Dragon Age: Origins is 11 years old. The BioWare RPG was released on November 3, 2009, and would go on to win widespread acclaim and the VGX awards for both Best RPG and Best PC game that year. Over a decade later, the game is still one of the best received RPGs developed by BioWare, and still has some major lessons to teach the studio as the next generation of consoles rapidly approaches.
Dragon Age: Origins is far from a flawless game. However, it has many features and aspects of its design philosophy which were left behind in subsequent games and which future BioWare RPGs could learn from, even now particularly in the next game in the franchise, Dragon Age 4. The original game would set the standard for some of the series' most successful elements that have fans returning to the game to this day, while changes made to the series since Origins help identify some aspects that need to return in future installments.
The Hero
Dragon Age: Origins is distinct from most of the BioWare games which would follow in the 2010s, and even had some major differences from the first Mass Effect, which was released in 2007. Dragon Age: Origins' playable character has a wide variety of prologues to choose form, has no voice actor, and has very little that is particularly remarkable about them, at least at first.
This character is very different from Commander Shepard, who was voiced with a distinct personality by Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale and who is already a distinguished commander by the start of the original trilogy. Without a voice, the Warden has far less of a clear personality than Hawke, the protagonist of Dragon Age 2. Despite this, the main character of Dragon Age: Origins works for a few key reasons.
The six prologues available to a player in Dragon Age: Origins are key to the protagonist's success. Players each start out as one of the following: a dwarven noble, a dwarven commoner, a human noble, a city elf, a Dalish elf, or a mage. These prologues are disconnected from the main plot aside from the introduction of Duncan, a wandering Grey Warden who recruits the protagonist at the end of the first act to help them avoid imprisonment or death after the unfortunate events of the game’s opening.
These prologues give players time to play around as their new character in a low-stakes environment and get a feel for their personality even without an actor to give that personality voice. When all but two known Ferelden Grey Wardens die at the Battle of Ostagar, the player is mad to feel just as in over their head as their character is supposed to, and with none of the plot-armor reassurance that comes with being at typical "Chosen One" archetype. Indeed, one of the best parts of Origins that future games lacked is that the main character has to make some very tough choices to survive the events of the game at all.
The Choices
Unlike many other RPGs, there is very little connection between decisions in Dragon Age: Origins which are morally right and decisions which have the most desirable consequences. Dwarf noble players find themselves faced with the opportunity to prevent the brother who betrayed them and tried to have them killed from taking the crown to Orzammar, and yet if they do so they cause the dwarven city to fall prey to isolationism under the rule of that brother's rival.
Players find themselves faced with the opportunity to bring an Old God Baby into the world to prevent them or another Grey Warden from having to die to defeat the game’s final boss. Unlike the Mass Effect Renegade and Paragon system – which led to the vast majority of Mass Effect players picking Paragon dialog options – Dragon Age: Origins presented fleshed out moral dilemmas that helped bring a blank-slate protagonist to life through their actions.
Despite not being an open world like Dragon Age: Inquisition, the game world of Dragon Age: Origins feels huge, with players travelling all across Ferelden to recruit factions for the fight against the Blight. The fact that players can approach any faction in almost any order makes each playthrough unique and ironically more open-ended than the last game, which had an open map but a more linear narrative. Seeing the Blight crawl up the Origins map from the south and destroy previously visited locations added a sense of urgency to a slowly unfolding narrative that allowed it to feel both immense and immediate.
Companions and Villains
The companions in Dragon Age: Origins are another highlight. Characters like Alistair and Morrigan are not forced upon the player, but are naturally drawn into the story through the first act. Even non-companion characters are used to great effect in the story. The death of Duncan and the king of Ferelden at the hands of the Darkspawn is a shocking twist, and the use of Loghain as a secondary antagonist helps give a clear human face to the games’ villains that subsequent Dragon Age games would lack, at least with as much focus.
Each companion appears naturally in the story, Alistair as a fellow Warden, Morrigan as a witch of the wild, Sten as a wandering warrior, even Zevran as an assassin sent to kill the main character. Every companion has their own mysterious backstory to unravel, conflicting interests, different creeds, and wildly different reactions to choices the player can make. This can even lead to companions trying to kill the player at key moments, such as if the player corrupts the Urn of Sacred Ashes.
The Origins companions feel like a true rag-tag crew, the odds stacked immensely against them as they wander territory either taken over by the demonic Darkspawn or occupied by hostile forces. The world of Dragon Age: Origins is made to feel huge and intimidating in a way that not even Inquisition’s open world can achieve due to the position of power it places its main character in.
Dragon Age: Origins didn’t market itself but its graphical fidelity, the size of its world, the voice talents it hired, or fan recognition of its universe. Instead, it told a tight, self-contained story with high stakes and clear resolution of its major plot-threads. Along the way the game gave the Warden tough enough choices to chew on that even its voiceless protagonist felt characterful.
The late 2010s have not been as kind to BioWare as the start of the decade. The disappointing releases of both Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem have led to questions about the developer’s future, and whether other RPG studios will begin to take the forefront on the next-gen consoles. BioWare’s prospects may be unclear, but if it can recapture the originality and ambition of Dragon Age: Origins in its upcoming titles the studio may be able to reclaim its reputation as one of the best RPG developers in the industry.
Dragon Age: Origins is available now on the PC, PS3, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.