It’s a decade on since the last Dragon Age game released and with the next instalment ‘Dragon Age: Dreadwolf’ being unveiled this Summer, it’s the perfect time to explore whether this franchise still supplies a good experience for the modern gamer.

I have completed a playthrough of all three dragon age games, exploring the franchise from start to finish having never played the first two before.

Thanks to the joy of backwards compatibility, I could play all three games on my Xbox Series X which was a surprisingly stable experience. 

That being said, this will certainly not be the case for everyone, my friend who played the games at the same time, nearly lost his entire save file after forty hours, only being saved thanks to reddit. 

First up is Dragon Age: Origins (DAO). This game launched in 2009 with Dragon Age: Awakening (A large DLC for the game) releasing in 2010. It was critically and publicly well received. 

Can you tell this is an older game? Yes. The game shows its age in nearly every department, the graphics are dated, the combat is simplistic and the menus are complex. If this all sounds like a real life horror experience then it may just be too dated for you. 

The game also has numerous bugs still present: from graphical glitches to crashes, the game has it all. Awakening in particular is swarmed with them. However, whilst they were irritating, none of them were game breaking. 

That being said, is this game also a masterwork of storytelling, characterisation and world building? Absolutely it is. I adored the story of this game from start to finish. It is well written, intriguing and captivating. 

The game starts by allowing you to pick one of six origins that alter the entire first few hours of the story with completely different openings. Even picking a different gender changes how your story begins. Why Bioware scrapped this in the sequelsI have no idea.

The characters and choices you make in origins carry through the entire rest of the game and you feel like a real citizen of Ferelden. It was impressive. I want more of this from all of my RPGs. 

You then, at the end of your opening, become a Grey Warden: heroes who combat the ferocious darkspawn whose goal it is to bring about the end of the world through an event known as a blight. Of course, a blight then starts and an archdemon emerges as soon as you join the order.

This throws you into your adventure, as you dart across the land attempting to recruit allies to your cause and stop this threat. Over the course of your journey you can recruit up to nine unique companions – and also Oghren.

Each companion feels like a real person with thoughts and goals. They will react to your decisions, the world around them and the story as you move through it. 

The secondary antagonist Teyrn Loghain is also incredibly well written and although he showed himself to be a villain, he also had sympathetic moments, an intriguing story and strong motivations. 

In general each of the characters in the game seem filled with life, and this carries over into all the DLC but especially Awakening.

Awakening was my favourite piece of dragon age content despite the bugs. It improved on all aspects of Origins, contained five new, interesting characters and Oghren again. It had base building and links very nicely into the second game which makes it worth playing through.

Overall, I had a great time with DAO. I loved the character I played and the people I met. The story comes to my mind easily and none of the key players in the game’s story are forgettable.

Now, onto Dragon Age II, which launched in 2011. This was not as critically well received but is still well liked by fans.

Dragon Age II (DAII) has you play as Hawke. Their origin is pre-written but you can choose their class, gender and look.

This idea of being more simplistic than Origins is a trend throughout many of the game’s systems. You have eight companions instead of ten, there are less skills for you to unlock and the entire game takes place in one city: Kirkwall.

However, this simplification allowed them to make the important things much stronger. From combat to graphics, the step up is very noticeable. Combat animations in particular are vastly improved. I also had a much more stable experience.

That being said, there are downsides to this. Due to the setting of the game, this seemed to give Bioware the green light to reuse their assets. When I say reuse, I mean reuse. You will fight in the same warehouse and building countless times across this game. You will also be facing exactly the same enemies. This wears thin by the game’s conclusion.

As you rise through the ranks of Kirkwall society you will not notice much change in the city, and there are a lot more less interesting characters littered throughout.

Where Bioware once again pulls it out of the bag, is with the companions you bring with you. Six out of the eight offer perfect case studies for what flawed characters should look like, with every companion having an engaging questline.

I adore the approval system of this game, instead of being approval or disapproval points, you have rival and friend points. Just because someone is your rival, doesn’t mean they hate you. They just respectfully disagree with you. 

It is innovative and made for a fresh perspective on decision making where you can take every companion on any mission and still get unique dialogue.

I also really enjoyed the story of DAII. It is split into three acts over a ten year time period.

Each act has its own threat, which ensured the game was well paced. Act Three feels like a conclusion to everything you have done in the game, with decisions made all the way back in Act One coming to fruition here. 

DAII offers a fun, dynamic experience. If you can push through the games reused assets and watered down skill trees, there’s a lot to love here. It feels less dated and more in line with the gaming experiences we receive now.

It still carries the Dragon Age charm with the characters, world and story continuing to impress. The game is also reasonably beginner friendly. You’ll naturally get more out of it if you have played DAO, but you could start with DAII if the negatives of the first game put you off.

It’s a great experience and one that I believe has fully stood the test of time and for me the game is my personal favourite.

Finally, there’s Dragon Age: Inquisition. This launched in 2014, and has been crowned the best of the bunch by many.

Inquisition (DAI) was my first Dragon Age. I played it at launch and had a blast with it. It is still a great game, but having played the others, I now feel like it tries too hard to be something that it isn’t.

To the game’s credit the environments are gorgeous, the story is well written and the core characters are great. However, its world and its side quests were a slog to get through for me.

The game is split into several open world zones which are packed full of side quests and collectibles. My problem with this has three prongs:

1. The zones themselves felt quite empty. You could ride around and not run into anything really interesting for quite a while. The larger maps especially suffer from this. 

2. Everything is marked on your map besides collectibles which also makes you less inclined to explore. It felt somehow very restrictive.

3. The side quests you do find are typically fetch quests of some description, with go and clear out this group of enemies thrown in… They were just tedious to complete.

This put a dampener on the experience for me as I was going from playing in two really fleshed out worlds with dynamic side quests to this one. It was disappointing.

However, once again the companions you can drag around the world are well-written and the main story missions are all memorable, exciting and fun. I had a great time with them. Decisions feel weighty and emotional too, at times even more so than the  previous games.

DAI does feel like a conclusion to the trilogy with decisions made in both the previous games factoring into what the Thedas in your game world looks like. 

The villain of the game is a standout however and feels like a true threat, which keeps the stakes consistently high throughout.

Overall, this game does a lot right, and if you are looking for a modern and unique experience, this is the one for you. It is very beginner friendly, and will explain the world and characters to you. It is definitely worth experiencing once.

However, if you have played the other two you may notice a lack of that Dragon Age charm which I have grown to love and the world feels less lived in compared to the games before.

I hope you can tell I’m a fan of this trilogy. The world and characters hold a place in my heart and I cannot wait to return to Thedas soon. 

If you have yet to play this series and you love RPGs like I do, this series holds up and still offers a great experience to the modern gamer. Although it may drag at times, you are rewarded with rich stories, complex characters and dynamic worlds to explore. 

Let us know your thoughts if you decide to delve into Thedas, and if you have played this trilogy then tell us if you agree with my thoughts in the comments.