Dragon Age: Origins



"Men and women from every race, warriors and mages, barbarians and kings... the Grey Wardens sacrificed everything to stem the tide of darkness... and prevailed."

—Duncan, head of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden

Dragon Age: Origins (previously known as Dragon Age) is a third-person role-playing game developed by BioWare. The game was released on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on November 3, 2009 in North America and November 6, 2009 in Europe. The PS3 version was planned to be released later in November, but BioWare has said they have been able to get the PS3 version to "our high standard of quality".

Dragon Age: Origins is a single-player only game that BioWare co-CEO Ray Muzyka describes as a "spiritual successor" to the Baldur's Gate series, though it is not based on Dungeons & Dragons rules or the Forgotten Realms setting. It utilizes a new BioWare-developed game engine named Eclipse. There is also a toolset for creation of fan-made content available for free download.

An expansion pack called Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening was released in March 2010 for all platforms. A full sequel, presently only known as Dragon Age 2, is tentatively expected in Q1, 2011.

Official Description
You are a Grey Warden, one of the last of a legendary order of guardians. With the return of an ancient foe and the kingdom engulfed in civil war, you have been chosen by fate to unite the shattered lands and slay the archdemon once and for all.

Plot
The player character—"the Warden"—will begin his/her journey with one of the six origin stories. The origin chosen determines who the Warden is prior to the main events of the game's story. By the same measure, they also change how NPCs (party and non-party) will react to the Warden. Elves, for example, are often viewed as second-class citizens.

Gameplay
The designers incorporated origin stories for each race and some classes in the game. For example, a dwarf who is a member of the noble cast will begin the game as part of the royal family in one of the dwarven cities, while a dwarf commoner will begin on the streets of the city. Origin stories provide an introduction to the game world and hours of game-play. People that the Warden meets during the origin story may reappear throughout the game, some of whom may be adversaries.

There is no tracking of alignment as in previous BioWare games, but the moral choices of the main character throughout the game will still affect the story. You may save the world whether you are good or evil, but the decisions that you make in the process will change the world around you deciding who will become king, for example, and affecting nations and races and their places in the world. These decisions will also influence your companions, and could ultimately lead to a companion deciding to leave your party if they do not agree with your approach.

As with the Baldur's Gate series, players will be able to issue orders to NPCs in real time or while the game is paused, and queue up actions such as spells and special attacks.

These features are confirmed:
 * Six unique origin stories, each with a story that affects the game as a whole.
 * Three base classes to choose from: rogue, warrior or mage.
 * Three playable races: dwarf, human or elf.
 * Party-based gameplay with the player's character, plus up to three other characters chosen from a larger pool during the game.
 * Combat is real-time pause-and-play tactical. What this means is that you select an enemy to begin attacking automatically, and at any point can pause the game to select commands.
 * The camera provides an over-the-shoulder viewpoint when zoomed in, or an isometric-style viewpoint when zoomed out, although on the console editions, zooming, and therefore the isometric-style viewpoint, is unavailable.
 * Spell interactions (eg. a blizzard spell can put out fires, and fire spells can ignite grease from a grease spell).
 * Depth-of-field effects which can be switched off via the options menu.

System Specs (PC)
Windows XP Minimum Specifications OS: Windows XP with SP3 CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.4Ghz or greater AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8Ghz or greater RAM: 4GB or more Video: ATI Radeon X850 128MB or greater NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB or greater DVD ROM (Physical copy) 20 GB HD space

Windows Vista Minimum Specifications OS: Windows Vista with SP1 CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.6Ghz or greater AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 2.2GHZ or greater RAM: 4 GB or more Video: ATI Radeon X1550 256MB or greater NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB or greater DVD ROM (Physical copy) 20 GB HD space

Recommended Specifications CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent RAM: 8 GB (Vista) or 6 GB (XP) Video: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater DVD ROM (Physical copy) 20 GB HD space

Toolset
BioWare released a "developer-grade" toolset (the same one that they used to make Dragon Age: Origins) to allow modification and customization of the game and the creation of new and unique stand-alone games.

Trivia

 * The developers have cited "realistic" fantasy fiction such as George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series and fantasy paintings by artists such as Frank Frazetta as inspiration for the game.
 * Dragon Age: Origins is the first BioWare game developed for the PlayStation 3.