Bioware kinda wrote themselves into a corner.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer had, what, five near-apocalypses over the course of seven seasons? Six? And that's not even touching on Angel.

Debatable. The First Evil was not a particularly good villain (ironically), but the season on the whole was still pretty decent.

Still, I have no issue with how many near-apocalypses the world has averted. This is the Dragon Age - a time of great upheaval. This is when shit is supposed to go down.

as much as you want really

This is exactly why I want/hope for DA4 to tone it back down. Make dealing with Fen'harel an issue, but don't make the mistake of having it be a climactic confrontation. I'm generally okay with Inquisition being what it was, so long as they don't attempt to redo it. Every Dragon Age game should go a different route, IMO. DA should be less of a "series", essentially, and more of "anthology". Doubly so because cliffhangers don't work so well when you have five years between games.

Fingers crossed.

Let him be Glory - he could do the face changing with Flemeth


I would have thrown in Supernatural for End of the world scenarios, but Buffy is as good an example, if not better

LMAO, I forgot about that part! It's perfect. And I guess Morrigan or whoever drank from the WoS is the Key... or is that OGB Kieran..? 

Also, about the escalation of events: I don't think it's that drastic. I mean, obviously it's on a bigger scale, but I figure the next game miiiiight focus on Tevinter and the Qunari? And even with Solas looming in the background, that's no small threat. Sort of like how the Arishok was a really intense (and popular) antagonist despite Corypheus in Legacy being a much "bigger deal", lore-wise.

edit: Not that Solas won't be the man-behind-the-man or the real Big Bad of DA4. I think he ultimately will be. But I don't think that lessens the threat of... other things going on.

Like, the Blight was a big deal, but I remember more about Loghain than the Archdemon.

*shift

Agreed, this is the direction I hope they go. And if they have to do spin-offs, like Rogue One is to the Star Wars series, to pull off the downsizing, even better.

Really DA2 was the interlude where you only save Kirkwall from the Qunari and then Anders blows it up. No real world saving stuff there but you do play a part in activating the next part of the main overall story, which is red lyrium.

The whole thing is interlinked and they are steadily building to a climax, which hopefully will explain everything. We started the series with the myth about the darkspawn and everything seems to be pointing to the origins of the taint being the answer. So we have not been involved in separate world saving events but interconnected world saving events.

The name of the age was given because the Divine foresaw it would be a time of great change. Flemeth has hinted twice now, in DA2 and DAI, that this is imminent. The Inquisitor was a "Herald of Change" rather than Andraste. So even if it doesn't happen in the next game, it will probably come in the one after. Then that will be the end of the Dragon Age but hopefully not of Thedas and a new plot cycle can begin (if they want it to).

ramblingsofacinephile.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/theincredibles-staysaved.gif

Prequels. That's the remedy. Still tons of epicness, but with no need to one-up the chronologically succeeding iteration, because it's already happened!

Imagine a game about the Rise of Arlathan. Or the Fall of Arlathan. Or the first Exalted March. Or the first Blight and the fall of the dwarven empire. Or the rise of Drakon and Ameridan. So much in lore to draw from.

Even Andraste -- though the complete story of Andraste can't be covered, due to Bioware not wanting to confirm/deny the Maker -- the immediate aftermath of the fall of Andraste would be really interesting. Start the game the day after her death.

I don't think the escalation has gotten too bad.

I would like them to deescalate a bit once this Solas business is done with though, to "re-ground" the franchise a bit. I'm still hoping for my pirate themed game set in Antiva, Rivain and Llomeryn, with a captured dreadnaut as our home base. Introduce some new more ground level villains rather than pulling them all from the pages of past codex entries.