4 Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening came out during the tail end of an era where DLCs were usually called expansions, and they were like a new game of their own. It was even sold as a disk in its own box. None of the other Dragon Age games had an expansion of this size - though the major DLCs for Dragon Age: Inquisition do come close.
As a result, Awakening is worthy of its own entry on this list. It may be the smallest Dragon Age game, but it is no less impactful. Indeed, some players suspect that the story in Awakening, which involves meeting a darkspawn ex-Tevinter Magister like Corypheus, might have renewed importance when Dragon Age 4 comes out. Only time will tell!
3 Dragon Age 2
Dragon Age 2 took a different approach than its predecessor, Dragon Age: Origins; many of the maps are in Kirkwall (a city in the Free Marches), rather than allowing the player to explore multiple cities and cultures in the country.
The game was repeatedly critiqued by fans for using so many of the maps over and over again whenever the player left the city. On top of that, the player needs to revisit the same maps in almost every act for different side quests. It’s slightly smaller than Dragon Age: Origins.
DLC Content
Like all the Dragon Age games, some of the downloadable content was purely cosmetic or upgrades to your in-game gear.
DLCs for Dragon Age 2 that expand the story with significant new quests, characters, and/or and maps include:
The Exiled Prince introduced a new companion, Sebastian. Many players fawned over this religious pretty-boy but it didn’t add much in terms of maps.
The Black Emporium only adds one new map, and it’s a small one at that - this is an underground marketplace run by an arrogant, 400-year-old man who believes that someone as wealthy as himself shouldn’t have to die and has spent his life searching for something that will grant him immortality. In his time doing so, he has collected a number of magical items, which he’ll sell to you for a reasonable (?) price.
Mark of the Assassin is one of two significant additions to the size of Dragon Age 2. It follows a Qunari elf named Talis, played by Felicia Day, and her attempt to steal an ancient relic from an Orlesian estate. It adds several new maps for the player to explore as they try to infiltrate this mansion.
The final DLC for Dragon Age 2, Legacy, set up Dragon Age: Inquisition. However, it’s totally possible to play Inquisition without experiencing Dragon Age 2: Legacy; it wasn’t terribly clear that it was an epilogue - and an important one - to the story. In it, Hawke gets to explore more new maps outside of Kirkwall as they (accidentally) work to free a great evil - Corypheus.
2 Dragon Age: Origins
Dragon Age: Origins might feel small by some players’ contemporary standards, but many fans adore it for its unique areas. Origins had dense forests, sprawling cities, towering castles, and frustrating underground labyrinths.
As the first installment in the series, the base game of Dragon Age: Origins is surprisingly large. Several maps are big enough to compete with the other two games, such as the wide, underground Dwarven city of Orzammar.
Much of this game’s content was, like the others, cosmetic or armour related, but these DLCs arguably add more size than the DLCs do for any other Dragon Age game!
Warden’s Keep added a whole new region to the map, called “Soldier’s Peak.” This was once the base of operations for Wardens in Ferelden before an ancient king banned them from the country and destroyed it. Now, mysteries galore are left to unravel here.
The Stone prisoner also added a new place on your map: a small village named Honnleath that has been under relentless siege from the Darkspawn. On top of the new area to explore, players also received a new companion: a golem named Shale.
Ostagar is the fortress that the player arrives at after their Origin story, once they’ve been recruited by Duncan. It’s also the place that fell to the Darkspawn Army when Loghain called a retreat and abandoned the other Grey Wardens in battle. This DLC allows the player to return to what’s left of Ostagar and pay their respects to the dead. They can pick up armour and weapons from their dead allies (King Cailan and Duncan, for example) and learn more about why Loghain chose to retreat. It’s a fan favourite for the heartbreaking atmosphere generated simply by walking through this battlefield.
This is the first of several Dragon Age: Origins DLCs that don’t add to the main game; rather, the player creates a new, separate campaign with a new main character in order to experience them. As fans know, the Origins at the beginning of Dragon Age: Origins serve as the game’s prologue - a way to immerse you in the culture before throwing you into the conflict. Well, A Tale of Orzammar is a prologue to a prologue; it tells a story that occurs just before the Dwarf Noble Origin. You’ll explore Orzammar and the Deep Roads.
The Darkspawn Chronicles is a unique campaign because you’ll actually get to play as a Darkspawn - those zombie-like creatures you’ve been killing without a thought throughout the entirety of Dragon Age: Origins. It actually tells the story of an alternate timeline: if the player character had died during the Joining and Alistair was left to lead the forces during the Landsmeet on his own. You play through the Siege of Denerim again, but this time in different areas and patterns, and as a Darkspawn Vanguard following orders directly from the Archdemon.
The Leliana’s Song campaign is one in which you explore Leliana’s life as a young bard before she met the Warden in Lothering. You actually get to play as Leliana and meet her crew of ragtag adventurers. You’ll explore parts of Denerim you’ve never seen before!
The final two campaigns had the player controlling their original Warden, rather than a new character. In The Golems of Amgarrak, it’s because the Warden has been called to Orzammar at the request of a dwarven noble, Jerrik Dace; he’s leading an expedition to his ancestral home. (Fun fact! Jerrik’s expedition is being funded by a different dwarven family: House Tethras. Varric and Bartrand’s family name appears as far back as Origins.) You’ll get to explore a brand new part of the Deep Roads to reach the Amgarrak Thaig!
The final DLC for Origins (and the final campaign) finally answered the question players had been asking since the end of the game: where did Morrigan go? As you hunt down your witch and follow her path, you’ll revisit areas that you saw during Dragon Age: Origins’ campaign, now attempting to recover from the damage of the war.
1 Dragon Age Inquisition
It’s no surprise that Dragon Age: Inquisition is the biggest installment in the franchise! Mark Laidlaw, an executive producer on the game, told Gaming Bolt that the entirety of Dragon Age Origins could fit in Inquisition’s map of the Hinterlands. It allows the player to sight-see more of Thedas than any other Dragon Age game by opening up both the countries of Ferelden and Orlais for exploration. The game is often claimed to be about 42km squared.
Dragon Age: Inquisition had more substantial DLCs than Dragon Age 2 but, unfortunately, didn’t reach the heights of Dragon Age: Origins.
The Black Emporium was a DLC for Dragon Age 2 that was so successful that it was also added to Dragon Age: Inquisition. Just like its predecessor, it only adds one small map of the store which contained unique items for the player to purchase (if they could round up enough gold).
The Jaws of Hakkon DLC adds a whole new map on par with the others from the base game, called the Frostback Basin. There, the player meets the Avvar (a race that evolved from the earliest human settlers in Thedas to hunt and live in the treacherous mountains) and follows the trail of a past leader of the Inquisition: Inquisitor Ameridan. He mysteriously disappeared in the region many years ago, never to be heard from again.
The Descent also adds a brand new map to the world for you to explore, but it’s not a map in the traditional sense. Unlike others, it’s entirely underground in the Deep Roads. You’ll explore these dark caverns layer by layer as you push deeper into the Earth with your Dwarven allies. You’re on the search for the cause of earthquakes that have been shaking the land, and a dwarven Shaper, Valta, suggests it could be caused by Titans - ancient figures who speak to the Stone in dwarven mythology but who have been forgotten by the dwarves and become only a legend over time.
A bit like the campaign Witch Hunt for Dragon Age: Origins, Trespasser takes on the role of an epilogue to the game, explaining where your mage friend ran off to. Fans criticized BioWare heavily for hiding the game’s satisfying conclusion behind a paywall; they weren’t so bothered by Witch Hunt because, at that time, the money-grabbing of game companies (especially EA, now BioWare’s parent company) wasn’t such an issue. However, they found it hard to complain about the actual content of the DLC.
In it, you play as your own character visiting Orlais and the new Divine to discuss the fate of the Inquisition (now that there’s no longer a threat). It included a central hub in Orlais and a number of expansive maps to work through elsewhere during the story. Trespasser was well received for its fascinating story and for providing the ability to reconnect with your favourite characters after some time had passed in-world.
NEXT: Dragon Age: Orlesians Vs. Fereldans
