Have you ever wondered, if you’re a Dragon Age fan, what it would be like to play as the Darkspawn? To be in his or her mind and control one as they try to take over the world and just let the Blight spread? Yes? Than this DLC is just perfect for you. Keep reading to find out why.
Taking place in an alternative universe where the Hero of Ferelden doesn’t exist, it’s up to you, leader of the Darkspawn hoard to make sure that the remaining hero’s don’t kill the Archdemon. You’ll play as some Darkspawn who has been chosen to help the Archdemon spread the blight by taking out every last person who can effectively kill the Archdemon. In order to do this you’ll have to fight through the final battle of Ferelden and defeat everyone standing in your way. In order to do this you’ll recruit other Darkspawn to help you on your journey.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the best DLC that goes along with this game. I really don’t care about the Darkspawn other than the fact that they have to be defeated. Expect for the one in Awakening, these are mindless creatures who can’t really think for themselves and it’s a pain in the ass to actually play as one. I like the idea of the “Sliding Door” effect, meaning that if The Hero becomes the Hero, things play out this way, but if the Hero doesn’t become the Hero, things can play out this way but it just doesn’t work for this DLC and if you’re lucky you’ll get an hour of playtime out of it.
The playability of this DLC is the same as it is the main game. You’ll use kind of a turn based mode of play and be able to control your hoard of Darkspawn as you see fit taking out enemy after enemy until you reach your final goal and put an end to Alistair once and for all. Other than that the DLC ran smoothly and there were no bugs or glitches that were game breaking.
The graphics, which weren’t all that great in the main game, are the same in this DLC. They aren’t all that great and if you compare them to the standards now, they no way hold up to anything that you play. Sadly this is one of the downsides to Dragon Age: Origins. It’s a great game with a great story, but the graphics are just absolute crap.
Of course there are trophies for this DLC. What would be a DLC without trophies? There are a total of three trophies, one of which is story related and the other two are highly missable. While it’s possible to get Ogre’s Keeper on your first playthrough it was Enthralling that held me back from completely finishing this DLC. I don’t know how many times I had to reload an old save because something got messed up or one of my Darkspawn died in the process making me have to start all over again or just go back to my last save. Seriously annoying.
One of two Dragon Age games that does not have multiplayer. I’m sure that the future Dragon Age games, if there are future Dragon Age games, will have multiplayer so enjoy the multiplayer free ones while you can.
Overall I give this DLC a 1 out of 5.
What’s Great:
+ You get to play as a Darkspawn and take out all those annoying characters that you hated throughout the game and even have to takeout those you liked.
+ Alternative universe story idea.
What’s Not So Great:
– Boring as you play a mindless creature who can’t even control his own actions.
– Very short with very little replayability factor. If you’re playing this DLC just to play it’ll take you under an hour.
– Graphics that don’t hold up to today’s standards and never really held up to the old standards when the game was originally released.
If you have this DLC with the Game of the Year edition of Dragon Age: Origins that comes with everything including the expansion, then you’ll probably want to play this one. If not, I would suggest skipping it as it’s a total waste of the time and everyone knows that this will never happen because the Hero of Ferelden cannot be stopped. While it was a good attempt at showing off an alternate universe, it just didn’t work out.
1 Broke Gamer Girl 