Schmooples' Den! The DA News Discussion Thread

They have to include Lace in DA 4 as companion and romance. They have no choice.

She more than the next Cassandra or Cullen prior before the DAI release.

She is Lace Harding and therefore the first dwarven romance

Also i do not know if there is any better candidate for the typical bridge companion (Oghren, Anders/Justice and Varric)

Yes she wasn´t a companion in DAI but i really doubt that they will use one of 12 DAI Companions and Advisors.

By the way the odds for Calpernia are also good.

I would say only as major NPC (Advisor or Faction leader)

Don´t forgot that Dorian is also a popular romance and Bioware don´t like to bring former romances back as companions.

"PC Gamer: Fair enough. What is your criteria for determining which characters do come back? Actually, not simply from the dead, but I mean from game to game. Why would Varric make the cut and not somebody else?

Mark Darrah: That's a good question. Some of it's based on just what the writers are excited about writing. But also, we look for a certain amount of balance between the character. There's a bunch of things that we're trying to do for balance. You want a certain degree of balance between the classes. You want a certain amount of balance between the genders and then a certain amount of balance between the romance options.

If you've had a character in a previous game that was a romance option typically we won't bring them back because they carry a lot of extra baggage with them. You're not going to have a romance option come back and certainly not have them be a romance option again because there's a lot of baggage that comes with that.

The player might get angry as well. “But they're in love with my previous character forever and ever and ever. How dare you?” I think there's validity to that. You can start to cross off a few characters because of that. We often don't bring back characters, at least not as followers, if they were previously romance options. You might see them. Alistair comes back because we can do cameos and have them have an influence on the story.

But additionally, some characters, Varric's a very good character because one of Varric's primary motivations is he's the guy that's got your back. He's your friend. He's a very good character to have because it's good to have someone in your camp no matter what. That makes him a very attractive character. It makes him an interesting character to have because he offers a nice counterpoint to a lot of other kinds of characters.

The other thing that causes us to bring someone back is someone that we're just simply not done with. That the arc is incomplete. Isabella between Origins and Dragon Age 2 is a good example of that. We introduced her, but there's just a lot more to be done with that. That's actually usually how we choose. Often characters move. We don't reuse followers very often. Obviously, we are reusing Varric. We typically promote secondary characters between games.

PC Gamer: Right, so someone graduates from being a quest-giving NPC to being a companion.

Mark Darrah: Yes."

Also Dorian isn´t even needed for the role as Magister companion.  Therefore i would rather have Maevaris than Dorian as DA 4 companion.

I think if 3 of 9 companions are returning characters from previous games or other media would be more than enough.

DA 2 did this with Anders/Justice, Isabela and Merrill.

DAI had Cassandra, Cole and Varric.

And it would be cool if DA 4 have Calpernia, Lace Harding and Maevaris as companions. Calpernia and Lace also as romance options.