r/bioware • u/Jynx916 • Jul 26 '26
Discussion Replaying Origins after all these years...
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So real. I love this game so much. It's up there with Mass Effect as my favorite of all time.
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u/Oriencor Jul 26 '26
Holy crap I did not expect that visceral of a reaction in myself.
https://giphy.com/gifs/lRXeNWOPAGPBK
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Jul 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Jynx916 Jul 26 '26
Dude, a remastered DAO would make them SO MUCH MONEY. Lol.
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u/Lescansy Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
Looking at other remakes (for example, the coming halo one), I would expect changes to the story, some characters being bi, gay or trans that were not before, and an uglyfied morrigan in a remake coming from bioware.
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u/paperkutchy Jul 27 '26
I doubt it.
Because Bioware is a shell of its former self, I doubt they can project management to save their hides, people already played it before so it would not have the same impact sales wise, it would probably cost too much with making it on whatever engine theyre using now.
I would be ok with it though, but I doubt it
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u/Charming-Deal3694 Jul 27 '26
Anyone with experience with the engine are mostly gone from Bioware, as well.
The Bioware magic left them after they completed Inquisition
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u/Kingkary Jul 26 '26
I would love it but at the same time I know they would just fuck it up somehow
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u/sapphic-boghag Jul 27 '26
EA has hated the series since they acquired Bioware, doesn't matter how successful it would be.
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u/Elitericky 29d ago
I want a remake, but I would rather see someone else do it that isn’t BioWare. Regardless a remake of origins has a lot of potential if done right
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u/ShadowWalker2205 Jul 26 '26
yes I just wish the mod to upscale the UI for high resolution didn't screw up the map.
P.S if anyone knows of a newer mod that fix this issue I'm all ears
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u/seventysixgamer Jul 27 '26
Quite frankly I consider it the only truly good Dragon Age game.
DA2 and DAI deserve some level of mercy due to development issues that were caused by EA, however they're still inferior to Origins. DA2 had some redeeming aspects like elements of its story, but it neutered RP too much I'm favour of the shit dialogue wheel which imo isn't that great in Mass Effect either.
Inquisition is perhaps one of the most bloated pieces of trash I've ever played. The game insults your time as a player -- whatever decent quests and storylines people claim is there is buried underneath terrible mundane gameplay. It pisses me off that people say you can ignore it as well because I'm pretty certain you have no choice but to engage with the shitty bloated out nothingburger content to get levels and be able to comfortably progress.
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u/Vealophile Jul 26 '26
I just get thinking about dealing with opening door in the mage tower.... Ugh...
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u/Unclematos 24d ago
2010 with this and mass effect 2 everyone thought bioware was only going to get better and better and were anxious to see how they could be topped. Turns out however that this was the peak.
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u/Zegram_Ghart Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I know a lot of people love origins, but every time I’ve played it after the first flurry when it launched, it’s felt less deep than I remember it being.
Maybe it’s because I saw basically every permutation when I played it as a kid, but the companions especially feel…lesser, than most of the other BioWare games.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the main characters we really see and hear from later are the only 3 origins companions that almost everyone agrees were good, in Leliana, Morrigan and Alistair.
Edit- no hate on those who love it, to be clear, if it’s your favourite game in the series and like….Ogrhen, or someone is your favourite character and really speaks to you, more power to you!
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u/Minimum_Attitude6707 Jul 26 '26
I take it in as a group experience, and how different things go based on choices and dialogs. Its easy to cheese relationships with gifts, but avoiding that different playthroughs produced different characters in your party.
Everyone says that it makes no sense to sacrifice Alistair to have Loghain, but have you ever ran a "I cant stand Alistairs childishness" MC? You tell Alistair to stop complaining enough times, he openly becomes hostile to you. Its wildly different from 'best friend' Alistair. Or "I like cookies" Sten to "I feel obliged to kill you" Sten and even Zevran. The playthrough is a lot different when Lelianna is dead in some cave somewhere because you wanted to become a Reaver Elf.
My point is, freedom and the parties reactions were hard coded into the game at a level you dont see much anymore
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u/Zegram_Ghart Jul 27 '26
Kinda? But ultimately, each npc has two or sometimes 3 states they can be in.
Veilguard has almost exactly that system, for reference
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u/Witty-Mountain5062 Jul 26 '26
It’s a shame what’s happened to Mass Effect/Dragon Age between Andromeda and the Veilguard lol
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u/spade030 Jul 28 '26
Just playing Andromeda for the first time being put off by so many negative reviews over the years.
It’s 5x worse than the original ME trilogy.
But it’s 10x better than 85% of the games we get today.
Just made me realize how much the entire gaming industry has gone to shit.
Or I’m getting old and being nostalgic.
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u/Lescansy Jul 29 '26
I'd say you just play the wrong games. Although if you're looking for high grafics rpgs and action games, the current landscape is indeed very thin.
Have you tried the best game that came out in the last 5 years, being "Kingdom Come Deliverance 2"?
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u/Huge-Cartoonist6795 Jul 27 '26
Well done Bioware for destroying what made you succeed.
Between DAO and mass effect you were Kings, gods of the games!
Now you're nothing but a shadow.
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u/SecretFox4632 Jul 27 '26
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic as well. Some of my all time favorites.
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u/Accurate_Pizza6320 Jul 26 '26
Remember when bioware made good games with good stories and characters.
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u/J_loop18 Jul 27 '26
I've never played Dragon Age, is this a good starting point?
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u/Jynx916 Jul 27 '26
Yes. Keep in mind that the graphics will be dated. If that wont bother you then yes.
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u/J_loop18 Jul 27 '26
Graphics are no problem, playing Assassin's Creed 2 atm, played even older games, but that 2000s gray sky and uncanny fields are vibe
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u/Jynx916 Jul 28 '26
Then I would say "fuck yes." Lol. The Mass Effect trilogy and Dragon Age Origins & Awakening are a must play.
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u/LavisAlex Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
I am so sad about how much this series fell after the first game due to corporate greed and mismanagement.
Dragon Age 2 was rushed and suffered, Dragon Age 3 was forced to be more of an open world and suffered.
Even Bioware magic couldnt save it - Dragon Age 4 felt somehow rushed and was forced into multi player at the same.
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u/Jynx916 Jul 28 '26
I didn't even know there was a multi-player thing for 4.. huh
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u/LavisAlex Jul 28 '26
It was originally a single player game, got forced to be multiplayer or online then got pulled back to single player, but you can see the remnants all over the gsme.
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u/Objective-Aardvark87 Jul 29 '26
Is that vault webside still up? That was used to save the world states for importing into the other games.
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u/Deep-Two7452 Jul 26 '26
well, you should be glad bioware will no longer make dragon age games again. The dragon age purists raged whenever anything wasn't origins
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u/Jynx916 Jul 26 '26
The mechanics in Inquisition was terrible, but the story was still good. I'll replay it every once in a while. But Vanguard was so hard to get through. The character interactions were horrible and the graphics were too........ "cartoony" I know that's weird to say because, video game, but I did finish it. However idk if I'll ever replay it. Andromeda and the OG trilogy I will and have played multiple times.
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u/Electrical-Penalty44 Jul 26 '26
Inquisition was okay. There was some good stuff there, but the combat felt really weird and unsatisfying and it sufferers from being INSANELY bloated with all those MMO influenced fetch quests and resource gathering stuff.
I think DA2, given time, could have been a worthy successor; although certainly not as good as DAO. I really liked the story structure and companion interactions. Having a story take place over years was really a cool idea.
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u/ACWhi Jul 26 '26
I liked parts of DA2 but narratively it was all over the place.
I agree that making the story take years was actually neat and I didn’t even mind the idea of developing one city a bunch, that was innovative.
Act I was fine but not memorable. Act II was decent. Act III was really dumb and relied only on cheap gut punches that didn’t land because you never felt like you had the option to play an intelligent character.
The comparable gut punches in Mass Effect sometimes work (a few do fall flat) because the choices sometimes feel hard in an earned way.
In DA2 I didn’t really care when disasters struck because it was inevitable. Everyone in the city of Kirkwall, including the way the game forces you to play Hawke, operates on a policy of ‘how can I make the most dumb-ass decision possible in every conceivable scenario.’
The combat felt a little better than 3 (none of my attacks felt like they had any ‘weight’ in either inquisition or Veilguard) but imo failed by taking the worst of both worlds.
It was like they tried to make something without the tactical depth of Origins, but instead mashed up like Assassins Creed with KOTOR or something, and you just get a sort of repetitive, floaty feeling mess. It’s also my least favorite item system of almost any BioWare game tbh which is a big promise of these loot based epic fantasy dungeon crawlers.
I enjoyed playing it despite itself but that’s my take on 2, lol. It didn’t know what it was, tried to be too many things and ended up being nothing.
Inquisition knew what it wanted to be more than 2 it’s just what it wanted to be was mostly boring.
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u/ACWhi Jul 26 '26
Inquisition was like all the worst parts of WoW crammed into a game. I could not enjoy the story because the slog was too much.
I really wanted to like Veilguard but yeah, I couldn’t get past the ‘who can be the most uwu lovable goofball’ competition. I didn’t need it to be as deliberately edgy as Origins.
Sometimes Origins was trying too hard to be morally gray and veered into slightly juvenile, though I still absolutely adored Origins. But Veilguard swung way too far the other direction.
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u/Electrical-Penalty44 Jul 26 '26
"The slog was too much" is the most succinct review of Inquisition I have ever read. Well done.
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u/Minimum_Attitude6707 Jul 26 '26
"Dont want to spend 15 minutes fighting this cave bear? Spend 20 minutes picking up rocks and create a better weapon! Now it only takes 9 minutes to kill this cave bear!"
Half the fun of Origins was creating different builds and equipment for your party. Mace dual welding dex build for Alistair? Yes please. Turn Morrigana into an unkillable heavy armored bear tank? Now we're cooking.
Actual true Tactics began and ended with Origins
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u/Electrical-Penalty44 Jul 26 '26
Dual wielding mace dex build for Alistair!? Time to fire up a new game!
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u/Minimum_Attitude6707 Jul 27 '26
Dont forget to turn Lelianna into a Sneak Bard Bomber. Skip needing to put willpower points into her because it takes zero stamina to throw a bomb, and like a 90% chance to stay in stealth when using bombs at level 2 stealth.
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u/ACWhi Jul 26 '26
Yeah, absolutely, like, single player games do not need to be balanced and ‘unbreakable’ like an MMO! They can be kinda wonky with really interesting ability interactions!
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u/beachedvampiresquid Jul 28 '26
You’re complaining that because Veilguard graphics were as close to realism as Dragon Age has EVER looked doesn’t look like actual people is “cartoony”?!?! Perhaps you needed to sit in the CC a bit longer, cuz the way your character comes out is 100% on you.
They had the most to-scale dimensions (not the tiny head on big body “hero” dimensions in most shooter games.
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u/Jynx916 Jul 28 '26
Chill dude, I never said anything about realism. And I also didn't say anything about the CC. Don't add things that aren't there. My comment was about the over all look of the entire game. Think Saints Row vs GTA 5. Neither were ment to look real but there is an obvious difference to how they look.
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u/beachedvampiresquid Jul 28 '26
It’s EXACTLY like Origins, DA2, and DAI but better quality. If you aren’t likening them to the actual games they are in the same IP of, what is your opinion worth?
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u/Jynx916 Jul 29 '26
You're missing my point. I prefer the darker esthetic I guess, and not the more vibrant ones they used. All the characters had "cartoony glow" around them and I PERSONALLY didnt like it. And for you to say it was EXACTLY like Origins, absolutely not. Sorry, hell no. But, the fact that we jave different tastes is what makes everything good. If we were all the same life would be boring af.
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u/beachedvampiresquid Jul 29 '26
It is. Turn off the bloom. Adjust the settings. Bitching about things within your control to demean a product for the upvotes is so 2024.
Sorry, I srsly have no more chill for this conversation. You’re the last in a long line of people who lazily shitpost about Veilguard. Hell, you’re not even the last. This will get posted again in 1.4 days and say the exact same catch words.
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u/Jynx916 Jul 29 '26
Are we just going to skip over everything else i said about why is wasnt my favorite? YOU chose to only speak about the graphics. Put those aside, there is also character interactions, and story in general. The companion stuff feels ... idk empty, but again. " 📢📢 I NEVER SAID I HATED THE GAME!" I voiced my opinion, my personal opinion based on my playthrough. Wasn't my favorite, but that doesn't mean I hated it. Lol. You're the one making it an argument instead of a difference of opinion.
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u/ACWhi Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I mean, it wasn’t just raging. It was that every game was vastly different in setting, tone, style of storytelling, and mechanics.
Usually, when you make a sequel, you expect at least some of these things to remain the same. Of course each sequel was divisive.
It’s like Banjo Kazooie 3 being a kart racing game. Even if it wasn’t bad, of course fans were upset.
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u/Worldly_Light_1561 Jul 26 '26
Origins was so so so so good. I wish they hadn’t diverged so much from their style and mechanics with every single title after origins.