BioWare is wrong, Dragon Age doesn't need to replace its disabled protagonist

This piece contains major spoilers for the Dragon Age series, particularly Inquisition.

“It’s time for a new hero…”

Those are the first words spoken by recurring Dragon Age companion Varric Tethras after the BioWare logo disappears in the most recent trailer for the new Dragon Age game trailer. But Varric and BioWare are wrong, Dragon Age doesn’t need a new hero; the Inquisitor’s story has not yet been fully told, and they offer BioWare the chance to give gaming exactly the sort of character it needs: a powerful, disabled protagonist.

Disability in mainstream gaming is rare. There’s Geralt in The Witcher series, who suffers from chronic pain after shattering his elbow and thigh bone, and for AAA protagonists, that’s pretty much it. Given that both the gaming and TV adaptations play down this chronic disability, many players don’t even realise Geralt is canonically disabled, or will actively argue against it. Once you bring in the supporting cast, you can add the likes of Joker in Mass Effect and Barbara Gordon in the Batman: Arkham series, but now we’re already starting to run out of examples.

Those meagre offerings, plus gaming’s bad habit of using physical disabilities as a signifier of or motivation for villainy, highlights the poor job gaming has done to make the disabled community feel welcome in the space. Advancements in accessibility for disabled gamers have rightly been lauded, but representation is stuck at a standstill.

This isn’t just a random “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if the Dragon Age 4 protagonist was disabled,” thought. The Inquisitor is already disabled, and casting them aside not only avoids making a bold step for representation in the industry, it reinforces Dragon Age’s worst storytelling tendencies too.