I don’t think David Gaider needs much of an introduction. He, affectionately, is mister Dragon Age. He was the one tasked with dreaming up the entire world. We talk about it in this episode of One-to-one. BioWare’s James Ohlen apparently gave Gaider a historic atlas and an “off you go”.
But how did he go about creating it – where do you even start with something like that? And what did the original vision for Dragon Age look like? Well, I can tell you it didn’t have any Darkspawn in it, which is wild, considering Darkspawn were the main threat in the game and featured heavily in the series thereafter. And get this: originally, you weren’t going to be able to cast any offensive magic spells in the game either – imagine that!
Gaider was also a key figure in the rise of LGBTQ+ representation and same-sex relationships in BioWare games, and is the creator of arguably the studio’s most famous characters in this regard, Dorian. Curiously, though, it wasn’t Gaider who started the same-sex relationships push but someone else, in Jade Empire – he doesn’t remember who. ‘Whaaat – we can do that?’ he remembers thinking when he saw it and the rest, as they say, was history.
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