It’s Dragon Age Week, baby! My favourite fantasy gaming trilogy that I have absolutely, almost definitely, played to completion several times over and know like the back of my hand. Or do we use claws in the Dragon Age fandom? Either way, I know my Varrics from my Velanas, so it’s time to do what every fan worth their salt would do when given the opportunity, and that's to guess the entire trilogy’s narrative from just a handful of screenshots. As I said before, I'm an expert, so this should be easy.
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Dragon Age: Origins
Ah yes – this is Martha, everyone’s favourite grumpy lady who we all thought was evil but actually turns out to be good. I’m not sure why she’s carrying what appears to be a giant twiglet on her back and imagine she’s a bit chilly with only a few pieces of cloth covering up her cleavage, but I’d recognise this iconic character anywhere. She’s come to warn our hero ‘the originator’ – short for original gangster – that an evil dragon has risen from the dead and threatens to throw the world into disarray.
It’s a dragon! See, I knew the name was hinting at something. As you all remember, this poor fella has developed a terrible purple cough that ends up spewing an ancient curse across the land. It’s a pretty bad time, and it’s your job to find some Lemsip for the scaly elder god by venturing across the land with your homies. Only BioWare could come up with classic yarns like this.
One tragic side effect of the ancient dragon’s purple sniffles is how it forces all those who encounter it to erupt into a state of eternal dance. That one song talks about dancing till you’re dead, and that’s exactly what the poor citizens of Dragon Age: Origins will end up doing – unless the original gangster and friends are able to stop them in time. You can probably dance and romance everyone at the same time too. 2008 was a wild time.
Dogs are a gamer’s best friend, and this furry friend comes to save the day right when you need him most in Dragon Age: Origins. You see, they’re immune to the curse of eternal dance brought upon by the purple splooge and can use their clever canine ways to save the world. To be honest, they should have called it Dog Age: Origins, because they’re the real heroes of this deal. Gosh, I need to take a break after that. I’m all emotional. You can’t romance the dog though, not without some really weird mods anyway.
Dragon Age 2
This is the game everyone hates, or loves, or doesn’t mind at all. The fanbase for this trilogy is absolutely wild and I love them for it. I should know, since I’m the biggest fan out there.
As you can see from this first screenshot, everyone in Dragon Age 2 is much hornier, both literally and figuratively. With the Dragon from the last game now nursing himself in bed with a hot mug of Lemsip and some Mass Effect fanfiction, humanity has to feed their need for worldly destruction with a scrap or two in this fancy courtyard. The guy to the right is Greg – our gruff, perpetually covered in blood protagonist who is ready for a showdown.
The horniness continues as you take some bad mushrooms and find yourself tripping balls in the local tavern. All of a sudden everyone is wearing weird jewelry and BioWare Macaulay Culkin is loitering between you in the beer garden. This lady with the purple brain veins is evil too, adorned with the same dancing curse our dragon friend from the last game was trying to shake off. Are you with me so far? I hope so. I’m not sure where Greg has gone in this screenshot though, maybe I’m misremembering something.
THERE HE IS! I knew my bearded boy was around here somewhere. He’s still covered in blood, and so are his friends, since as we all know baths don’t exist in the world of Dragon Age. Maybe that explains why it’s so popular with gamers. Anyway, here they are informing the Council of Elves who never want to face the camera that a bomb has been planted in the local castle and it’s about to blow the fuck out of everything.
See, I told you there was a bomb.
Dragon Age: Inquisition
As you can tell from the name, Inquisition is all about inquiring about things, which is a subtle hint at all of the game’s dialogue and why I was so bad at paying attention to the story since I never played the first two games. Wait – I’m an expert, ignore that last part!
Inquisition begins with an adorable little smooch between two characters. It’s just guys being dudes, and what’s better than that? Anyway, the world of Dragon Age is finally at peace, so people are free to smooch one another without the fear of eternal dance or weird purple energy giving dragons a terrible case of the sniffles. Things are looking rosy. For now….
All is well until this homophobic wizard appears and vows to rid the world of cute boys and girls wanting to smooch. Even the glowy orb he’s holding is homophobic, and the fire behind him. He’s just a bad dude all around, so it’s your job to stop him with the power of friendship and dragons combined. I bet this is the sort of guy who moans on Twitter when games are political or whenever he has to play as a girl. Absolute weapon confirmed.
To rid the world of homophobic wizards, this elf man – simply known as Sandwich – uses green magic to bring queerness back to the world of Dragon Ageia, and it’s a resounding success until he turns against us to pursue his own evil dreams. He looks too dreamy to be trusted, so we were right to view him as an outsider, which is also the name of Inquisition’s best DLC. Nope, it definitely isn’t Trespasser.
With Sandwich off to cause trouble and the realm rid of homophobia once again, we have no choice but to retire to the tavern (naked, of course) and to drown our sorrows in mountains of ale. There are no boys around to smooch, which I’m sure is something BioWare will remedy in Dragon Age 4.
Goodness me, wasn’t that a wild ride? I hope you had fun reliving the epic trials and tribulations of Dragon Age alongside me. I might have missed some of the narrative’s finer moments, but I definitely nailed down its major beats with the utmost accuracy. What’s your favourite moment in the series? Be sure to let me know on Twitter and check out the rest of our Dragon Age Week coverage!
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