Unlike the other pieces of Dragon Age DLC, which present linear storylines in self-contained levels, Awakening attempts to replicate the structure of the main game, bringing a larger campaign made up of different questlines that the player can choose to tackle in whichever order they wish. Also unlike the other DLC, it was priced at a whopping forty dollars on release, which was almost as much as the main game, so it might as well have had something special going to justify it. Fourteen years ago, my gut told me it wasn't going to. It turns out those suspicions were not entirely unfounded.
The expansion is a direct sequel to the events of the main game. The Warden, now promoted to Warden-Commander, arrives in the fortress of Vigil's Keep within the arling of Amaranthine, which was granted to the Grey Wardens during the epilogue. What should be mere routine quickly spirals into chaos as the fortress is attacked by an army of darkspawn whose commander is somehow capable of human speech. The Warden-Commander now shuffles to repair Vigil's Keep as well as recruit new Grey Wardens to fight this new threat.
From a playtime standpoint alone, the expansion already compares disfavorably, clocking in at a quarter of the playtime of the main game, which should be a sign of how light on content it is. While one might (fairly) object to hours-per-dollar being used to evaluate a game, it's important to note that runtime, in a dense RPG such as Dragon Age, allows the writers to flesh out their characters and worlds much better, and it turns out they desperately needed that, because Awakening lacks both the setups and the cast of the original and struggles to get its main quest going.
The mystery of intelligent darkspawn is an enticing one, and it does present us with two fascinating characters from that faction, but the campaign rushes through the moments where they might have been developed, and it is only near the very end of the campaign that we're presented with their true purposes and with the nature and scale of the threat they represent: until then, we're mostly tasked with the administration of the arling and recruitment of new Grey Wardens, doing quests that, while fun, at least at first, seem unrelated to the darkspawn.
Even though the work as arlessa is far from the dramatic race against the clock we had before, it's possible to tell fascinating character-driven stories against a bureaucratic backdrop, but not only does it require a wealth of in-game events -- which again, the short runtime does not allow for -- strong characters with good chemistry are needed, and Awakening is lacking in the latter, and arguably the former as well.
Apart from Oghren, who has somehow become even more vile since Origins, the party is composed of entirely new characters, and it's a real mixed bag. Justice is the one standout, a spirit from the Fade trapped in the body of a Grey Warden against this will who's then forced to experience the world of mortals through the eyes of one. His points of view on the events of the game are fascinating and fresh, and his lack of knowledge about the real world organically creates conflicts of ideas with the rest of the party without him having to be a dick to them. Justice also experiences consistent growth throughout the game.
The rest are just... eh. Velanna and Sigurh are forgettable: there could have been something going for them, but at the breakneck pace of Awakening, there just wasn't enough time to flesh out their characters and they just end up as More Grey Wardens™. Likewise, Nathaniel is an interesting proposition for a character that needed more time to work out his conflicts with the Human Noble without seeming whiny -- my first impulse, which I had to reload a save to fix, was to execute him on the first meeting when he asked to be killed instead of conscripted.
Finally, Anders: his DA2 incarnation may not garner all the love in the world, but at least there, there's a better balance between the multiple facets of his character, and he displays a wider range of emotions. In Awakening, he spends most of his time playing the smartass, to a point where leaving him in the party for too long may drive one insane. It's interesting to see the inversion that will happen in DA2, where Justice will be the one that reads as shallow and single-minded, while Anders is more complex.
Either way, another point of the setting that gets lost due to the rushed storyline is the weight to the order of the Grey Wardens and their practices. The Right of Conscription gets waved around like it's nothing, and the Joining ritual loses both its mystery and seriousness, becoming as casual as inviting someone out for a darkspawn-flavored milkshake. The pacing also ruins points that Awakening itself tries to bring up, with lots of quests petering out before reaching a fulfilling conclusion. A few sidequests, like the Blight Orfans (sic) questline, make for great examples of this, but nothing can top the abysmal conclusion to the campaign, which sees the party turn their back to the charred corpse of the final boss immediately as it dies and... cuts straight to the ending slideshow.
The cherry on top are the bugs. Origins is far from a clean gaming experience and a trip down the wiki will quickly demonstrate that, but Awakening is on a whole other level: multiple pieces of equipment can be lost upon entering the DLC and entire questlines can just fall apart or be missed if the player dares do missions in certain orders or remove companions from the party when the game doesn't expect them to. By the end of my playthrough, three entire questlines were uncompletable, including Sigurh's character missions and the Vigil's Keep upgrades. And supposedly, even with the game done, its bugs are still with me, as the imported save can have other issues and misrepresent the playthrough.
There's a semblance of something good going on in Awakening, but engaging with it mostly brings disappointment over disappointment. In the end, it feels like a tacked-on, overpriced expansion to Dragon Age: Origins, lacking both the scale and weight of that game. Owners of the Ultimate Edition will enjoy one more silly adventure to take their Grey Warden on if they can tolerate the hurdles, but will probably forget about it shortly after. As for the people who paid full-price back in the day... Oof.
The expansion is a direct sequel to the events of the main game. The Warden, now promoted to Warden-Commander, arrives in the fortress of Vigil's Keep within the arling of Amaranthine, which was granted to the Grey Wardens during the epilogue. What should be mere routine quickly spirals into chaos as the fortress is attacked by an army of darkspawn whose commander is somehow capable of human speech. The Warden-Commander now shuffles to repair Vigil's Keep as well as recruit new Grey Wardens to fight this new threat.
From a playtime standpoint alone, the expansion already compares disfavorably, clocking in at a quarter of the playtime of the main game, which should be a sign of how light on content it is. While one might (fairly) object to hours-per-dollar being used to evaluate a game, it's important to note that runtime, in a dense RPG such as Dragon Age, allows the writers to flesh out their characters and worlds much better, and it turns out they desperately needed that, because Awakening lacks both the setups and the cast of the original and struggles to get its main quest going.
The mystery of intelligent darkspawn is an enticing one, and it does present us with two fascinating characters from that faction, but the campaign rushes through the moments where they might have been developed, and it is only near the very end of the campaign that we're presented with their true purposes and with the nature and scale of the threat they represent: until then, we're mostly tasked with the administration of the arling and recruitment of new Grey Wardens, doing quests that, while fun, at least at first, seem unrelated to the darkspawn.
Even though the work as arlessa is far from the dramatic race against the clock we had before, it's possible to tell fascinating character-driven stories against a bureaucratic backdrop, but not only does it require a wealth of in-game events -- which again, the short runtime does not allow for -- strong characters with good chemistry are needed, and Awakening is lacking in the latter, and arguably the former as well.
Apart from Oghren, who has somehow become even more vile since Origins, the party is composed of entirely new characters, and it's a real mixed bag. Justice is the one standout, a spirit from the Fade trapped in the body of a Grey Warden against this will who's then forced to experience the world of mortals through the eyes of one. His points of view on the events of the game are fascinating and fresh, and his lack of knowledge about the real world organically creates conflicts of ideas with the rest of the party without him having to be a dick to them. Justice also experiences consistent growth throughout the game.
The rest are just... eh. Velanna and Sigurh are forgettable: there could have been something going for them, but at the breakneck pace of Awakening, there just wasn't enough time to flesh out their characters and they just end up as More Grey Wardens™. Likewise, Nathaniel is an interesting proposition for a character that needed more time to work out his conflicts with the Human Noble without seeming whiny -- my first impulse, which I had to reload a save to fix, was to execute him on the first meeting when he asked to be killed instead of conscripted.
Finally, Anders: his DA2 incarnation may not garner all the love in the world, but at least there, there's a better balance between the multiple facets of his character, and he displays a wider range of emotions. In Awakening, he spends most of his time playing the smartass, to a point where leaving him in the party for too long may drive one insane. It's interesting to see the inversion that will happen in DA2, where Justice will be the one that reads as shallow and single-minded, while Anders is more complex.
Either way, another point of the setting that gets lost due to the rushed storyline is the weight to the order of the Grey Wardens and their practices. The Right of Conscription gets waved around like it's nothing, and the Joining ritual loses both its mystery and seriousness, becoming as casual as inviting someone out for a darkspawn-flavored milkshake. The pacing also ruins points that Awakening itself tries to bring up, with lots of quests petering out before reaching a fulfilling conclusion. A few sidequests, like the Blight Orfans (sic) questline, make for great examples of this, but nothing can top the abysmal conclusion to the campaign, which sees the party turn their back to the charred corpse of the final boss immediately as it dies and... cuts straight to the ending slideshow.
The cherry on top are the bugs. Origins is far from a clean gaming experience and a trip down the wiki will quickly demonstrate that, but Awakening is on a whole other level: multiple pieces of equipment can be lost upon entering the DLC and entire questlines can just fall apart or be missed if the player dares do missions in certain orders or remove companions from the party when the game doesn't expect them to. By the end of my playthrough, three entire questlines were uncompletable, including Sigurh's character missions and the Vigil's Keep upgrades. And supposedly, even with the game done, its bugs are still with me, as the imported save can have other issues and misrepresent the playthrough.
There's a semblance of something good going on in Awakening, but engaging with it mostly brings disappointment over disappointment. In the end, it feels like a tacked-on, overpriced expansion to Dragon Age: Origins, lacking both the scale and weight of that game. Owners of the Ultimate Edition will enjoy one more silly adventure to take their Grey Warden on if they can tolerate the hurdles, but will probably forget about it shortly after. As for the people who paid full-price back in the day... Oof.