Dragon Age at 15
All this week we’re looking back on the best of the Dragon Age series, to celebrate its 15th anniversary. We’ve got loads of great Dragon Age opinions and retrospectives, and we’ll be adding more to the list in the days to come.
One of the benefits of being a games publication that’s been running since the Stone Age (that is, the era where we used to get stoned and make games magazines) is that we have a deep history of articles on almost any gaming topic. That, of course, includes a creaking library of game reviews—you name it, we probably put a score on it.
So, as we celebrate the 15th anniversary of Dragon Age, I thought it would be illuminating to look back on our reviews for each game in the series. They say if you don’t learn from history, you’re doomed to repeat it—though in this case, we might have preferred if BioWare had repeated itself a bit more post-Origins…
More importantly, we must ask the big questions: did we ever get it wrong? Or do we stand by all our scores even today? And am I, an extremely biased and cynical series fan, really in a position to pass that kind of judgement on people who worked at PC Gamer a decade ago? Yes, yes I am. Let’s get on with it.
Dragon Age: Origins
Released: November 2009
Score: 94%
Verdict: “A truly astonishing game. Vast, vivid, and microscopically detailed. Dragon Age is the RPG of the decade.”
As you’d expect, we were bowled over by Origins, and particularly by its Origins—that is, the playable intros for each different character type, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in the role of a dwarven commoner, human noble, Dalish elf, and more. Our reviewer called the mechanic “extraordinary”, granting “an incredible sense of being that race, and the part that race plays in history”.
Origins was a watershed moment for RPGs, and you can really see that in contemporary reviews like this. The world-building, the character approval system, the moral choices, even small details like the merchants in camp having their own dialogue and storyline—all of it felt groundbreaking and exciting. And all of it contributed to that whopping score—one of the highest we’ve ever handed out.
In fact, it was so good we reviewed it twice! Sort of. See, in this era our UK and US teams didn’t get along as well as we do now (probably still bearing grudges over the War of Independence back then) and we actually often did separate reviews. So in addition to our 94% UK review, we also did a US review that scored it slightly lower—a 92%. The copy was just as effusive in its praise, though, calling it “an outstanding story-driven RPG with fantastic writing, RPG depth and tough tactical combat”, and “BioWare’s best RPG since Baldur’s Gate 2”. How to explain the 2 point drop? Probably a dash of that classic American pessimism, I expect.
Dragon Age 2
Released: March 2011
Score: 94%
Verdict: “The best RPG combat ever. Not gaming’s best story, but maybe its best storytelling. Darker, sexier, better.”
Ok, uh, we maybe got a bit over-excited with this one. It’d been only about a year and a half since Origins, so I suspect our reviewer may still have been riding the wave of excitement of that initial release and its subsequent DLCs. He may also have been quite sleep-deprived after smashing through the whole game in a weekend (disclaimer: pure speculation). I have the greatest respect for Rich—he’s a fantastic writer, and ultimately all reviews are personal, subjective, and very much of the moment they were posted. But there’s a reason this review’s a bit infamous.
Where we’d called Origins the best RPG of its decade (the 2000s), this review declared Dragon Age 2 potentially the best RPG of the decade to come (the 2010s). “Dragon Age 2 is the most impressive attempt I’ve seen to make the decisions players make in a game mean something,” we said, referring to the decade-long struggle for the fate of Kirkwall, and called its combat system “spring-loaded” with “lightning fast moves”.
You will still find people on our team willing to defend Dragon Age 2 to the hilt, and there was certainly a lot to enjoy about it—including its memorable characters, experimental storytelling, and distinctive setting. But I simply can’t sanction it receiving the same score as Origins given its much smaller scope, buggy launch, dreadful encounter design, reused dungeon maps, and other seriously rough edges. You could definitely feel the limited time and budget in this one, even if a lot of BioWare’s skill still shone through.
Dragon Age Inquisition
Released: November 2014
Score: 87%
Verdict: “A fantastic campaign and massive open environments, soured only slightly by minor, persistent flaws.”
It’s here that we see the scores for the series start to flag, though 87% is still more than respectable. As the series expanded into huge, open-world environments, we praised its “long and satisfying journey”, and the greater opportunity to immerse yourself in the lore and intricacies of Thedas.
We did criticise its abundance of weak sidequests, saying “the worst resemble MMO fetch quests”, but said “there’s plenty of substance too”, praising the impact of player choices and the memorable story missions. It’s definitely a noticeably much less effusive review than we gave to the first two. In those we were celebrating what felt like major milestones for gaming, whereas here it feels like we’re simply acknowledging a very large and competently made RPG.
I must choose my words carefully here. The reviewer in question, Phil Savage, has since ascended masterfully through the ranks and is currently my boss. But I’ll risk a bit of retrospective criticism: I think once again we were a little generous. I enjoyed my time with Inquisition, and I do think it’s a wonderful tribute to Thedas as a setting in many ways, but its focus on large areas to explore, and the subsequent need to fill those areas with often meaningless content makes it feel severely bloated and poorly paced. Even BioWare itself was spooked by the mixed reception it got to this element of the game—it’s very noticeable how much The Veilguard has scaled back the formula, rather than doubling down on open world sprawl like so many series have. Speaking of…
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Released: October 2024
Score: 79%
Verdict: “A genuinely enjoyable, gorgeous action-RPG that lacks the storytelling nuance of previous Dragon Age games.”
And so we come to the series’ most recent release, and its most controversial yet. Though Lauren’s review is still on the positive end, it ended up falling lower than many major sites. Our reviewer praised the “snappy and enjoyable” combat and “incredible visual design”, but confirmed many fans’ worst fears by criticising its writing most of all: “It’s a shame to get through a Dragon Age game and find that its characters and story were its weakest element.”
With a decade’s gap since Inquisition, it was inevitable The Veilguard would take the series in a new direction—and given BioWare’s spotty track record over that period (two major flops and a high profile cancellation), on some level it’s a serious success just that the game isn’t some kind of major disaster. But the rich storytelling and dark fantasy atmosphere of Origins couldn’t feel further away in The Veilguard’s bright and bland world, and it’s hardly reassuring for series fans that the focus now seems to be on slick combat instead.
There’s not a great hope for the future of Dragon Age there, at least for an old grump like myself. But the more positive takeaway is that the impact of Origins is still being felt regardless. As Lauren herself pointed out earlier this year, in response to the first gameplay reveal for The Veilguard, that old school RPG legacy has continued in other developers. Can an Origins fan really feel hard done by in a world where Baldur’s Gate 3 exists, as devoted to player agency and nuanced companions as ever? And with a score 3 points above Origins to match… Or The Witcher 3, which just a year after Inquisition showed us exactly how an RPG could be both enormous in scope and still revel in the details?
So there we are—our full review history with the Dragon Age series laid bare. Did we always get it right? Maybe not, but that’s always the risk of carving your opinions permanently into the firmament of the internet. I think what we did do every time was wear our earnest love for Dragon Age on our sleeves. Here at PCG, we adore RPGs, and for a while Dragon Age represented how big, exciting, and spectacular they could be with major modern resources behind them. Maybe it doesn’t quite hold that position any more, but the shadow it has cast across the industry has given rise to countless other wonderful games—no matter what happens from here, that’s a legacy to be proud of.
