HEAD BLOG

After 60+ hours of game play I came to the end of Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O) on the Xbox360 by Bioware. As with most games I have greatly enjoyed I was left with a slight sense of disappointment that it was over, but this game also left me with an emotion that game endings have not elicited in me before – excitement. Let me explain…

DA:O is a game based in European myth and fantasy but is really a game about choice. It is the game that Fable 2 promised to be and failed to deliver but perhaps with less whimsy. From the beginning you are presented with a large range of customisable options for your main character. You have freedom to define your specialist class (warrior, mage, etc.) and the appearance of your character is pretty much up to you (as an aside on this, I noticed that you were free to choose from a range of skintones for your character, but most NPC’s in the game were white – it would have been nice to see some more diversity within the game itself). There are six different origin stories for your character to begin the game from – each of these origins will significantly influence the choices available to you during the game.

Now, here is the thing about choice. Many video games (like Fable 2) have said they would offer it, but it very rarely has an impact on the game itself. In video games choices are limited to the extremes of morality – would you like to care for these orphan kittens or would you like to throw them in a river to drown? You are hardly ever presented with options that inhabit a morally grey area. More than that, these choices often have very little impact on the story narrative itself. You can be as evil or as good as you want and there are no direct consequences apart from perhaps a change in NPC dialogue. The choices do not influence the gameplay and you are still playing a linear narrative. Choices are meant to make games feel as if we are creating our own adventure instead of playing out a predetermined path. I had not yet played a game that makes me feel like that until I played DA:O.

DA:O offers the feeling of genuine choice when traveling through the lands of Ferelden. Of  course, there are times when I am stuck to the story path but I was not limited to having only 2 ways of moving the game forward (good vs. evil). I was presented with moral dilemmas that actually made me pause to think. Sometimes, all the options I was presented had persuasive good points and points and I really had to decide what I thought would be best either for myself, my companions or the world my characters inhabited. This also applied to conversations I had with many of the world’s NPC’s. These choices would then change the world of the game around me. Conversations may become closed off if I pissed someone off, new quests might open if I made a decision in favour of one person over another and companion characters might leave my party for good if I made certain decisions. Sometimes, I couldn’t even guess what the outcome may be so I was forced to rely on what I thought was the best thing to do, rather than try to second guess the game to make sure things went in my favour. Because of this I really felt like I was carving my own path through the game and the adventure was unique to me.

All this relates to the end of the game. The epilogue quite clearly shows you how your actions and decisions have changed the world of Ferelden for good. Depending on how you play the game there is a diverse set of outcomes that will likely vary from player to player. Now, this is what excited me. Bioware has another game called Mass Effect that is also based on these principles of choice but in a sci-fi rather than fantasy setting. Mass Effect 2 is due to be released in 2010 and will use the players Mass Effect save in order to continue the story. I can already see that the DA:O epilogue will have a significant impact on the sequel I am sure Bioware are planning to make. This is why the game made me feel like I was left on a cliffhanger – the story, MY story is not yet over. It will continue and my previous decisions will impact on what happens. I am left to wonder if that demon I let go in exchange for 25 soverighns will come back to haunt me (I needed the money at the time!) or if it really was a good idea to get romantically involved with a certain character. I want to know!

DA:O has not promised me choice but then denied me the ability to shape my own story. It made me feel like I was having an adventure. I am sure that in 20 years (maybe even 5 years!) the choices presented by Bioware in DA:O will look limited and trite in comparison to the games being produced, but I really think that this game is one of the first to understand what choice really means. If you look closely, sure, DA:O still moved my character down a pre-planned narrative but it was up to me how I got there. I think this is where the future lies. I could go back and replay DA:O with a different character and different choices to see where I end up, but I don’t want to. I played this game by deciding to do what I thought was best. I look forward to finding out the consequences to that.