2019-03-01_PC_Gamer

I intend to depart these pages in the
manner I came in: banging on about
BioWare. Given that the studio’s next
thing,Anthem, is nearly upon us, I
want to look back ten
years (!) to the last time
Canada’s finest
purveyors of kissing
games launched a
new universe.
Dragon Age: Origins
marked the return of
classic CRPGs before it
became a trend. Where
those games strove to resurrect the
era of Baldur’s Gate and Planescape
as-was, however, Dragon Age
wrestled with updating the formula
and making it palatable to a late-’00s
audience. It took BioWare the better
part of a decade to pull it all together,
and you can see the benefit of that
effort not just in the colossal amount
of worldbuilding that Origins involves

R

eader, it’s time. After
seven-and-a-bit years
spent scribbling for
PC Gamer, I’m
hauling myself over
the fence into game development.
This is my last They’re Back, and
the last thing I’ll contribute to the
magazine for the foreseeable.

but that every conversation is fully

voiced, every key moment illustrated

• albeit clunkily – with a cutscene.
  EA had absolutely no idea what to
  do with it, giving this fantasy epic a
  tacky tribal tattoo, hoping people
  would mistake it for God of War, and
  flinging it out the door. And yet
  Origins was as tremendous success,
  because it deserved to be – it was a
  labour of love, and audiences respond
  to that, and moreover it was
  unusually generous about who it lets
  you become, befriend, and, because
  this is BioWare, bonk.
  Its six origin stories
  are your entry point to
  a deep and well-
  conceived setting. It
  wears the influence of
  Game of Thrones
  openly before that was
  a thing and sustains the
  feeling of cracking
  open a massive fantasy novel and
  watching a world spill out. Today
  those origin stories are the start of a
  thread that spans three games and
  multiple expansions. Looking back at
  the beginning of the series from
  Dragon Age: Inquisition’s final
  expansion, Trespasser, gives me a
  kind of happy vertigo – and all of this
  is waiting for you! Your computer can

summon a massive interactive fantasy

novel on demand! I find this very

comforting, like knowing that if all

else goes south I can always go home.

BYGONE AGE

And, remarkably, it’s not over yet – as

Mass Effect struggles to carve out a

future for itself, its nerdier sibling is

still powering along. I find this

comforting, too, but for a different

reason: I suspect we’re not going to

get another new series like this out of

BioWare. The studio has simply

changed too much under EA’s

auspices. There’s nothing wrong with

that, necessarily, but I can’t imagine

nu-BioWare taking ten years to figure

out how wizards work. So let’s make

sure we enjoy the time when it did.

I’d recommend Origins to anybody

with space in their hearts for a

overlong, daft, good-natured, weepy,

horny, off-brown adventure. I loved it

when I started writing for PCG, and I

still love it 94 issues later. 94, huh?

That’s an auspicious number.

NEED TO KNOW

WHAT IS IT?

A story-heavy tactical

RPG with the feel of a

well-loved fantasy

paperback.

EXPECT TO PAY

£15

DEVELOPER

BioWare

PUBLISHER

EA

REVIEWED ON

Core i7-6700K,

GTX 980. 16GB RAM

MULTIPLAYER

Tumblr

LINK

http://www.ea.com/

games/dragon-age

94

Arguably the most

BioWare BioWare game

that was ever BioWared.

That’s a good thing, by

the way.

VERDICT

NOT FADE AWAY

LovingDRAGON AGE: ORIGINS night and day

I suspect we’re

not going to get

another new

series like this

out of BioWare

OLD GAMES REVISITEDby Chris Thursten

THEY’RE BACK

Deep Roads, take

me home.

Please, no

king shaming.