Saving the world has become an integral part of RPG narrative arcs over the years, so when this small feature in the story is omitted, one can’t help but feel that things are just a little bit off. To put it another way, if you’re carrying a sword bigger than most professional basketball players, surely an evil that knows no bounds needs to be vanquished?

In Dragon Age: Origins, although players could build their character from a large number of backgrounds and races, the game itself dealt with an almost staple apocalyptic scenario, where you had to put a stop to the ‘blight’ and with it vanquish evil itself and become an almost mythical warrior in the process - you know, the usual. And this was all done in a very old school fashion (see: for Baldurs Gate fans) with a voiceless hero, and with speech relegated to lengthy text-based responses. It was also somewhat of an epic as it spanned multiple locations, and branching stories that all affected the ending in various and sometimes unexpected ways.

It also featured a colourful cast of supporting characters that joined the player on their quest to save the Kingdom of Ferelden, and the rest of the Dragon Age world. And you also fought a dragon at one point.



Although taking place right after Origins, this new Dragon Age doesn’t really feel like a sequel - well, immediately anyway. The curiously dubbed Dragon Age 2 introduces a new protagonist, Hawke, fully-voiced and with a defined character in tow, dialogue choices are presented in the same ‘choice-wheel’ fashion as seen in Bioware’s other little RPG series, Mass Effect. It also features an entirely new cast of supporting characters all eager to prove and align themselves with Hawke, in one way or another. Yes, some familiar faces do return but for dramatic effect, let’s keep it at ‘entirely new cast’. This means that players won’t have the same freedoms in character creation or in the relationships that they had in the original. Including but not limited to, being able to take a wood elf away from the woods and woodsy stuff to the cities and tell humans how to run their suitably non-wood based kingdoms, to also being able to take a Dwarf commoner from an underground slum that was able to convince a pretty human chick to sleep with him, or her. So even though players can still choose to play as a fireball casting mage or double knife wielding rogue, the approach is very similar to the one seen in Mass Effect, in that controlling a character with a specific background like Hawke, allows for a clear character-driven narrative arc.

But apart from the more obvious reasons for the change, such as, the introduction of a more robust and engaging dialogue system, the more curious changes comes in the presentation of the story itself. Gone is the singular save the world storyline with branching paths and numerous side-stories as seen in the original, and instead the focus is shifted to the story of a particular city, Kirkwall, and the manner in which Hawke became its champion. This is told through a series of flashbacks, spanning an entire decade. So as to avoid confusion that means it literally becomes the story of Hawke, and his/her humble beginnings as a refugee from Ferelden, looking to increase their standing in Kirkwall, and to hopefully make the city a better place to live in. Yes, that’s pretty much it, but thankfully the journey far outweighs the destination.

This means that players will spend most of their time with Dragon Age 2 completing numerous quests and tasks in and around Kirkwall’s immediate areas, from the slums of the city to the offices of the people in charge. It’s a curious approach because most people would expect to see some sort of larger story, something no doubt involving some evil menace trying to kick-start another blight, unleashing some dragon demons, and then using blood magic to resurrect an undead army ready to march across the lands of Kirkwall. Or something else of a similar variety. Instead players are given the task of helping the numerous citizens of Kirkwall with their problems, whilst trying to balance choices across a large number of interracial, political, and ethical hurdles. Weirdly, this is still as engaging as saving the world.



The change in bringing a singular protagonist into the franchise has seemingly not been done to streamline the main story narrative, and in the process make it more cinematic in its presentation, which it somewhat does. But instead has allowed for at least over one hundred specific smaller character stories to be given more thematic weight. This means that the more interesting aspects of Dragon Age: Origins, that being, the delicate relationship between Mages, Templars, and the various races of people populating the world, has been brought the forefront. Although the high-fantasy setting of dwarves, elves, mages, and warriors usually lends itself quite easily to overtly black and white perceptions of the world, the original Dragon Age and this sequel, draw clear parallels to real-world scenarios where an act that one person may see as clearly racism, or persecution, can be seen as the status quo for others - or worse, a necessary evil.

Brought to the forefront in this sequel is the plight of the Mages and Templars, which serves as a key narrative arc throughout the game, and is a wonderful example of this complexity. In the world of Dragon Age, a mage outside the Circle (i.e. the place where they serve mankind under the protection and guidance of Templars) is an Apostate and someone that a Templar is within their rights to capture and/or kill. This is all done to avoid a mage succumbing to the temptation of power (represented in the world of Dragon Age by blood magic and demonic possession) and with it potentially becoming something that normal men would be at a loss to control. It’s a delicate subject, and throughout the game players will have to pick sides and in a lot of cases have to make tough decisions related directly to the nature of free will, justice, and the potentially disastrous outcomes that could come from this. In all of its simplification and streamlining of various gameplay aspects (see: making it more console friendly), it’s definitely great to see that Bioware has lost none of its story-telling subtlety.

And although you’ll revisit a lot of the same areas throughout the game’s three acts, the intricate relationships developed between characters and the nuances in how the city itself is run help keep things from devolving into quest fest. Not to say that the scope of the game isn’t epic, because it is, and features dozens of hours of gameplay for those willing to invest the time, as well as well over a hundred individual quest lines. And that’s also not to say that most quests won’t have you killing enemies and looting their corpses and nearby chests in various repeating cave and dungeon maps, because you will. It just means that the bookending of most of the quests found in Dragon Age 2 are impressively varied and in most cases genuinely engaging. This leads to the simple act of stopping a mugging becoming the plight of helping free or imprison a persecuted mage, through various twists and turns in a single, seemingly simple quest-line. It also means that years later, in another act of the overall story, your choices in this seemingly small side-story, can have much larger implications. Combat on the other hand, is anything but subtle.



A well timed sword strike in Dragon Age 2 using one of your combat skills can easily cut through an enemy and in the process make them explode into a mess of body-parts and blood. Yes, explode, and yes, it looks ridiculous the first time you see it. But, the fluid and fast combat is both a definite and welcome improvement over the original. Although it brings a more hack-and-slash approach to the real-time combat, it does so whilst keeping the underlying complexity of the original intact. Numerous stats and skill tress, party tactics, and strategy still play a major role in the faster combat system that also features much improved animation, in addition to the sheer carnage and, well, blood splattering. With literally hundreds of various skills, buffs, and spells on offer, battles themselves do get quite intense and bombastic in their presentation. And although from a visual standpoint the game looks quite different to its predecessor, the core engine itself feels relatively unchanged, albeit looking and running a lot better. It’s still a very stat and strategy heavy game, allowing players to pause combat and queue up moves, or better yet spend considerable time micromanaging each party member’s overall strategy. Much like the original, this part of the game is executed exceptionally, allowing the micromanagement to be detailed to the point where commands such as, “when ally health is less than 50%, cast heal spell” and “when two enemies are within close proximity, cast a fireball spell”, are easily implemented. This should come as a relief to the more hardcore players out there as it allows battles to play out via little, or complete control of each action.

But if there is a criticism to be made, which could apply to virtually any recent Bioware RPG, it's in the linear level and quest design of the actual gameplay. This means that although Kirkwall feels like an actual city in the Dragon Age world, the disconnection between each area and their overall design never expanding beyond following simple paths, adversely affects the immersion. That and Kirkwall is built with a lot of brown and grey. This for a high-fantasy RPG, begins to affect the overall experience in a negative way. It also keeps a game that should feel epic and expansive in its exploration, well short of this mark. Which is a shame because Dragon Age 2 gets quite a lot of things right, with a story that is deeply engaging at multiple levels, and featuring a cast of supporting characters that develop over the course of the entire game. The story of becoming the champion of Kirkwall is great to be sure, but without the sense of momentum that comes with having to travel far and wide to stop an underlying threat, the end result feels just a little bit underwhelming. But on the plus side, you also fight a dragon at one point.