When people think about the Dragon Age franchise, many tend to focus on the major games of the series, but very rarely the spinoffs.
One such spin-off, still active and available through BioWare's Dragon Age Keep, is set to be deactivated soon, titled Dragon Age: The Last Court.
The Last Court, developed by Failbetter Games, is a text-based, free to play web browser game which served as a precursor to Dragon Age: Inquisition. Players would take on the role of the Marquis of Serault, a marquisate located in western Orlais in the games setting, where players would participate in a resource management game to accumulate resources, secrets, and more while playing a game of courtly intrigue in the Dragon Age setting.
Those who played through The Last Court would then get an extra mission in Dragon Age: Inquisition, and new resources that would be available for purchase.
It was recently revealed via that The Last Court would be deactivated on November 17th, 2020. The news came out of nowhere, only showing up as a notice on the Last Court Screen in Dragon Age Keep.
Fans of Dragon Age, however, are using this timetable to not only play through The Last Court, but preserve it in their own way.
On the unofficial BioWare forums, the user going by the name of Solas has organized a preservation effort to screenshot every aspect of the game that is possible or not already released, in the hopes of fully documenting The Last Court for the games own wiki page.
These screenshots would include images of the player cards, the different events, and stats of each portion of the game through it's seven day timeline.
This documentation is not without its challenges.
"There is often different text depending on if the player succeeds or fails in the decision made." states Solas in his forum post. "Text also differs depending on which Option the player chooses. If the player succeeds in a decision is partially randomized and based on the current figures for their various stats. The chances of some cards appearing is also a bit of an RNG, and thus getting certain outcomes to document them will be difficult."
The issue that also complicates this documentation is that the game takes 7 real life days to complete, which limits the amount of playthroughs a single person can make.
The goal, according to Solas, is to get several individuals to play through The Last Court, and screenshoot and document any items from the game that are already not available on the official Dragon Age wiki. Solas also noted that a Google Drive has been set up to save images and information as other fans cross-reference them with known entries in the wiki.
Though it is a small game in the grand scheme of things; the call for preserving The Last Court showcases not only the passion and dedication of the Dragon Age fanbase, but also the importance of preserving media that could easily be lost without warning.
Anyone looking to get involved in this preservation effort can follow the instructions posted in the unofficial forums now.
