BioWare is a weird company. They spent a decade being the gold standard for storytelling, then they kind of lost their way with Anthem, and now everyone is looking at The Veilguard to see if the old magic is actually still there. But if you look at all the dragon age games as a single timeline, you realize something pretty fast. This isn't a consistent series. It’s not like The Elder Scrolls where you basically know the vibe is "go anywhere, do anything."
Dragon Age is a series in a constant identity crisis.
Every single entry feels like it was made by a different studio trying to solve a different problem. You’ve got the tactical, grimdark roots of the first game, the recycled but hyper-personal streets of the second, and the massive, "please-like-us-Skyrim-fans" world of the third. It’s a mess. But honestly? It’s a beautiful mess because the world of Thedas is one of the few fantasy settings that actually feels like it has real, messy politics rather than just "good vs. evil."
The Grime of Dragon Age: Origins
People talk about Dragon Age: Origins like it’s this sacred relic. It kind of is. Released in 2009, it was marketed as a "spiritual successor" to Baldur’s Gate, but it felt much heavier. It was brown. It was bloody. You’d finish a fight with a few giant spiders and your entire party would be caked in dark red gore during the following heartfelt conversation about their childhood traumas.
The "Origins" part wasn't just a subtitle. Depending on whether you chose a City Elf, a Dwarf Commoner, or a Human Noble, the first two hours of your game were completely different. This wasn't just flavor text. If you played as a City Elf, the way humans treated you in the capital city of Denerim felt genuinely hostile. You weren't just a hero; you were a member of a marginalized group trying to save a world that mostly hated you.
The combat was slow. Some people hate it now. You had to pause, position your mages, set up "tactics" (basically if-then programming for your AI), and pray your tank didn't get overwhelmed. It was crunchy. It was difficult. Most importantly, it introduced us to Morrigan and Alistair, two characters who basically set the bar for party banter for the next fifteen years.
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The Dragon Age II Experiment
Then came Dragon Age II. This is the polarizing one. EA rushed BioWare. They had something like 14 to 16 months to make a sequel to a massive RPG. That’s an impossible timeline. To make it work, they cut the "save the world" plot and shrunk everything down to one city: Kirkwall.
You play as Hawke. You aren't a Grey Warden. You're a refugee.
A lot of fans felt betrayed because the game reused the same three cave maps for every single quest. You’d walk into a warehouse for a quest, then go to a "secret cave" for another, and realize it was the exact same warehouse with a different door blocked off. It was blatant. It was frustrating.
But if you can get past the repeated environments, the writing is arguably the best in the series. It’s a tragedy. It’s about how a city falls apart over a decade because of religious extremism and the fear of magic. It gave us Varric Tethras, the chest-hair-flaunting dwarf storyteller who became the glue of the entire franchise. It was also the first time the combat felt "fast." Hawke would flip across the screen and explode enemies into chunks of meat with a single strike. It was a massive departure, and even now, the fanbase is split on whether it was a brilliant character study or a rushed disaster.
Inquisition and the Open World Bloat
By the time Dragon Age: Inquisition arrived in 2014, the "Open World" fever had hit the industry. Hard. BioWare saw the success of Skyrim and decided that bigger was better. Inquisition is huge. It’s stunning. It won Game of the Year.
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But it’s also full of "Power" grinding.
You can’t just play the story. You have to go to the Hinterlands—a zone so big and full of meaningless fetch quests that developers literally had to tell players to "Leave the Hinterlands" on social media because people were burning out before they even saw the title card.
The game shifted the focus to the Inquisition, a massive political organization you lead. You’re the Inquisitor. You have a throne. You judge people. It felt grand, but some of the intimacy of the previous games got lost in the scale. However, the Trespasser DLC is essential. It’s not just extra content; it’s the actual ending of the game. It sets up Solas—your elven companion who turns out to be a god-like figure planning to tear down the world—as the primary antagonist for the future.
The Core Themes You Might Have Missed
Across all the dragon age games, there are a few things that never change, regardless of whether the combat is tactical or action-oriented.
- The Mages vs. Templars Conflict: This isn't a simple "freedom vs. security" debate. Mages in Thedas can literally be possessed by demons if they sneeze wrong. Templars are essentially drug-addicted jailers. There is no right answer, and the games constantly force you to pick a side where both sides are kind of terrible.
- The Fade: The spirit realm is a constant presence. It’s where dreams happen and where demons live. It’s one of the most unique "other dimensions" in gaming because it’s shaped by human (and elven/dwarven) emotion.
- The Chantry: Most fantasy games have a "church," but the Chantry in Dragon Age feels like a real institution with bureaucracy, internal schisms, and a problematic history of colonization.
Managing the Save Files
One of the coolest, and most annoying, things about this series is how your choices carry over. Since we’ve moved through three console generations, you can’t just "import a save" from your Xbox 360 to your PS5.
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BioWare built the Dragon Age Keep.
It’s a web-based tool where you manually check boxes for every decision you made. Did you kill the Architect in Awakening? Did you romance Isabela? Who is the ruler of Ferelden? You plug these in, and it generates a world state for Inquisition. It’s a bit of a chore, but seeing a character you saved ten years ago show up as a jaded NPC in a later game is a specific kind of dopamine hit that only BioWare really nails.
Getting Started in 2026
If you’re looking to get into the series now, don't feel like you have to play them in order if you're sensitive to "old game jank."
- Start with Origins if you love Dungeons & Dragons, deep lore, and don't mind dated graphics. It’s the best world-building in the business.
- Start with Inquisition if you want something that looks modern and you enjoy the "Ubisoft-style" map clearing loop.
- Skip Dragon Age II? Don't. It’s short. Play it on easy just for the story if you have to, but don't skip it. The context it provides for the Mage-Templar war is too important to miss.
The reality of all the dragon age games is that they are deeply flawed and deeply ambitious. They try to talk about racism, religion, and the burden of leadership while also letting you fight high dragons and flirt with your party members. There’s a reason people are still obsessed with these characters years later. It’s because the games treat the world like it’s actually changing. People age. Governments fall. Heroes disappear.
Actionable Steps for New Players
To get the most out of the franchise without hitting a wall of frustration, follow these specific steps:
- Install the 4GB Patch for Origins: If you’re playing on PC, the game will crash in Denerim without it. It’s an old 32-bit executable that can’t handle modern RAM without a little help.
- Ignore the "Reqisition" Quests in Inquisition: These are infinite, procedural fetch quests that give you almost no reward. They are the biggest trap for completionists and will make you hate the game.
- Read the Codex: I know, reading in games is a chore. But the "Unreliable Narrator" is a huge part of Dragon Age. Different codex entries will tell you different versions of the same historical event based on who wrote them. It’s how you find the real truth.
- Use the Dragon Age Keep Early: Don't wait until you finish the old games to look at the Keep. Use it to see what kind of choices are possible; it might actually change how you play the earlier titles.
- Focus on "The Descent" and "Trespasser": If you're playing Inquisition, these two DLCs contain the most important lore revelations regarding the origin of the Dwarves and the true nature of the Elven gods.
The series is a sprawling, messy epic. It doesn't always work, but when it does, it's the most reactive and politically interesting fantasy world in the medium. Stick with the characters, ignore the filler, and you'll see why the fans are so defensive about it.