No romance in Dragon Age expansion

By Robert Purchese Published 17 February, 2010

Plus: Areas! Characters! Pictures!

BioWare's new Dragon Age: Awakening website has gone live and revealed many new areas, characters and creatures arriving in the March-bound expansion.

Among the discoveries are the haunted Blackmarsh, dwarven fortress Kal'Hirol, bastion against Orlesian invasion Vigil's Keep and the once tranquil but now troubled Wending Woods.

Key new creatures include Queen of the Blackmarsh - a giant, spectral dragon - and The Children, grinning worm creatures (on spindly legs) that devour their fleshy prey.

Important new characters are Velanna, a human-hating Dalish elf, and Anders, a trouble-making mage that doesn't take kindly to orders. Returning companions include Wynne, Loghain and Alistair.

The new Dragon Age: Awakening website has a detailed FAQ to answer your questions with, too. From this we know that there will be six new specialisation, 24 new spells and 32 new talents. Interestingly, there will be no romantic options in DA: Awakening, and the romances uncovered through Origins will be on hold while you tackle a new threat.

System specs for the expansion are the same as for Dragon Age: Origins, and you'll be able to import your saved character from that game should you wish - all items and loot will travel with your hero, apart from promotional DLC loot.

Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening will only be available to download on PS3 and Xbox 360 here in Europe. The PC version will be available on Steam and other digital distribution channels.

Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening will be released on 16th March.

Check into our Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening gallery for a pile of new screenshots.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • CosmicFuzz #1 2 years ago

    Woo sounds good! Haven't bothered with any DLC for this, but will almost definitely get Awakening some point soon.

  • schnide #2 2 years ago

    The amount of focus that romance in games has got recently gives me serious concern. I forget that there must be a vast number of gamers who rely on chatting up a digital character, instead of actually going outside and finding real women. I know it's scary, but it's not that hard.

  • CosmicFuzz #3 2 years ago

    I like the romance aspects of it, makes it more real and it makes the characters mean more to you. It's hardly a dating sim.

  • MasterNameless #4 2 years ago

    Yeah, I agree with CosmicFuzz. I think the romance bits, as long as it isn't too forced, by the player or the game, adds an extra dimension and level of reality to the characters.

    Even to the point that the gay elf makes me feel a little uncomfortable when he gets all flirty! And conversley, and in much greater frequency, my gay friend who played Dragon Age, got freaked out by the female characters getting flirty with him! :D
    Edited by MasterNameless at 17/02/10 @ 10:08

  • Darren #5 2 years ago

    Hmmm... unless Amazon are lying to me then they have a Dragon Age: Awakening DVD to pre-order for the PC for £19.99.

  • GreyScale #6 2 years ago

    Not sure if the 'download only' comments are actually correct, a quick look on play.com shows preorders for the 360 and PC versions for £25 and £15 respectively.

    Plus steam says that it's version is only compatible with the digitally downloaded original - would seem pretty weird to shaft all the people that bought a retail box copy in this way.

  • curtlikesmeat #7 2 years ago

    "Returning companions include Wynne, Loghain and Alistair." - Sounds like a spoiler. Thanks.

  • Dizzy #8 2 years ago

    I loved DA... but after ME2 I feel a bit reluctant to return. It feels very clunky now compared to it's superior brother.

  • Paperghost #9 2 years ago

    "The amount of focus that romance in games has got recently gives me serious concern."

    i'm actually a little sick of it, especially in bioware games. aside from the fact i'm slightly suspicious commander shepard doesn't actually have time to be chatting up a smurf when the entire galaxy is at stake, it just seems like its jammed into dialogue at any given opportunity. you have like two conversations with any random female on your ship and ho hum, you're suddenly dragged down the "want to knock boots" dialogue tree.

    it worked a *little* better in DA, especially if it ended up tying into certain game related decisions near the end but uhhhh...no. i'd still be happier if they just eased off on it a little bit.

  • mingster #10 2 years ago

    Just fix the memory leak load times on the PC version.

  • hiddenranbir #11 2 years ago

    This already seems to contradict the ending wrap up that DA:o gave me. Especially for Wynne's return. Will be curious on the explanation!


    And yup, typical Bioware, love to spoil things. I'd be amazed if they think they're being subtle. ME2 spoilage was amazing.
    Edited by hiddenranbir at 17/02/10 @ 10:23

  • MasterNameless #12 2 years ago

    You're never 'dragged' down the romance dialogue trees at all. It's a choice that you make, if you don't want to do it, then don't choose those really obvious dialogue options. If you feel you don't have time to chat up smurfs, and feel that saving the galaxy is more pressing, then that's what you should do.

    I really think these games are far more enjoyable when you play them, making the decisions that you yourself would make in any given situation. When I start doing stuff simply because it's there, that's when I start breaking the game.

    p.s. I have a bizarre image of hitting on Smurfette as Shepherd now... and I think I like it!

  • Dizzy #13 2 years ago

    Wynne is immortal, the game mentions she will be back after you kill her.

    Some damn sexy smurfs in ME2 though.
    Edited by Dizzy at 17/02/10 @ 10:35

  • Paperghost #14 2 years ago

    "You're never 'dragged' down the romance dialogue trees at all. It's a choice that you make, if you don't want to do it, then don't choose those really obvious dialogue options."

    Never messed with the femshep options, but playing as a male it definitely seemed like a couple of the females suddenly decide to start throwing themselves at you after a little talking - sure, you can tell them to get lost but it just seems a little jarring that it suddenly creeps in at all. like miranda - spoiler time - you complete her loyalty mission and she basically has a good ole feel of the shepster, even if previously all you did was go sort her family issue out just....well, because that's what you went there to do. seemed massively out of place to have a trained operative suddenly hit on her commander because he simply did what she asked him to but ymmv.

    Sorry about the smurfette thing btw ;)

    Anyway, back on topic - really pleased they're doing an expansion instead of ten minute DLC for this game. Can't wait to start playing this game again...

  • Dizzy #15 2 years ago

    You can't blame Shepard and all the chicks on board for some R&R. A lot of combat stress, plenty of bars, being locked up in a small ship, tight fitting uniforms, bulging muscles and a rather cosy captains loft.

    If this was the real world I would probably end up boning them MUCH faster.

  • Apaar #16 2 years ago

    I believe Awakening is going to be a much more intense experience than Origins. Origins spanned over a timeline of at least a year. During a year long period romances make sense. But with the relative intensity and immediacy of the expansion, romances would likely feel very artificial and forced, as they tend to already do in the more intense Mass Effect series. All in all, Awakening seems like a really awesome addition, and I'm extremely excited to see how the story continues and mysteries of the darkspawn unravel! :)

  • Tomo #17 2 years ago

    Still need to finish DA :s

  • MasterNameless #18 2 years ago

    Fair enough, I picked the female Shepherd, and as mentioned before, got freaked out by all the blokes hitting on me, and as much as I tried, Miranda is no lesbian! D: Going to play through as a male Shepherd next time for sure, as even after everything I just said, by picking a female character I kind of broke the game for myself anyway.

    No need to be sorry for the smurfette thing, everyone has always known she was an easy smurf. :D

    Back on topic though, I never realised this was a full expansion, after so many small DLC missions with Fallout/ME2/et al lately it's a bit of a rarity these days. And not an unwelcome one.

  • jonfon #19 2 years ago

    @Dizzy : "I loved DA... but after ME2 I feel a bit reluctant to return. It feels very clunky now compared to it's superior brother."

    Agreed, but doesn't everything? :) I'll be getting it simply because I'll have finished ME2 and will need more RPG goodness.

    I did miss the masses of character-to-character conversations in ME2 though. Like Shale asking the elf about his interest in my (male) character. In ME2 few of the characters actually seem to talk to each other casually within missions and on hubs

    Not too fussed on no romance in the sequel though, for me it was an amusing sidequest for the most part (Dragon Age won a prize for Zevs immortal "Prepare to be boarded" line though)

  • thedaveeyres #20 2 years ago

    No romance without finance. You got to have a J.O.B. if you wanna be with me.

  • Sak666 #21 2 years ago

    Brilliant... not going into my choices made in end of DAO teh fact that i get to choose to romp around country side from is 3 idiots who in first place doesn't even want to join me no doubt. Same with ME 2. I got 4 guys who actually wants to join the cause on the rest who just tags along for some odd reason no matter how much i wanted em along. Atleast in DAO i could kick Morrigan the second i managed to get to camp.

  • actionfitz #22 2 years ago

    "Returning companions include Wynne, Loghain and Alistair."

    hmm. this would be the same Loghain that Allistair beheaded in a cutscene in my game?! :o
    headless undead companions ftw!

    lol

  • rinks #23 2 years ago

    The "download-only" thing refers only to the PS3 version. See point 2.8 in the FAQ:
    [link url=http://dragonage.bioware.com/awakening/faq/
    ]http://dragonage.bioware.com/awakening/f...[/link]

    And according to this story from the other day, it's because of some odd Sony Europe rule:
    [link url=http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/15/dragon-age-origins-awakening-on-ps3-download-only-in-europe/
    ]http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/15/dragon...[/link]

  • MeBrains #24 2 years ago

    stop! the! exclamation marks!

    let's see if that impresses the eg crew...

  • Rubarack #25 2 years ago

    I'm very much suspicious that dropping the romance is because it involves talking, and that gets away from them throwing in 3 new areas with a ton of rushed together combat and charging £20.

  • Shrike #26 2 years ago

    People are incredibly literal. I imagine when it describes the arrange of returning characters it's outlining the possibilities - it's an either/or situation. This is BioWare, for god's sake. It's like - Kaidan and Ashley are both in ME2. But they're not both in YOUR ME2. It's not hard!

    Besides, I died at the end of DA:o. If there isn't a big motherfing statue of me somewhere in Awakening I'm throwing my toys out of the pram.

  • TeaFiend #27 2 years ago

    There was me hoping to get it on with a ghost dragon. Terribly sad now.

  • hiddenranbir #28 2 years ago

    You can use your old char, even if you died. Truth.

  • login_name #29 2 years ago

    @Dizzy

    I believe you're thinking of Flemeth, Wynne is far from immortal, in fact that's a pretty big part of her story (unless I missed something).

  • Shrike #30 2 years ago

    @hiddenranbir

    Really? I assumed that you made a new character (the Orlesian Commander they've been talking about) but in the same "timeline" or canon or whatever. That'd be far more interesting, and it's what the end credits bit seems to indicate. After all of the "where are they now" bits, it goes on to hint at Awakening and says "but those are for other heroes. The story of (PC) ended with the death of the Archdemon."

  • TeaFiend #31 2 years ago

    @Shrike:
    They have said you can import. If the player is willing to disregard continuity they are not fussed at letting them do it.

  • Bakumatsu #32 2 years ago

    In the faq of Dragon Age Awakenig site it says In Europe and other PAL video/game region countries, the PS3 version is only available as a download.
    Edited by Bakumatsu at 17/02/10 @ 20:15

  • hiddenranbir #33 2 years ago

    Well death only takes you to "The Fade", right? Who knows what freaky mumbo jumbo they can use to bring you back.

    As for the Wynne thing, my concern was in my epilogue she went off to travel with Shale. I just wonder if the expansion will acknowledge that, if Wynne will make a mention of it if she returns in my game, etc...