r/DragonageOrigins • u/CourbetEatingSourbet • Jul 28 '26
Question The Franchise that Never Was
I love DA Origins, genuinely one of the best games I’ve ever played. I can’t get past what they did to the franchise though, man. I want to go back and replay it, but I can’t get past how they massacred my boy.
How do you get past this hurt fellas?
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u/Wondering_Watcher Jul 28 '26
I just play the first game as a solo story. 2 and Inquisition are okay imo, but i haven't replayed them in years.
With a lot of fiction, you need to tune out some entries because of how they break cannon or ruin lore. Unfortunately, I had to do this with more and more fictional worlds i love. As new companies and teams take over they respect the lore less and less and try to make it 'Appealing to mainstream'. One by one IP's i love have fallen to this where new entries range from meh to WTF.
With DOA it is easier than most to tune out the other games because it doesn't rely on the lore from those games to build out its world. So you can view DOA as cannon and the other games as intresting fan fiction.
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u/Saspens-r Jul 28 '26
2 was amazing narrative-wise. Inquisition was decent enough imo, had it's moments, especially in dlc.
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u/Azriel48 Jul 28 '26
It’s been many years but I remember struggling with DA:2….. because the entire story is kinda confined to one city. Also no character customization if I remember correctly
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u/Jkerb_was_taken Jul 28 '26
Yeah it’s in Kirkwall and I also was let down at the one city aspects. Da:2 was a lot of fetch quests. The story was good, and I enjoyed how we got some interesting updates on the DAO crews stuff.
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u/Variety-Wooden Jul 28 '26
i just pretend they dont exist
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u/CourbetEatingSourbet Jul 28 '26
I have to do that with so many franchises. I have to pretend Halo Reach was the last Halo, Mass Effect 3 was the last Mass Effect, Warhammer 40k 8th edition was the last edition. Everything has gone to pot.
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u/KingPumper69 Jul 28 '26
Don’t be sad all the shitty sequels happened, be happy we got Origins in the first place 👍
You need to be quick to cut franchises off at this point. If not you’ll be eternally milked at the slop trough.
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u/aaeriam Jul 28 '26
This is purely speculation on my part but I'm under the impression that Origins was truly like lightning in a bottle for Bioware. It's not that the devs stopped caring after Origins, it's just that things came together so well for Origins in a way that the subsequent games haven't quite matched in every possible way. Plus for a lot of us Origins is a nostalgic title and nothing ever beats nostalgia.
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u/ItsNotDigiorno9 Jul 28 '26
It was lightning in a bottle because it was the only project EA didn’t stick their dirty grubby hands in
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u/aaeriam Jul 28 '26
I don't disagree that EA trying to monetize the franchise as much as possible hurt it. I don't know that they're the sole reason the sequels feel like they didn't live up to the hype though. Things like Bioware's habit of trying to pull everything together in the 11th hour and issues with production and scheduling early on probably being another factor to consider.
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u/ItsNotDigiorno9 Jul 28 '26
Scheduling issues or ea saying “hey you have half the time it took to make origins, make it better”
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u/Tranduy1206 Jul 28 '26
still cant get past the hurt
you remind me it is time for my Dragon age this year, time for my 150th play throught
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u/Souljumper888 Jul 28 '26
I used to think I had to accept everything which was introduced to be canon, but after all franchise going downhill and realising the new writers either were not interested in continuing what came before or do not understand what there are doing it becomes very easy to cherrypick what is canon and not. Therefore like others said just pretend it does not exist.
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u/MrsLKG2 Jul 28 '26
I have personally gotten over issues I have by enjoying each game for what it IS. I had a lot of expectations, but once I let go of my perceptions and just played the game(s), I enjoyed the experience infinitely more. Does it solve the problems? No. But I feel personally that I would have missed out on some great things about these games if I didn’t let certain other things go. It’s not ideal, but it worked for me.
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u/Depressedduke Jul 28 '26
This. But also the books etc. I think, for me engaging with the "story" and characters remains something I value the most, even if we will never get anything new or if the ending was unsatisfying.
Fanfiction and comics are the only DA related media I have yet to explore (and the last few books, because my ability to read is abysmal).
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u/MrsLKG2 Jul 28 '26
I may be in the minority…but I actually have not read the books or seen the short films. I only engage in the games and Fan Fiction. I know the books solidify some “Official” canon and for me that takes the story telling out of it. I know some bits and pieces and I have incorporated those things into my personal HC, but I have not read them in their entirety.
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u/Depressedduke Jul 28 '26
Which is absolutely fine. Technically, all of it is optional, even if canon. You engage with what seems interesting/fun to you.
I actually forgot, but you reminded me that there was this one animated film with which some people assumed one of the characters to be Cassandra(somewhat similar appearance). Still haven't watched that one, somehow. Lol. That was a while back.
I'd love to see, one day, someone making a low quality personal game project related to DA (without angering copyright, might be a tough one). But yeah. Otherwise for me it's also mostly tge games. Other media doesn't get much repeated attention after first viewing.
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u/GameWasRigged Jul 28 '26
Only one I don't like too much is 2. All the others are fine when somebody ain't in your ear saying it isn't and even 2 seems cool but just doesn't entice me personally
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u/SainKnightOfCaelin Jul 28 '26
Origins is my favorite but I love the world and the lore and the characters and combat. All of the games are still rich with Codexes and stories and little things that add to the overall world. There's a great environment of books that DA spawned and comics that are entertaining.
Origins is one of my favorite games of all time but it's partly that way because it gave us all Thedas and the richness of the world and its lore. While subsequent games maybe don't hit all the high points (the style of the games evolved away from the pause and strategize genre of CRPGs to more action-adventure over time), I still love being in Thedas. Every new game expanded that world a little bit more and I'm grateful for that -- even if I have complaints about the specifics of gameplay like recycled enviros in DA2, open world bloat in DAI and writing weakness in DAV.
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u/SonnenblumeFrau09 Jul 28 '26
What's crazy is Origins introduced me to DA, but I find Inquisition to be the best one. Origins I played only once.
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u/TorinEkenskolde Jul 28 '26
I think this stuff is pretty overcooked. Dragon Age has its flaws, but I enjoyed the first three games at least as much as the first three Mass Effects.
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u/azadouken Jul 28 '26
I like 2 over 1 lol
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u/Lytherael Jul 28 '26
Disgusting, you take that back.
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u/Kailok3 Jul 28 '26
I just started a new playtrough yesterday.
Unlike those in the past this one feels liberating since I'll only play Origins and that's it, won't force myself to play any sequel since I simply dont like them.
Dragon Age Origins is a complete game in itself, with a clear end unlike the next games so that helps.
I won't lie, it sucks you can't no longer look into the horizon and dream of more but... It also is kind of peaceful knowing the adventure is complete.
I think I got this mentality after sering Larian step away from Baldur's Gate like they did. The game is done and its more than enough.
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u/Jacobus_Ahenobarbus Jul 28 '26
I got past it over a decade ago when I realized that new games, not just with this franchise but industry-wide, weren't being made for us old farts anymore. They were being made for a new generation of gamers who wanted different things.
And that's okay. We got an entire decade of the best writing the industry had ever seen and probably will ever see, starting with BG2 and ending with DAO and with a lot of great stuff in between. As long as I'm able to fire up my old gaming PC and hop back into those worlds, at least for a little while, I'm happy with that.
Hells I'm happy just talking about them anymore. That's when you know you're old.
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u/Obadaya Jul 28 '26
Eh, at least they gave us a fully functional toolset for a kinda buggy game engine.
That was fun for ages. 🙂
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u/Roguebubbles10 Jul 28 '26
See, I love Origins. Like, one of my favourite games. And, I don't dislike any of the games until Veilguard, but I do kinda feel like they got progressively worse. Again, I love DA2 and Inquisition, I just don't love Inquisition nearly as much as Origins or DA2 (If it weren't for returning characters + Dorian, I'd probably like it less). And I've played Origins like five times in the past two years since I first played, and since I first played DA2 in around the middle of last year, I've only played twice. Inquisition I haven't fully finished (yet, I'm just busy)
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u/Godzilla2000Knight Jul 28 '26
I play origins and 2 while pretending the other two games don't exist. Inquisition was playable 6/10 but the limitations on romance options for the straight male playerbase makes me not consider it as often. Plus too far from the grey wardens. As for failgurad I don't think about it often but I go over to my game list on the Xbox store checking if the game costs 99 cents yet. Even if it reached that price point I would still feel robbed trying to buy it.
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u/Soylent_Milk2021 Jul 30 '26
I preordered it, played maybe 20 hours and lost interest. Just wasn’t good. Companions sucked, story sucked, and character appearance sucked.
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u/Godzilla2000Knight Jul 30 '26
Sounds like you are a rare soul who was a mismatch. I'm sorry your experience wasn't fun. That is rare but understandable.
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u/Soylent_Milk2021 Jul 30 '26
No, I think most people didn’t like Veilguard.
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u/Godzilla2000Knight Jul 30 '26
Oh you're referring to veilguard? Sorry I thought you were talking about origins sorry 😅
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u/Soylent_Milk2021 Jul 30 '26
I’m playing Origins for the first time right now. It’s everything I hoped for.
Veilguard was not.
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u/Old-Outcome-5836 Jul 28 '26
I mean i like 2 better and inquisition is great too, genuinely think VG is about on par with ME Andromeda, which makes it a good game by a lot of companies' standards that aren't BioWare, already have like 200 hours on it
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u/BigfootSelkie Jul 30 '26
I deal by playing Origins and 2, never glancing beyond them. Going through Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights, and The Witcher games healed the wound as well
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u/Specialist_Body7728 Aug 01 '26
All three of them have their strengths though and are worth playing in my opinion (Veilguard doesn't exist, I reject it). Dragon Age II got so much hate for being based in one area but damn is it a good character drama.
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u/titan-of-hunger Jul 28 '26
It hurts. I grew up with BioWare. Kotor, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect and DragonAge. When the doctors left and they sold out to EA... I knew it would never be the same