Dragon Age: Inquisition - DLC.

Original Release: Mar. 24 - Aug. 29, 2015. Jaws of Hakkon released for PC, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, XBox 360, XBox One. Descent and Trespasser released for PC, Playstation 4, XBox One. Version Reviewed: Playstation 4, 2015.


INTRODUCTION:

Like its predecessors, Dragon Age: Inquisition released multiple pieces of story DLC. Unlike them, however, only the first of the three was released for all platforms. Gamers who played on a Playstation 3 or an XBox 360 were denied the latter two expansions... which in Trespasser's case, arguably denied them the game's true ending. An odd choice, given that neither DLC seemed to have technical demands that outstripped those of the base game; if the rest of Inquisition could run, albeit with long load times, on an XBox 360, then surely those DLC packs could have.

In any case, as with the previous releases, I will break down the three expansions individually - though for best value, gamers would be advised to just pick up the Game of the Year edition that includes the base game along with a code to download all expansions.

A quest for the first Inquisitor leads to startling revelations.

JAWS OF HAKKON:
Release Date: March 24, 2015

A scholar uncovers clues in the Frostback Basin regarding the long-lost resting place of Ameridan, the first Inquisitor. The party arrives expecting a hunt for academic research. Instead, they find themselves caught between two groups of Avvar: the comparatively peaceful tribe at Stone-Bear Hold, and the "Jaws of Hakkon." At first, the Hakkonites seem to be just particularly aggressive bandits. Soon, however, the Inquisitor learns that the group plans to awaken an ancient evil in order to launch a full-scale invasion!

There's a lot that's good about The Jaws of Hakkon. The Frostback Basin is a well-designed area, with a terrific contrast of environments. The quests at Stone Bear-Hold are engaging, and the conflict with the Hakkonites makes for a reasonably interesting mini-campaign.

Unfortunately, it takes a long time to really get into that conflict, with about half of the DLC's 8 - 10 hours (too long, by the way) spent in the usual pursuit of collectibles and side quests. Engagement is further hampered by Bioware's decision to present almost all of the story only through the game engine. You would expect to get a cut scene when arriving in Stone Bear-Hold, or when first speaking with the chieftain there. You would be wrong - You are left to watch these interactions, no matter how long, from a distance. This design decision doesn't even carry throughout the expansion; in the final 1 - 2 hours, major dramatic scenes suddenly are represented by cutscenes, making it all the more bewildering that the rest of the story avoids them.

Ultimately, the good bits outweigh the bits that test gamer patience... But like Dragon Age: Inquisition itself, I'm left thinking that this would be better at half the length, with less pointless trudging and more emphasis on story content.

A journey into the heart of the Deep Roads,
and the unexplored depths beyond...

THE DESCENT:
Release Date: Aug. 11, 2015

The Deep Roads are experiencing persistent earthquakes, leading to collapsing mine shafts and renewed swarms of darkspawn. The Inquisition agrees to help, with the Inquisitor joining Renn, a Legion of the Dead lieutenant, and Valta, a dwarven Shaper. But as the group descends ever further, it becomes clear that these quakes are more than natural disasters, and that dwarven history is hiding some deadly secrets...

The Descent has been widely acknowledged as the weakest of Inquisition's expansion.  It's hard to argue, though it is at least more interesting than Origins' Deep Roads DLC, The Golems of Amgarrak. The Deep Roads are less repetitive than in earlier games, and there are even some eye-catching visual moments and a pretty good final boss battle (though that battle becomes very easy once you figure out its gimmick).

Even so, it never rises above the level of "modest diversion." Both the story and the guest characters are unmemorable; and even if you decide to be a completist with the collectibles quests (and there's really no reason to), the whole thing is over in less than four hours. If you have the Game of the Year edition, there's no reason not to play it... But if you somehow ended up with the vanilla release, then this expansion is not worth an additional purchase.

The Inquisition is summoned to a council that
will decide its future - if it even has one!

TRESPASSER:
Release Date: Sept. 8, 2015

It's been two years since Corypheus's defeat, and the Inquisition's influence has begun to wane. Neighboring kingdoms worry that they could become a threat, and even past good deeds are being reframed as potential staging grounds for invasion. An Exalted Council is called to decide the Inquisition's future - whether to disband it or to subject it to outside oversight.

The council is soon interrupted. Qunari are using eluvians to attack the Inquisition as a prelude to a holy war. The Inquisitor's party must pursue the assassins through the magical paths. It's a pursuit that brings the group ever closer to an unexpected reunion - and it won't be a happy one!

Though Trespasser is not the largest of the game's expansions, it is by far the most substantial. Your choices determine whether the Inquisition ends or whether it continues in a weakened state; either way, the status quo left at the end of the main game is toppled. The Qunari are advanced as a genuine threat to Thedas's stability, their attitude recalling the Arishok from Dragon Age II as they move closer to an official decision to impose the Qun across Thedas. Finally, a new threat is introduced, presumably paving the way for Dragon Age 4.

I'll admit to wishing this expansion did more with the political situation, an intriguing thread that is left frustratingly underdeveloped. That's more than made up for, however, by all the things this expansion does right: the sense of catching up with old friends and learning a bit about how they've moved on in the intervening years; the engagingly surreal fantasy element of traveling through the mirrors; the strong emotion of the final scenes.

In the end, Trespasser provides Inquisition with the one thing the main game lacked: a genuinely satisfying ending.


OVERALL:

The Dragon Age: Inquisition story expansions are a bit of a mixed bag. Trespasser is essential, in my opinion, to the point that I'd say the game feels actively incomplete without it. The other two DLC packs are basically filler. Jaws of Hakkon offers a good story, but questionable presentation choices and a fair bit of needless bloat make it less than it should have been, while The Descent is utterly expendable for any but Deep Roads enthusiasts.

All of the expansions are at least enjoyable. But given the excellent DLC that was prepared for Dragon Age II (DLC that was in some respects better than the main game), I couldn't help but be disappointed in just how "extra" the first two of Inquisition's expansions ended up seeming.

If you have the Game of the Year Edition, you should obviously play all three. But if you have to buy the DLC packs separately, the only one that is truly worth an extra purchase is Trespasser... though Trespasser absolutely should not be missed.


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Dragon Age: Inquisition

Original Release: Nov. 18, 2014 for PC, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, XBox 360, XBox One. Version Reviewed: Playstation 4, 2014.


THE PLOT:

The town of Haven, the site of Andraste's ashes, is chosen by the Divine Justinia for a conclave: specifically, peace talks between the Templars and the rebel mages. It is a last chance for both sides to put down their weapons and step back from the brink of total war.

A last chance that ends with a massive explosion, one that literally rends the sky and creates a hole in the Veil separating the world of Thedas from the world of demons known as "The Fade." A single survivor emerges from this Breach - and is promptly arrested for the act that created it, with the magic mark on the suspect's hand seemingly confirming guilt.

However, things are not so simple. The mark allows the prisoner to seal the spreading rips in the veil, which leads to people calling the prisoner "The Herald of Andraste."  This leads Seeker Cassanda to not only free this person but also announce an Inquisition, directed at sealing the spreading rifts in the sky while finding out exactly what happened to create this crisis.

It won't be an easy task. Neither the mages, nor the Templars, nor the Chantry, are willing to acknowledge the Inquisition. It will be up to the new Inquisitor - still believed by many to have caused the disaster in the first place - to negotiate alliances and build up influence. And when an ancient enemy shows its hand, it becomes clear that even that may not be enough...

The Inquisitor: Various backgrounds are available. 
Which one you choose makes annoyingly little difference.

CHARACTERS:

Likely in response to complaints that players were "stuck" with one of three default personalities for Dragon Age II's Hawke, Bioware course corrected by giving the Inquisitor... basically no personality at all. Your Inquisitor is allowed to make quips here or there, but is never able to be as snarky as "humorous" Hawke. Nor as aggressive. Nor as angry. To make sure players are able to "read themselves" into the lead, Bioware has presented a Rorschach character: So emotionally neutral that you can see anything you want in the resulting ink blot. There are a few exceptions to this: an Orlesian ball, for instance, or an emotional confrontation in the final post-game DLC. For the most part, however, this is Bioware's blandest protagonist. Yes, I'm including Anthem in that.

Fortunately, the ensemble of party members and strategists helps to make up for that. Returning characters include: Dragon Age: Origins' Leliana, Morrigan, and Cullen, with potential appearances by either Alistair or Loghain; and Dragon Age II's Varric and Cassandra, with a substantial mid-game appearance by Hawke. All of them still work as well as in previous games, with Varric's responses to various situations remaining a highlight.

New characters are also good. Solas, an elven apostate, has knowledge of The Fade that makes him a valuable ally, though it's clear he hides secrets; Iron Bull, a Qunari mercenary, is the opposite of previous Qunari seen in the series, boasting a boisterous sense of humor and a healthy libido even as he not-so-secretly spies for the Qun; Tevinter mage Dorian joins out of worries for his mentor, whose personality has undergone a complete change; ambitious mage Vivienne wants to see a return to the Circles, and hopes to win power and influence through the current situation; and elven rogue Sera wants to ally with the Inquisition to turn the tables on all the nobles who have abused their power at the expense of the powerless. Each character has a strong personality, most of them have aspects of themselves they are hiding, and different choices can seal them as either fast friends or resentful rivals.

All of which - yes - leaves you stuck role playing as the least interesting person in the game!

Dragon battles provide a nice challenge, at least for a while.

GAMEPLAY:

Combat is overall more like that of Dragon Age II than Dragon Age: Origins, but it has been refined and improved.  Bioware wisely took on board criticisms of the mindless mobs from the previous game. Here, higher-level enemies will behave with reasonable intelligence during combat, and unseen reinforcements are largely restricted to dragon battles. Ally AI is also improved, making your companions less likely to simply hurl themselves to their own deaths  during more difficult encounters.

Tactical elements remain, with the ability to pause combat to issue individual orders, then let those orders play out before pausing again to issue a new set of instructions. This can make challenging combats easier to survive, and is likely essential for higher difficulty settings. Playing on "Normal," I only used this feature when the party was near death; it just stretched out encounters too much to be enjoyable for regular usage.

Outside of combat, the game provides enormous environments for your characters to explore.  This inludes your base of operations for the bulk of the game - a large fortress named Skyhold. There's the usual Bioware dialogue wheel, in which you make choices, struggle vainly to impose some form of personality onto your Inquisitor, and forge or wreck your relationships with companions.

There is also a War Table, in which you commit Inquisition forces to various operations. You can try to deal with each problem through force, diplomacy, or espionage. Initially, all will provided at least adequate outcomes; later, there will be missions in which only one of these will provide an optimal end.

Finally, the game allows you to sit in judgment on prisoners, in moments similar to the too-brief bit in Awakening when your Warden Commander actually acted as Arl. These judgments have minimal impact on the overall story (you gain or lose approval with various companions; you gain an extra agent or two, and maybe a War Table mission), but I still quite enjoyed these additions, particularly some of the humorous outcomes for certain choices.

Sealing a breach.  You'll be doing a lot of this.

THOUGHTS:

Dragon Age: Inquisition currently stands as the last completely successful release from Bioware. Despite a fraught production process, the game released to overwhelmingly positive reviews and strong sales, and ended up winning more than 100 Game of the Year awards for 2014. After the backlash to Dragon Age II, this title was considered to have righted the ship.

Even though it's still a relatively recent game, the intervening years have made its faults all too apparent in retrospect. Dragon Age: Inquisition is a good game, with a handful of breathtaking moments... but it's also just as flawed, in its way, as Dragon Age II was, and you can visibly see the seeds planted for the more disappointing Bioware titles that followed.


THE GOOD

Inquisition's prologue ranks among the best video game openings I've seen.  Its opening hour combines: a series of dialogue options, which will earn the approval or disapproval of your party members; combat; and, when you reach the first Fade Rift, a quick tutorial in closing it. Not only does this sequence do an excellent job of grabbing attention up-front; it seamlessly offers up needed backstory, establishes the basic stakes, and introduces the major gameplay mechanics you'll be using over the 120+ hours that will follow.

While the bulk of the game follows variations of the prologue's pattern - fight enemies, find and close Fade Rifts, and choose from various dialogue options - there are chapters that provide variety. An extended sequence in the Fade focuses on the people you bring with you, offering up hints about their individual agendas. A mission in the Orlesian court sees you mingling with courtiers, gaining court approval for clever ripostes, all the while searching for information about an assassination attempt... an attempt that will succeed if you manage to lose enough approval to get kicked out of the ball. 

Then there are the dragon battles. Ten high dragons are scattered across Thedas in the main game (the first DLC expansion adds one more), and these encounters are initially breathtaking. When you meet your first dragon, even if you are at a high enough level to successfully battle it, you will find it a tough experience that requires full use of the game's tactical options. As you whittle its health down, it will call for reinforcements in the form of comparatively weak baby dragons - and if you try to ignore these dragonlings, they will quickly overwhelm you through sheer numbers.

Like much of the rest, the dragon battles become routine over the course of the game. By the late game, you'll be over-leveled and over-geared, and will fell even the highest-level dragons without even having to open the tactical menu.  Still, that very first dragon remains a gaming experience you'll be likely to remember.

Corypheus: The main bad guy, and among
the least interesting villains in the series.

THE BAD:

Dragon Age: Inquisition offers up a large number of vast and varied environments. This should be a good thing, except for one problem: too many of these are devoid of anything other than fetch quests, collectibles, and generic enemies. If you're just playing the main plot, there are entire regions you can safely skip. The Hissing Wastes adds nothing at all to the story; the Exalted Plains and Emprise du Lion are only relevant for a few individual quests. It's not that there's nothing of interest in these regions; it's just that if you decided to bypass them, the story would end up feeling every bit as complete.

Before the game's release, Bioware proudly trumpeted that the first main area of the game is larger than all of Dragon Age II. This is true. The first of the game's regions, The Hinterlands, is one of the largest areas of the game. I would argue that this is a misstep. When you first reach the Hinterlands, the game wants you to clear a few side quests to level up a bit, then travel back to Inquisition headquarters to get on with the plot. The game does a poor job of making this clear, however. The first time I played, back in 2014, I ended up going online to find out when (and how) to leave the Hinterlands. A quick Google search reveals that I was far from alone in my confusion, and I suspect many players became frustrated with the area and just gave up on the game.

Finally, there is the villain. Corypheus isn't quite the worst of the series' villains, because at least he isn't Knight Commander Meredith. But the portrayal of Corypheus repeats all of the same mistakes. His concept and backstory are interesting. He has been awakened into a world so unlike the society of his natural lifetime that to him, everything must seem chaotic and mad. There should be a sense that in his mind, his goal is just, that he wants a return to order - which would also explain why so many are eager to follow him.

Instead, he's a raspy-voiced megalomaniac who wants to make himself a god. An Eeeviill god, of course. It's just as dull as it sounds. Oh, and the final boss fight against him isn't remotely difficult, at least not on "Normal," nor does it require any tactics beyond those you've used on every trash mob up to this point. Given how satisfyingly creative the battle against him was in Dragon Age II's Legacy expansion, the simplicity of this game's final battle can't help but be a disappointment.

New allies pledge themselves to the Inquisition.

OVERALL:

Dragon Age: Inquisition was released in 2014 to almost universal praise. In many ways, it's deserving of it.  This is a huge game, stuffed with a variety of regions, characters, and content, much of which is excellent.

That said, I also think many of the problems seen in Bioware's later disappointments took root here. The open world format doesn't particularly suit the story being told, and the plot loses much of its urgency as you spend hours trekking around areas that offer little more than generic collectibles and bits of lore. I think it's telling that some of the best parts of the game - the section in The Fade, the Orlesian ball, the mage and/or templar quests when you choose which faction to ally with - are all ones that abandon the open world format in favor of a more linear design.

The best of Inqisiton remains terrific, and I was often swept away by it. Still, this is a 100+ hour game filled with "stuff" that would likely be much better if it were about half that length, with about half as much content. I'd ultimately rank it as a good game, but it's too unfocused to be a great one; and while I'll admit that it's probably a better game than Dragon Age II, I have to admit to finding it a lot less interesting.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Dragon Age: Inquisition - DLC

Previous Game: Dragon Age II
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