*Dragon Age: Origins (2009)

To start the year, there were two games that I began playing in 2024 and finished in 2025, with Dragon Age: Origins being the first of the two. Neither of these games were new to me, as I had already played them before, thus they do not count toward my grand total of 52 games. Since I did finish them both in 2025 and have thoughts pertaining to them, I thought I may as well include them. Consider these bonus entries.

Dragon Age: Origins began development at Bioware in 2002 as a spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate series, without the Dungeons and Dragons license behind it. Bioware decided to go with a dark fantasy theme, as the game's director, Dan Tudge, felt that Bioware was at its best in the fantasy genre. Interestingly, the name "Dragon Age" came from a random name generator, and thus dragons were added to the game as a result. The subtitle, "Origins" was chosen to represent the, at one point twelve, different origin stories players could choose from. Most of these were scrapped for being too ridiculous, and the final game featured six unique origins.

To set itself apart from other stories in the fantasy genre, the team decided to alter how certain races are traditionally portrayed. Most notably, elves, usually viewed with reverence and high prestige, are presented as slaves and second-class citizens. Other elements, such as dwarves being unable to cast magic and the persecution of mages, further help to establish the world of Thedas, in which the game is set. Thedas, for anyone curious, comes from THE Dragon Age Setting. So, if you ever feel uncreative, know that sometimes it really can just be that easy.

The game opens with a quote from the in-world religion about a Golden City, and how mankind brought sin upon Heaven, thus dooming the world. After a brief scene and narration, we're thrown into character creation. This is where you choose your gender and race, with human, dwarf, and elf being the available options. Then you choose from either the warrior, rogue, or, as long as you don't choose dwarf, mage classes. From there, you choose on of the six origins. Mages only get the one option, regardless of race. Likewise, warrior and rogue humans can only choose the human noble option. Dwarves get both a commoner and noble option, and elves can either be city dwellers or a member of the Dalish, a group of nomadic elves who live in nature.

The origin aspect is a fascinating bit of design, as each one offers one to two hours worth of story and gameplay that is, for the most part, separate from one another. Each one offers unique lore and story hooks to make the player more invested in certain aspects of the story, along with introducing characters that may or may not appear later in the game. While these are all good in their own ways, the Dalish elf origin feels the most disconnected, and thus the least impactful. Meanwhile, the dwarf and human noble, along with the city elf origins offer very real stakes for the player character that tie in heavily with events that happen later in the game.

In all of these openings, the player is introduced to the character Duncan, a member of the Grey Wardens known to defend the lands from The Blight, in which mostly mindless creatures, known as Darkspawn, ravage the lands. He's travelling around to find suitable recruits, and inevitably finds the player character to be a prime candidate. Each origin offers a different reason for the player to accept this offer, often involving the Grey Wardens Right of Conscription, something the Wardens can invoke to force someone to be allowed to join, often used if someone is imprisoned or otherwise prevented from doing so.

We then travel to Ostagar, where we meet Cailan, King of Fereldan, the land this game is set in. It seems that the Wardens believe a Blight is about to begin, and Cailan is eager to join the battle personally, seeking glory like he's heard of in tales. This is immensely stupid for a king with no heir to do, and he is presented as being very optimistic, bordering on naive. There are a few things to do, mostly involving discovering more about the lore of the world or purchasing gear. The player is tasked with meeting with Alistair, a junior Grey Warden, and given the option to round up the other recruits, though you can forgo this part and just report back to Duncan. The other recruits are Jory, a knight from Highever, and Daveth, a pickpocket who Duncan conscripted.

With a full party, the player, along with Alistair and the two other recruits, are tasked to go into the wilds to gather Darkspawn blood and the contents of an old Grey Warden cache. This is where we're introduced to our first secret pertaining to the, Wardens: they can sense Darkspawn. As you explore the wilds, you gather the required blood and find that the Warden cache has been broken into despite locks and wards placed upon it. Here, we meet Morrigan, a mage living in the wilds with her mother Flemeth. Flemeth kept the contents of the cache safe, as the wards have faded, and warns that the Blight is a bigger threat than anyone realizes. After returning to Duncan, the player and recruits are told of The Joining, a ritual in which potential recruits either die or become Grey Wardens. If you've ever played a Bioware game before, you know how this is going to play out.

Jory, a nothing character who has played a Bioware game.

From here, we meet the King's strategist, and totally not the bad guy, Loghain. The player and Alistair are given the task of lighting a beacon atop a tower which will signal Loghain and his men to flank the Darkspawn, securing victory. As we head to the tower for this totally easy, no way dangerous task, we find that the tower is overrun with Darkspawn (oh no!), and we're given a few more fodder characters to round out the party. After fighting our way up the tower, we're met with a Darkspawn Ogre, our first real boss fight. after defeating the Ogre and lighting the fire, we then see Loghain signal for his troops to retreat (OH NO!!), thus leaving the King and the Grey Wardens to die. Even our party in the tower is overwhelmed by Darkspawn.

After this, we wake up in a cabin having been nursed back to health by Morrigan and her mother. After dealing with a mopey Alistair, we're reminded of the contents of the Warden cache: Treaties promising aid from elves, dwarves, and mages to help end a Blight. Morrigan reluctantly joins our crew, and thus the meat of the story begins. From here, the game becomes far less linear, allowing the player to choose whether or not to recruit party members and how they want to go about preparing an army to fight the Blight while also confronting Loghain for his treason. The player is given the option to tackle any of the goals in any order that they wish, though it usually boils down to go to recruit people using the treaty; uh-oh, danger; resolve issue in one of a handful of ways. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Of note, certain choices can seem more impactful depending upon which origin you chose. The choice for a new dwarven king, for instance, is a very different choice for a dwarven commoner versus a dwarven noble. Though Dragon Age: Origins doesn't feature a morality system in the traditional sense, you can see remnants of that system in place. Each of your party members have an approval rating that changes depending upon your choices. If it gets low enough, they will confront you, forcing you to either tell them to leave or even killing them. In addition, a lot of the choices, while far more nuanced than in other games, do still have a clearly good or bad resolution.

Outside of the story, the game shines in a number of areas, even to this day. The characters, with the exception of the player, are fully voice acted, and there really isn't a bad performance to speak of. Of note, Tim Curry does an amazing job as minor antagonist, Arl Rendon Howe. His voice oozes with the kind of sleaze that makes a good villain so fun to hate. Likewise, Simon Templeman provides the voice for Loghain (among others) and knocks it out of the park.

On the topic of characters, most of the party members are well written and fleshed out, though I believe a few stand out more than others. Wynne is an amazing grandmotherly type who opens up about her regrets and is willing to throw witty barbs with the rest of the group. Sten, a member of the Quanari race, is a fascinating example of amazing writing. The Quanari are a group that is almost alien to Fereldan, and follow the teachings of the Qun. He has trouble understanding how others function in such a loosely structured world, arguing that freedom is an illusion. He's fascinating to me because, as you get to know him, he'll often times argue with you and what you're doing. However, if you argue your side well, even though he disagrees with you, he'll still approve of and respect you. He also has a love of cookies that, honestly, makes him all the more endearing.

I can't talk about characters without bringing up romance. There are four party members the player can choose to pursue, though some are locked depending upon gender. Alistair is only interested in women, and Morrigan in men. Leliana and Zevran swing either way. The Alistair romance is probably the most wholesome, though Zevran and Morrigan both seem more realistic, as they have their own hang-ups about relationships while being a bit more open sexually. There are, of course, sex scenes for these characters, which, while risque at the time, are very tame by today's standards, with stiff animations and the characters being in their very modest undergarments.

On this note, I have to bring up the game's visuals. I don't usually care about graphics, but this game looks like ass, even by 2009 standards. This is likely due to the lengthy development time, as well as the switch of game engine during development. Sometimes, the graphics are just plain humorous, but more often they seem more distracting. More than most games, I would love to see this game get remade just for the graphical upgrade.

Dragon Age: Origins was a surprise hit, with the developers not expecting to do any sort of follow-up. Due to how well received the game was, we ended up with not just DLC, but sequels, tie-in comics and books, and eventually a surprisingly good animated series. The DLC is kind of a mixed bag. Some, such as "Warden's Keep", "Return to Ostagar", and "The Stone Prisoner" expand on the lore of the world while providing new content, new weapons and armor, and even a new party member. Likewise, the standalone "Awakening" sees a continuation of the main story with new locations, follow-ups on some of the player choices, as well as a new set of companions (and Oghren), all of which are an absolute delight (and Oghren).

Oghren, shown here just happy to be included.

The rest of the DLC is... certainly available. "Leliana's Song" offers a more linear, disconnected story that serves as background for one of the main game's party members, while "Darkspawn Chronicles" offers an alternate universe look where you play as a Darkspawn during the game's final battle. Everything else is either inoffensive, serves as promotional material for the sequel, or is just the now common EA cash grab.

Dragon Age Origins, despite it's flaws, is a truly engaging experience. The team wasn't afraid to include content that the majority of players may never see. It was a truly ambitious start to a franchise that, unfortunately it seems, EA never truly grasped the value of. This is made all the more apparent in the game's sequels. It offers each player a view of the story that seems truly unique and shaped by the choices they made.