Increasing Threat

Video game stories are interesting because, while they tend to follow the same general arc of conflict, complication, climax, and resolution, the player is generally expected to always succeed for the story to advance. This isn't always the case, of course, but comparing Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Inquisition led me to consider the idea.

In Dragon Age: Origins, the world is being invaded by demonic creatures and the player must journey the land, gathering allies and building forces for the final confrontation. Even as the player gains power, though, the demonic invasion spreads and multiplies so that the situation at the end is just as dire as at the beginning, if not more so.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the world is being invaded by demonic creatures and the player must journey the land, gathering allies and building forces for the final confrontation (it's generally the Bioware model), but the stakes are never raised to the same extent as in Dragon Age: Origins. The threat to the world at the beginning of the game is as great as it will ever be, and as the player closes rifts to the other world and builds an army, the main antagonist never gets any closer to his goal. Several major missions involve eliminating large portions of the antagonist's army and turning his allies against him, so that by the time the final confrontation arrived, he is without doubt the underdog, only conceivably able to win by some slim chance (the role often occupied by the protagonist, such as in the original Star Wars trilogy). I certainly enjoyed the different style of protagonist found in Dragon Age: Inquistion, an administrator and leader rather than a lone hero, but I feel like some escalation of threat throughout the game would have made for a more intense conclusion.