BioWare’s Most Divisive Sequel Still Has Defenders 15 Years On

Dragon Age II arrived in 2011 with a decade of story crammed into a single city and only 16 months of development behind it. BioWare Edmonton built the sequel to Dragon Age: Origins for PlayStation 3, PC, Mac and Xbox 360, and EA published it. The result is a game that swings hard at something new and stumbles on the way there. It earns a 7.6 out of 10.

Trailer, via Electronic Arts Archive.

Kirkwall, and the Champion Who Never Leaves

You play Hawke, a human mage, rogue or warrior who flees Ferelden as a refugee during the Fifth Blight and washes up in the city-state of Kirkwall. Over a turbulent decade of political and social conflict, Hawke becomes the city’s legendary Champion. The frame is a flashback: the dwarf rogue Varric Tethras (Brian Bloom) narrates Hawke’s “true story” to his interrogator, Cassandra Pentaghast (Miranda Raison), and he is an unreliable narrator. The story runs in three acts, each separated by a gap of nearly three years.

That structure is the boldest thing here. Nearly the entire game sits inside one city, which let BioWare reuse assets and stretch the length. The team took the idea from Eternal Darkness, where players watch a city change across the years. Kirkwall does change. It just never gets to be anywhere else.

Three Classes, Eight Companions, One Wheel

At the start you pick your class, and the three play differently enough to matter:

• Mage: wields a magical staff to cast spells
• Rogue: wields a dagger or a bow and arrow
• Warrior: wields a melee weapon in both hands, or with a shield

Combat keeps the shape of Origins but runs noticeably faster. You pause, issue commands to Hawke and each party member separately, and use talents like a warrior’s “Tremor” stun or a mage’s fireballs. Commands cannot be queued, though, so you wait for one to finish before issuing the next. The PC version lets you move the camera freely.

Companions run on AI you tune through the “Tactic” menu, setting stances and behaviors, like drinking a health potion when injured. You bring three at a time; the rest wait in their home bases around Kirkwall.

Dialogue uses a wheel of short responses that set Hawke’s tone. Depending on your choices, a companion comes to see Hawke as a friend or a rival.

Varric, Anders, Aveline, Merrill

The mandatory companions carry the game. Anders (Adam Howden) is a proud but mercurial mage and former Grey Warden set on defending Kirkwall’s mages from the Templars. Aveline Vallen (Joanna Roth) is a pragmatic, strict warrior who climbs the City Guard to lead it. Merrill (Eve Myles) is a soft-hearted but socially awkward Dalish elven mage, shunned by her clan over her obsession with a dangerous ancient artifact and her use of blood magic. One of Hawke’s two siblings can serve as a companion too.

Hawke is voiced by Nicholas Boulton or Jo Wyatt, and the sex, first name, appearance and class are all yours to set. You can import a saved game from Origins or pick a background at the starter menu, which changes the narrative.

Where the 16 Months Show

BioWare started Dragon Age II while Origins’s expansion Awakening was still in production. EA gave the team 16 months, which forced extended crunch and a significant number of cut quests. The studio also rebuilt the Eclipse Engine into Lycium for better visuals and lighting, and the game’s art style was inspired by movies. You can feel the trade.

The single-city setting is a real idea, and the decade-spanning frame gives the story a weight most RPGs never attempt. But a city reused to pad length is still a city reused, and the missing quests leave acts that move faster than they should.

This is the part worth watching: Dragon Age II is a better game than its reputation suggests and a smaller one than its ambition demands. The friend-or-rival system and the unreliable narrator are the strongest things BioWare put in it. The combat speed-up helps. The unqueueable commands do not.

Here is how the pieces rank:

1. The unreliable narrator and the three-act frame
2. The friend-or-rival companion system
3. The faster combat
4. The single-city setting, reused past its worth

What we have is a sequel that chose a sharp, strange structure and then ran out of time to fill it.

BioWare · Dragon Age II · EA · Hawke · Kirkwall · RPG review