Dragon Age 2 never played it safe — and that’s what made it great

There are many staples that make up a BioWare game. You have your legendary hero, one that you can shape to your liking with different background options. Next is your singular big bad, a gigantic, evil dragon or maybe an advanced machine race destined to wipe out all life in the galaxy. But the most important part of all: the chance at a happy ended earned through trial and tribulation.

For Dragon Age 2, the 2011 sequel to Dragon Age: Origins (which follows that formula to a T, by the way), BioWare saw those staples and effectively went, “lol fuck that.”

No longer would players get the choice to pick whether they were a human, elf, or dwarf. Instead, they take on the role of the human protagonist Hawke, a refugee who, with their family, plans to escape the darkspawn invasion introduced in Origins by fleeing to the city of Kirkwall in the Free Marches. One big bad? How about several across the span of seven years? Oh, you want a happy ending? Yeah, well, recalibrate your way of thinking because that’s not happening.

Initially called Dragon Age: Exodus in production, it was changed to Dragon Age 2 (presumably to highlight the game as a direct sequel to Origins (which it is not). before BioWare changed it to highlight 2 as a direct sequel (which it is not), the developers throwing out everything they knew worked in their previous games didn’t just stem from the team wanting to shake up its formula. It also came out of necessity: After initially planning for an expansion focusing on exploring the events of an exalted march on the city of Kirkwall, the Dragon Age team at BioWare was told they had 14 to 16 months of crunch to provide a full-fledged sequel to Origins instead.

“I sat down with [the Dragon Age team] near the beginning and said we’re going to have very little time to review all this,” Dragon Age creator and ex-BioWare developer David Gaider told TheGamer in a 2026 interview. “I’ll be lucky if I get to review your stuff, never mind other people. So I’m going to trust you. We’re going to measure twice, cut once. Once it’s cut, it’s done, and we’ll have to just accept the result.”

The result is, effectively, a first draft of a video game, and while there are certainly plenty of shortcomings from Dragon Age 2 — those pesky copy-and-paste environments for one thing — one of the first things you learn is that, no matter what choice you make, someone is bound to suffer. Even as you excitedly pick which class protagonist Hawke will be, BioWare is preparing you and Hawke for a fall.

Image: BioWare/Electronic Arts

While other Dragon Age protagonists have the chance to have a terrible end, Hawke’s fate throughout the entire journey of Dragon Age 2 is a tragedy from beginning to end. And the best part? You’ll enjoy every moment, as the victories you attain seem even sweeter after such terrible experiences. After all, it’s true what they say: it’s the journey, not the destination, that matters most.

Because Dragon Age 2 was so lightly edited and revamped, it freed BioWare from the chance of doing something Gaider admitted that BioWare is guilty of: overcorrecting in response to negative feedback. While Dragon Age 2 told a deeply personal story following Hawke and their life as a refugee, Inquisition once again thrust players into a “Chosen One” arc and a frustratingly grindy semi-open world that lacked the character of the tighter-knit city of Kirkwall, with its refuse-strewn alleys of Darktown or the snooty nobility scattered across Hightown. One of the biggest criticisms of the latest — and potentially final — Dragon Age game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, was how much it took a cautious approach with companions who, unlike impulsive Anders and fearless Aveline, weren’t afraid to challenge the player and be challenged in return.

The current state of Dragon Age is, unfortunately, a rather sad one. After EA either laid off or reassigned team members working on Dragon Age to other projects within EA, the future of BioWare’s fantasy series is currently uncertain. Yet despite this unfortunate turn for such a beloved franchise, it doesn’t negate the power of these stories. Fifteen years later, I’ll always be down to return to the raw and uncompromising tale of a city, and the tragic hero that is doomed to be unable to save it.