the elves.
The big trick about this plot is that in our hypothetical predictions based on the Book of Numbers text, Solas is the “God” leading his own people. He’s seeking the destruction of Thedas to redeem his own world, his promise land, the world of the elves.
He’s taking the elves, his own bestowed people, with him on this mission of annihilation, that will usher in a new age for his kind. And many will join him in finding faith in his plans to redeem the elvhen times, and many will oppose him having lost faith and turning away.
Either way, it doesn’t matter to Solas, he’s made a promise he’s going to keep, and he will follow his plan through until the very end when he has reached his promise land.
I feel that there are quite a few compassions we can pick out and relate to the next Dragon Age game. The journey of Solas and his people carrying out this mission to restore their world is a huge tease within this literature.
Essentially though, I think it all boils down to the notion that, like God, Solas will gain a newer generation for the newer world. The older generation (like the Inquisition) know Fen’harel as a monstrous God. If a newer generation was not taught this, they can thrive with Solas (maybe even believe he is a God).
Which of course means that perhaps this Fen’Harel may succeed in his attempts at destroying the veil, in any regard, that’s just my perspective on comparing the Book of Numbers to Solas’s scheme.
In other news, following this conversation on Twitter with Mark Darrah and Patrick Weekes, they started talking about Patrick showing off his feet at E3 2020, this made a few fans speculate at a potential Dragon Age 4 reveal. To cast the idea that Weekes was teasing any reveal, he tweeted the following:
"Dear everyone, these tweets were me joking with @BioMarkDarrah"
and were not intended to tease any kind of E3 announcement. My feet are kinda gross, and pictures of them will in no way be tied to Dragon Age promotional content. Unless marketing asks. Which is unlikely. "
So, it’s not like Weekes is directly saying that we won’t see anything Dragon Age related this E3, he just doesn’t want fans thinking that by him talking about showing off his feet at an E3 showcase somehow relates to a Dragon Age 4 reveal. But, y’know, the internet, PC Gamer and so on.