Character Creator in DAD

To be clear, I'm not advocating for a protagonist who has no connection to the world around them, I'm simply saying I prefer stories that trust me to hit the ground running, and figure out the world and the plot through context clues, rather than through a "prologue" that exists to dump a lot of info on me at once, and makes the opening act of the game drag very painfully.

There are other ways it can be done. In... ugh... *Witcher 3*, you can make world-altering choices early on, when you are interrogated about the events of previous games, even if you haven't played the previous games.

Instead of building your character, being told your history, and then starting the narrative, you can build your character through the opening of the narrative.

Say DA4 opens with you waking up in a cell (I know, I know, TES did it, but so what?). You pick your race and customise your appearance, then someone comes to collect you, you're fresh meat for the Tevinter arena. You're questioned about your history and combat skills, the questions can differ to accomodate for what makes sense in your race choice, eg humans might say "I was trained in magic at the xyz circle", dalish elves might say "I was first of my clan", this establishes your Class. It could even set up the flag for a relevant quest later on, not to mention the flags for specialisation quests.

Then you get to choose your weapon (why should class limit weapon choice?). This opens up your chosen weapon skills tree. You should probably be allowed to change this later.

You have your test match, you win handily, you're going to the arena tomorrow, for a real fight.

Cut to the next day, being carted with a few other new gladiators, one is talkative "so what are you in for?"

"I was sold" >who by? >what did you do before?
"I was kidnapped" > when? Is your family/clan alive? Do you want to find them?
"I was sentenced" >theft/murder? >falsely accused? > want revenge?

These questions set up the flags for your personal sidequest, or even, potentially, alter the main story (because the protagonist should always be linked to the main story). Sure, it's still an infodump prologue, but YOU'RE doing the dumping, you're building your character and making important story decisions from the start, opening up some quest chains and closing off others. And the game could continue to ask YOU who you are and where you belong in the world throughout, rather than making those decisions for you.

That's just one option. Another would be a playable flashback sequence, possibly in a fade sequence, based on the backstory BioWare gives you at the start. I'm sure there are other ways I could think of, given time.