Trespasser, the final DLC pack released for Inquisition, provides further insight into his backstory and motives, as well as his involvement in the current world state of Thedas.

[1] In an interview, Weekes said that aspects of Solas' characterization was based on David Tennant's Doctor Who performance, who successfully conveyed the character's humanity as well as ancient nature in their view.

", Weekes used Harry Potter as a metaphor to explain how Solas perceives himself as the hero of the story; he feels he is "this luckless, unfortunate person who by an unpleasant destiny and the simple fact that no one else has the ability to do it, that it has to be him and that someone else would get it wrong".

[3] Originally, Solas was not available as a romance option in Dragon Age: Inquisition; according to Mike Laidlaw, BioWare redesigned him as a potential love interest for a female elven Inquisitor when they extended the game's development for a year.

[5] Jessica Barnes of GameRant noted that Solas is "only romanceable by female elves" which is "due to the revelation of his role as an antagonist in the final moments of Dragon Age: Inquisition" – BioWare limited "his romantic interests" in order "to avoid the harmful tropes of the villainous bisexual character".

He was provided with a simple outline and some lines on a screen to work with in lieu of a comprehensive backstory for Solas; he eventually developed a stronger idea of who the character is about three or four months after he started.

In the post-credits scene it is revealed that Solas is Fen'Harel, an ancient being who is a member of the elven pantheon of gods, and a recurring trickster figure in Dragon Age lore.

He created the Veil to seal away the Evanuris after they murdered Mythal, sundering the physical world and the Fade permanently, and in doing so dooming the civilization of the ancient elves to collapse due to its dependency on magic.

He also admits to engineering the events which led to the Breach, albeit inadvertently; he arranged for Corypheus to obtain his orb, anticipating that the ancient darkspawn would unlock it on his behalf as he had awakened from millennia of slumber in the Fade and was too weak as a result.

Upon returning to the Winter Palace in Orlais, the Inquisitor either disbands the Inquisition or reforms the organization into a smaller peacekeeping force to serve directly under Divine Victoria, risking weaker efforts against Solas or further infiltration in their ranks respectively.

At the end of the war, Solas breaks from Mythal when she decides to join the other Evanuris in elevating themselves as gods over the elven people leading to Fen'Harel's rebellion.

Following Mythal's murder, Solas imprisons both the Evanuris and the Blight in what Rook and their companions recognize as the Black City described in the Andrastian faith; something went wrong during his ritual leading to the creation of the Veil.

Solas has been the focus for much of the media coverage pertaining to information released by BioWare about the fourth instalment of the Dragon Age video game series.

[20][21][22] His "Dread Wolf" sobriquet, and associated imagery is the focus of a sixty-second promotional trailer released by BioWare during the 5th annual The Game Awards show in December 2018.

[23] Hayes Madsen, for Inverse, thought the Fen'Harel reveal was an "emotionally crushing twist" and that "suddenly, so many details from across the game start to make sense" since there were "many signs that something wasn't quite right with Solas".

[41] Vanessa Villarreal, in the book Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, highlighted how the themes around Elvhenan and memory in Inquisition "hit different" as "a descendant of indigenous Mexican farm workers" whose indigeneity and family history "have been totally obliterated" – "Solas's anxiety over restoring elven memory is recognizable to me as a kind of postcolonial haunting", noting that she understands Solas, who has witnessed "human mages study the elven history their kind obliterated", and "his rage".

[42] Villarreal wrote that "Solas can be read as a tragic antihero who only sabotages and betrays those he loves because he is always opposed to the abuse of power, willing to sacrifice the world for the elves in order to restore Elvhenan and give the land back to its original people".

[10][42][44] Alison Bell from Videogamer.com believed that the potential romantic relationship between Solas and the Inquisitor is the best written romance in a video game so far, although she compared it to that of a Shakespearean tragedy: "histrionic, ruinous, and, in the long term, one or both of you is probably going to die".

[45] Ash Parrish, for The Verge, commented that Solas was initially "one of the least interesting of companions" until the endgame reveal and that "despite his overtly asshole behavior, there was a quiet confidence about him that some players found attractive enough to want to romance him".

[38] Villarreal stated that the Solas-Inquisitor romance "is the most popular" in the game, noting it has "big 'I can fix him' energy", and that its "tragic, star-crossed-lovers storyline" complicates "the finality of Solas's Ragnarök plot".

[42] In her analysis of a promotional trailer for the upcoming game released in December 2018, Brewster remarked that "The Dread Wolf had been hiding in tapestries and lore all since Origins".

[38] Madsen, for Inverse in November 2022, called it "unprecedented" to have "a vitally important party member" become suddenly "the franchise's main villain" and thought it would "be fascinating to see how BioWare continues to develop a character that players have so much history with, and how the studio convinces them to still fight against him".

[40] Madsen, now for Rolling Stone in October 2024, opined that Solas is "arguably a second protagonist" of Veilguard, with the game focusing on "the choices he made, how he's altered the world, and how your journey as Rook mirrors that".

[50] Parrish, for The Verge in November 2024, commented that going into Veilguard she wanted to kill Solas, however, "when it was finally time to fight this asshole for all the grief he put me and my two characters through – I didn't.

BioWare crafted his story arc in a way that didn't soften his actions as villain backstories typically do, but in a way that I felt compelled to make a different choice".

[51] Parrish noted that she made a choice to "end the thousand-year cycle of violence that kicked off the game in the first place" and after a decade "of making jokes about 'cracking' Solas' bald egghead to scramble his brains for my breakfast, I let him go and it hurt".

[54] Cotts opined that the backstory revealed in the quest "arguably makes it an essential part, especially for newcomers to the series or those who have never delved too deeply into Dragon Age lore".

[56] Sarah-Jane Simpson, for Screen Rant, argued that skipping "Regrets of the Dread Wolf" means "missing out on perhaps the best ending for the game" and criticized its placement as a side quest.

Simpson highlighted the lore reveals which not only tie "in wonderfully with companions such as Harding and Bellara" but also elevate Solas "from a simple villain to a truly complex and misguided character".

[57] Simpson opined that "the memories do a fantastic job of explaining Solas' motivations, far better than the main plot, and give glimpses of who he was before war and conflict twisted him into the hardened character met in Dragon Age: Inquisition".