Fifteen years on from its 2011 release, Dragon Age 2 remains the most interesting entry in the beloved RPG series. The demands of BioWare's parent company, Electronic Arts, necessitated a brutal development cycle of just eighteen months to get this game out the door, which began before Origins' Awakening expansion had even been shipped.
Though the resulting game is certainly flawed and polarised the community upon its release and in the years that followed, I firmly believe Dragon Age 2 has some of the best writing and character work in the series — something you can read about in my colleague Rhiannon's excellent interview with lead writer David Gaider. This isn't a coincidence either - the difficult circumstances under which Dragon Age 2 was developed facilitated a raw and unfiltered direction for the game's setting and narrative that may never have been chosen had BioWare been given more time.
Look Upon Your New Home
The majority of Dragon Age 2 takes place in the city of Kirkwall, a troubled place best known for its history of slavery, having the most oppressed mages in Thedas, alongside myriad eldritch horrors one can encounter beneath the City of Chains. It's a place where might equals right, and enough money can make any problem disappear.
Hawke arrives at Kirkwall with their family and fellow Fereldan Aveline Vallen in tow, refugees from the Fifth Blight that destroyed their home in Lothering. The objective from here is simple: elevate your family from poverty. It's a delightfully simple premise in a genre where every story is blown up to cosmic proportions. I completely understand why epic fantasy caters to hero's journey power fantasies, but there's something so interesting about experiencing a microcosm of a setting without world-shattering expectations being placed upon your character (for a while, anyway).
Kirkwall has a part to play here, too. BioWare had very little time to create new environments, so a lot of the game takes place on the cramped streets of the city itself. This was very controversial at release, but existing in one place for a long period of time creates a connection that you can't get from a game full of linear set-pieces and a sprawling open world. I knew my way around the city before long, and I met all of the quirky characters that embody daily life in Kirkwall.
It's a connection that The Veilguard and even Inquisition failed to cultivate. Your character isn't a vagabond; they're invested in their home, and that creates a simplicity in the narrative Dragon Age 2 never hesitates to take advantage of. You become the city's fixer, a problem solver for all of the deranged problems and political tensions Kirkwall faces.
Of course, Dragon Age 2 still had to advance the holistic narrative of the series and expand the lore established in Origins. Since Hawke couldn't physically go to these places, lore with wider series implications was introduced through other characters that wound up in Kirkwall. This was very adept work by Dragon Age 2's writing team - creating a diverse cast of companions who are thematically appropriate for the more grounded tone of Dragon Age 2, while also advancing the player's knowledge of Thedas.
Dysfunctional Family
While the quality of Dragon Age 2 as a whole is contentious, you won't find many fans of the series criticising the cast. The character writing in this game is fantastic: every character is a nuanced and multifaceted individual with their own motivations. Better yet, quite a few of them actively despise one another and aren’t afraid of expressing friction. The negative exchanges between companions make these characters feel all the more real, and add weight to the friendships formed between pairs that don't detest each other.
An example I've always enjoyed is that the character Fenris abhors magic because of his brutal upbringing as a slave to the Tevinter Imperium, a sort of fascist magic-fuelled society. Both Anders and Merrill consort with demons (or spirits if you want to use their terminology), and Fenris lets them know at every opportunity how little he thinks of them.
However, Hawke's sister Bethany is beloved by everyone. She is gentle, loyal and friendly to every member of the party regardless of their personal traumas. In one exchange between Fenris and Anders, the latter insists that not every mage is weak-willed. Fenris admits this is true, because "Bethany, for instance, was not weak."
Interactions like these add depth to each character. Bethany and Fenris are hardly close, but in this one line, you can see the respect that Fenris has for her; in other words, these characters are thinking about one another even when they aren't actively expressing their opinions in front of the player.
Bethany, Carver, Aveline, Varric, Merrill, Isabela, Anders, Fenris, Sebastian — these people comprise a very dysfunctional family, but their relationships feel real, and it's easy to see them working together despite their conflicting opinions and motivations.
It's easy to dunk on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, but the "team" dynamic that the writers tried so desperately to force in that game is accomplished to a far greater extent in Dragon Age 2 and with significantly more nuance.
In the end, it all comes back to stakes and tone. These characters' personal stories can flourish because they aren't forced to become heroes. There is no ludonarrative dissonance in the player taking time to focus on personal issues because Hawke doesn't need to save everyone - until the game's final missions.
Tonally, Dragon Age 2 manages to feel bleaker than the rest of the series, despite Origins, Inquisition and Veilguard dealing with the world being overrun with demons and/or blight, which is pretty grim in and of itself. This is because Kirkwall suffers from the same issues that our own world does: poverty, racism, oppression and humanity's need for purpose. The city grinds us down, overwhelming Hawke and their friends with endless personal tragedy at every turn. And yet, they persist - sometimes all you can do is keep going.
15 years on, I've not played another role-playing game with a cast and tone that complement each other so well. It's strange to say, but I'm almost glad that Dragon Age 2 was born in turmoil, because I don't think a well-polished, lengthy development cycle can produce something like it.
David Gaider Reflects On 15 Years Of Dragon Age 2 - A Fan-Favorite Story That Was The Team's First Draft
David Gaider talks us through a story that had to be written so quickly that his team had no time to doubt themselves.