Dragon Age 2 isn’t perfect, but it breaks the fantasy RPG mold in ways that matter

With the weight of the franchise’s first step upon its shoulders, Dragon Age: Origins is a game defined by its ambitions. In comparison, Dragon Age 2 feels like a game more shaped by its deceptions than anything else. Going into Origins, you know what kind of fantasy narrative you’re in for. Dragon Age 2 is much less straightforward. The holds its cards much closer to its chest and delivers a story more unconventional than many expected.

Hawke begins the game fleeing from the blight depicted in the previous game, spending his early years in the city of Kirkwall as a refugee. In that respect alone, he stands in stark contrast to Bioware’s other protagonists. If not for luck, he would just be another nameless casualty of the blight.

Hawke becomes Kirkwall’s chosen champion not birth or mystical prophecy but by merit. Dragon Age 2 is the story of an immigrant finding a new home, something depicted infrequently in games — especially fantasy role-playing ones of this kind. Over the decade that the game takes place, we actually get to see Hawke grow from someone ready to defend his family to someone who makes Kirkwall his home and extends it the same protection.

After tackling a more traditional heroes take in Origins, it’s genuinely refreshing for Bioware to try and explore new storytelling ground with DA2. Though the comparisons to Patrick Rothfuss’ Name of the Wind can definitely be made (particularly regarding the veiled manner with which Varric and Cassandra discuss Hawke’s future), there’s a lot of interesting narrative stuff happening below the surface of the game. Each companion has their own ties to the central narrative and whomever you prioritize Hawke’s relationship with serves to shape the story accordingly. Spend a lot of time with Isabella? The revelation that her actions brought the Qunari to Kirkwall play out as more significant. Spent a lot of time with Sebastian? Watch him emotionally crumble and become twisted by vengeance in the game’s final questline.

Dragon Age: Origins is almost filmic in structure. It’s a story that often evokes, both visually and musically, Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. Serious thought it gets — it’s one big fun adventure to stop the blight and save Ferelden that could theoretically be played out in a single sitting. Dragon Age 2 plays it differently. Hawke’s journey is one that is best understood through the lens of a ongoing TV series or even a tabletop gaming campaign. Adventure play out like an episode or session of a longer season-long narrative with companions with characters like Aveline or Fenris acting as guest stars. Each ‘era’ of his life is defined by variables and constants. Where Hawke is living, the concerns of his family and the state of Kirkwall itself fluctuate accordingly. The stakes of the story (“fighting for what’s yours”) never really change but the circumstances and status quo does with each timeskip.

That said, Dragon Age 2’s narrative is often only understood in retrospect. During your first playthrough, it feels like almost anything can happen and the game thrives off speculation. With unspoken catastrophe hanging over Hawke’s head, you’re forced to evaluate what plot points are critical and what are simply worldbuilding.

Looking back, however, it becomes much easier to see the dominoes as they fall — how each little event leads to the next. How Hawke’s first venture into the Deep Roads sets up Meredith’s fall from grace and how his second sets up the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Where an unknown tragedy drives you forward the first time through, your knowledge of exactly what is going to happen makes the second playthrough so much richer. This kind of narrative tension doesn’t exist in Dragon Age: Origins, nor many other games. It’s a shame it’s often overshadowed by the much-maligned shortcomings of Dragon Age 2.

The game’s greatest failing from a storytelling perspective is it’s third act. Where the first and second tell complete stories, the third and final stretch of the game sees Hawke more-or-less static as a character while he (and we) wait for the inevitable showdown between Kirkwall’s mage and templar factions.

Dragon Age 2 rushes to wrap things up, robbing players of the chance to take in anything about this era of Hawke’s life beyond it being the final one in the game. The first act begins and ends Hawke’s escape from life of poverty, the second sees him learn to use that status for the good of the city. The final act of the game has no such arc. It picks things up several years after the Qunari uprising but never makes good on the chance to really convey and explore how Kirkwall has changed in the time since. What’s more, the third act sees story loses that valuable unpredictability.

From the moment Orsino and Meredith quarrel in the courtyard, it’s clear where the story is going — and it’s going there too fast to appreciate. It all feels very inevitable.

I previously said that the core defining trait of the Dragon Age franchise is one of ambition, and that’s still very much the case with Dragon Age 2. However, this is also a game of deception. It veils the mechanics and direction of an unconventional story from players through the frame device and further hides the story of an immigrant refugee beneath the imagery and structure of traditional fantasy fare. It’s not your usual fantasy story — but that’s kind of the point.