If Legacy was the good, and Exiled Prince was the bad, this is right in the middle.

In an attempt to do more cross-media outings, the people at Bioware got together with Felicia Day to create the Dragon Age Redemption live series, as well as this add-on, both of which released on the same day and all centering on an Elf character she conceived known as Tallis. I never watched Redemption and don't care to, and my experience with things Felicia Day was in is small, so how does this celebrity-driven new character fair under my circumstances? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh she's alright. While I think her quip-style nature (in fact this also goes for certain other comedic elements in this campaign's story) can be rather bad, and there's a weird fixation on getting to be Nice™ to her with some unnecessarily amount of romance options, I can't quite say she's super egregious and intrusive regardless. The crux of her dilemma centering on the Qun's Ben-Hassrath philosophy helps flesh both her and the faction out just a bit, she's an adequate enough Rogue to pull some muscle in combat, and I'll admit there were a handful of times she got me to chuckle. I was weary about this, but I think anyone trying to posit this as a Writer's Pet scenario are rather exaggerating the ordeal.

As for the actual content within, it's.... well it's just standard Bioware fair. Walk around a slice of Orlais thanks to the backdrop of Chateau Haine for a bit, participate in numerous events organized by Duke Prosper de Montford alongside offbeaten sidequesting, do more walking around and infiltrating to hit your main goal, go all in on the dungeon combat once caught, I can't exactly say much since all I experienced here isn't all that different than their prior outings. Well, there is an optional stealth section you can partake in, and it sure is a stealth section added onto a game that isn't known for stealth! Don't take all of this as a bad thing though, since this is once again released well after the base game's launch all the tweaks and considerations applied onto Legacy were still done here as well, so again, no stupidly elongated combat sequences and everything goes down as quickly as they should be. This was marked as a 2-4 hour endeavor on HowLongToBeat, and it's sure as hell felt like I spent 2-4 hours doing all of it. The optional Sky Horror encounter and the final bout against the Duke didn't feel all that gruesome, but they're still very much things that can trip you up if you aren't keeping on your toes and doing some level of thinking, which again, felt nice considering what the base game was like.

Usually when Bioware does their final add-on for a game, there's a sense of finality to it, but this is the rare time where the ending is just... that. It closes off suddenly, and not much else reinforces the type of mini-theme that this was about, or even the main theme. Mike Laidlaw did talk about how the work being done on Frostbite, and ostensibly the work for Inquisition, caused them to pull the plug on a big expansion they were tinkering away on, and rework some of its transitory essence into full-on plot points for that title, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was to be the final farewell to this entry. Whatever the case, I suppose it's fitting that this - and hell, this trio of add-ons as a whole - have perfectly encapsulated the rocky, rocky foundation of Dragon Age 2 succinctly and effectively.