Dragon Age: Inquisition won't have post-launch DLC party members

Dragon Age: Inquisition will not release additional party members as post-launch downloadable content due to the game's intimate treatment of companion characters — and because these add-on party members would need to be shipped on the disc, creative director Mike Laidlaw told OXM.

Inquisition will include nine party members for players to choose from, six of which have already been announced: Cassandra, Iron Bull, Sera, Solas, Varric and Vivienne. Three more are on their way, with BioWare promising to reveal one each month.

Laidlaw explained that more characters can't be randomly added to Inquisition due to the size and scope of the game and its heavy emphasis on relationships with companion characters. In order to make more characters available after the game's release, their data would have to already be on the game disc — something players have spoken out against in the past.

"Because of how deeply enmeshed in the system companion characters are, we can't just add them on the fly, part of them has to be shipped on the disc," he said. "[This] has led to criticism that we're forcing people to pay for content they already own.

"It's not the case, but we've decided this time to not go that route," he added. "There will be no DLC party members."

Dragon Age: Inquisition is set to launch this fall for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.