Mark Darrah, the man who ran production on Dragon Age, has gone on TikTok and answered a simple question: if you could go back in time, what would you remove from each of the games and what would you add? The answers are blunt, funny, and exactly the kind of honesty fans have come to expect from him.
Darrah’s first target is Dragon Age: Origins. The game that started it all, and yet it still has a bad dream sequence. “I would be tempted to cut or dramatically reduce the dream sequence part from the Mage Tower,” he said. “It’s not very good content. It’s kind of filler. It was definitely done pretty fast in the end.”
He also wants to bring back a planned human origin. The Avvar origin, set in the Korcari Wilds, was a playable option that never made it out of development. “I would like to have another human origin,” he said, “but wow, what an expensive add.”
The Templar Problem
Dragon Age 2 is where Darrah targets the game’s central flaw. The game forces you to fight both sides of a war, no matter which faction you pick. If you side with the templars, you fight the mages. If you side with the mages, you fight the templars. Darrah sees the flaw clearly.
“Even if you side with Orsino and the Circle of Magi he wigs out from blood magic, proving Meredith and the templars right in believing the mages are ‘barely tethered nuclear bombs’ who do deserve ‘to be treated as non-humans,'” he explained.
His fix for Dragon Age 2 is modest. He wants a couple more levels to use, more variety in locations, and less gold in the main questline during act two. The idea was to encourage sidequesting to raise money for the expedition. Instead, the critical path gives you enough gold anyway, so the whole plan falls apart.
“I don’t know where I’d make this cut, but I’d be tempted to cut one of those crit-path missions just to get that back,” he said.
Bigger Than It Needs To Be
Dragon Age: Inquisition is the biggest game in the series, and Darrah thinks it shows. “I’d probably cut Hissing Wastes maybe or one of the big levels because it’s too big,” he said. “And the other thing I would change would be to dramatically reduce the amount of Power that you need to go on the crit-path missions. That’s there for not-super-great reasons, and I think you could cut it by 40 to 60% and the game would just be paced better.”
Darrah is convinced the pacing problem is worse.
Veilguard’s Keep
Veilguard is the expansion that added the Keep, and Darrah admits he pushed for it. “Veilguard, the thing that I would add is the Keep. I told them to. It wouldn’t take ‘that much’. I mean, it would.”
He also admits he has no idea what to remove from the expansion. “I don’t have a good answer to that one,” he said.
Darrah’s honesty is the whole point. He is not pretending these games were perfect. He is telling you exactly what went wrong and what he wished had stayed in the design.
The Pattern Across Four Games
Darrah’s answers are consistent. He wants to cut filler, expand playable content, and fix pacing problems. The pattern across all four games is the same:
| Game | Remove | Add |
|---|---|---|
| Origins | Dream sequence | Avvar origin |
| 2 | Templar/mage conflict | More levels, more locations |
| Inquisition | Hissing Wastes, Power requirements | None stated |
| Veilguard | None stated | The Keep |
Darrah’s candour is refreshing. He is not defending the games. He is describing them as they were made. That honesty carries weight because he knows the work intimately.
The pattern of his answers also tells us something about game development. Deadlines rush things. Ideas get cut. But the people who made the games remember what was lost and what should have stayed.
Darrah’s answers are a reminder that games are made by people, not by committees. The Keep was a request he made because he believed in it. The dream sequence was a mistake he admits openly. Both are part of the same story.
What The Answers Show
The takeaway is simple. Dragon Age is a great series with some rough edges. Darrah knows where they are. So do the fans. And now they have a clearer picture of why the games look the way they do.
Darrah’s honesty is the real story here. He is willing to admit mistakes and explain choices. That is rare in the industry, and it is exactly what makes him a favourite among fans.
The games are what they are. Darrah is not going back in time. But he is willing to tell you what he would have done differently.
Source material: “Former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah explains what he'd change about each game: 'It's kind of filler',” PC Gamer.
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