Rumor: Dragon Age Netflix Series In Development

Did they just link themselves as a "trusted and proven source"? They might as well have said, "trust me, bro." Also, doing a DA series doesn't make much since considering how similar style The Witcher is.

Pffft. Everyone has a Netflix series in development. *I* have a Netflix series in development.

do share.

Are they also a pessimist?

There's definitely a lot of ways they could go, and the Maric timeline is a popular one.

I was thinking it might be set around the DA4 timeline so they could help support one another, esp. with the more casual fans. 

I dread how they will ruin the characters.

If that's true, please let it be animation. Netflix butchered the live action Witcher with it's casting badly enough.

If this is true, hopefully it will be set during a Blight. Moreover, a Blight prior to the the Origins narrative. I might be wrong, or I suspect at least willing to acknowledge a tendency to appreciate a heroic story, but it was the Warden narrative that hooked me on the series without question. Sure, there's a LOT more to Dragon Age than the Wardens and the Blights, and I am very appreciative of that fact. That's why I always thought that EA is underestimating what they have with DA (and perhaps even more so with ME). I think DA could easily occupy the same kind of cultural space LoTR or GoT do. They just gotta let the writers write and fill in from there.

As an example of what I mean is how Microsoft does an excellent job of allowing writers to expand the narrative for Halo with it's extensive catalogue of Novels and Comics accompanying that property. Those books pay for themselves and far, FAR more. Surely it's not lost on Microsoft that those books will eventually make for excellent blueprints for cinematic media. They are even making yet another Halo series (that, I think is still another test run, which is unfortunate because the cast this time is excellent, than a real attempt to truly migrate Halo into the cinematic space). Eventually though, Microsoft is going flex and buy some giant film studio (probably WB/Discovery after they ruin what looks like an fantastic Dune movie) and make a Halo cinematic universe something in line with the Avengers or GoT (before that series started to suck at least).

DA also has a very extensive catalogue of novels of it's own, and I have read and very much like all of them (though I'll admit I haven't read any of the comics). However, I see DA's novels more as lead in to the games, where Halo novels are very clearly extensions of the narrative of the games. Bioware expands the narrative with the games, not the novels. Which actually works better for EA where it wouldn't for Microsoft. Games are an additional source of revenue for Microsoft. Games are the main source of revenue for EA. If EA would let the writers write (which I'm hoping is why DA won't be out till 2023 at the earliest), then they should use the majority of what's written to make games. Inevitably, however, there will be well written material that doesn't fit in the game it was written for, but is still very good. EA could use that otherwise good but wasted material to make another piece of media (I haven't forgotten the topic, I promise!) that better fits the material and expands on DA as a whole. Have a thrilling hostage situation that could be addressed the RPG as a few lines of dialogue? Make it into an adventure game a la The Walking Dead Game. Have a rapturous romance between people outside of the RPG party? Make it into a comic. Have an swashbuckling tale of daring that takes place many years prior to the RPG? Make it a TV series.

All that stuff could make EA buckets of money, because DA and ME have far richer and deeper universes than GoT, the Witcher, or Star Wars. Reaping the fruits of those Universes will require commitment, patience, and invested curation of the source material (ie the difference between the post Disney MCU, which improved over time and most of post Disney Star Wars, which after Rogue One sucked. Not including the TV stuff, of course. This is the way.)

However it's strength, the breadth of the DA narrative, could very well become a problem for the TV series if the production company overthinks it. If they erroneously try to avoid the obvious, like making a Tevinter Chantry drama (or something else that isn't a Blight) as the setting, because for instance the next game is set in Tevinter, well, there's no reason a good show couldn't start there. And given that most of the non-game media for DA has been successful tie ins for the game, it makes a certain amount of sense. However, what you're most likely to get is attention almost exclusively from consumers ALREADY invested in the DA universe watching every bit of it. Because we already know all we need to know to to appreciate the gravity of a show like that. However new consumers might not or likely won't have the patience to invest. But if you make a series following the Wardens in the Fourth Blight? A story about a rag tag group of scruffy malcontents going through hell and high water to save the world in spite of itself? Then stick the landing with a truly satisfying conclusion(looking at you GoT)? LOT'S of new folks are on board for that kinda show. And once you deliver on that you have the REST of Thedas to pursue.

All that said, neither EA nor Bioware will likely have a decision making role in what winds up on screen. But if they do, I dearly hope they don't try re-inventing the wheel and instead make sure this show is set in one of the first four Blights. Any viewer can pick up the narrative from there and all the rest of Dragon Age will be available for further productions if (when) it's successful.

A lot of people like the idea of exploring more of DA’s history directly, but I think by title association alone the creators of an animated series would stick to that time period.

It could be earlier in the age, but I would be surprised if they went and covered the first Blight or something.

Fair point. Still, as a point of reference, I would ask: Do you think most people refer to GoT as Game of Thrones or the series' proper name, A Song of Ice and Fire? I mean, even within the extended media for Dragon Age there's a bit of precedent. Last Flight largely takes place prior to the Dragon Age, but it's still called Dragon Age: Last Flight. I know, that book is in the perspective of a recounting occurring in the Dragon Age of events that took place prior, but it seems a little like splitting hairs when regardless of what story anyone tells about Thedas, it will almost assuredly be identified as a Dragon Age yarn to anyone that pursues it.

This is true but for the most part Alistair, Isabella and Varric, even Sten/Arishok for that matter, were consistent with their characters as we knew them in the games. That was my point above. Varric seems now so firmly embedded as a popular character wholly associated with his VA, how would fans react to an alternative Varric who sounded quite different? How would fans react if, say, Morrigan was cast as a different race? I would find it difficult to relate to any character that just had a different voice from the one I was familiar with; Fenris without Gideon Emery anyone? This is why I said it is entirely different converting a video game with well known, iconic characters to a TV or film series as opposed to a popular set of novels. We haven't just imagined them in our heads, we have seen them and heard them.

This is where problems can occur between the writers of associated media and the original developers. Now as I understand it, whenever someone is commissioned to write a novel or comic, they have to run a synopsis of the plot past the Bioware lead writer at least, but possibly the whole team, to ensure it doesn't deviate too far from previous canon or impact adversely on where the plot is leading. With the latest comic series, according to the writer the plot was originally going to be different, specifically the involvement of Solas, but they were required to alter the outcome after input from the Bioware team. So Bioware was very much controlling the direction the plot of the comics would take the overall narrative in Thedas.

I'm not sure that Netflix would want their writers to be constrained that much. This is generally the case with any TV/film series that is adapting a narrative from another media. Look at GoT. Whilst they were drawing directly from the books, they stuck pretty much to the story in the early instalments, although lost a fair number of minor characters along the way, but even before they ran out of source material they started to deviate from the narrative. This was despite the fact that they did have input from the author.

So for the Netflix series to work, not alienate fans of the games and not impact adversely on Bioware's own narrative going forward, it would either have to focus on characters in a current timeline who have nothing whatsoever to do with the ongoing story in the games or they need to take it back to a much earlier period in either the Dragon Age itself or another Age entirely. There is plenty of scope for them to do that and it would give them far more artistic freedom as well.