Do you have to play Origins and Dragon Age 2 to play Inquisition?

Do you have to play Origins and Dragon Age 2 to play Inquisition?

I have not been shy at all about my love of the Dragon Age series. It hits all the fantasy buttons for me and told me a story that sucked me in… When Dragon Age 2 first came out i’d run home on a lunch break so I could play for another 30 minutes before having to go back in. I’m invested. I also know not everyone has globbed on with their heart and soul like I have to DA: Origins and DA2!  So it’s not super surprising that with all the hype and conversation about the success of Inquisition a lot of people who haven’t completed or played Origins or DA2 are wondering, Do you have to play Origins and Dragon Age 2 to play Inquisition?

Here is my early TL;DR answer: No you do not have to, but you should.

Here is why: Inquisition pulls so many little story threads and characters and conversations that you’ve had over 2.5ish games and wraps them all together. Without the source material you’ll still be told the story of the inquisition, but you won’t get all the references made. It will take what is an incredibly fun really good story and game, and just make it a good game – one that will be forgettable when the next RPG comes out that strikes your fancy. So do yourself the favor, and play the other two games.

No matter your history with the Dragon Age saga, you will either get to chose a default world state, or you can go to go into “The Keep” where you are asked a series of questions about decisions made in previous games. This feeds the Inquisition pachinko machine I can only imagine is in the code to propagate the characters, their attitudes, and the rest of the world you’re about to spend 120ish hours in. But without playing the game and being invested in these characters, how can you put weight on those decisions?

Let me give you an example that isn’t too spoileriffic. In my game of Origins, I made a choice with a character to not kill him and instead take him into my party (Loghain). He’s a pretty surly dude, so you do have to work at getting him to respect you. You can give him gifts to nudge that begrudging meter to the right. One of the items you can give him is some maps – they don’t trigger anything, they just get you many more approval points from Loghain. So, fast forward two games to Inquisition – and suddenly Loghain is there. The Inquisitor needs to find something and Loghain says “And old friend of mine gave me some maps…”. For those of us who played through Origins, it was just that little nudge that blew our minds about something we did that seemed so minor, but affects our game here, six years later!

How about in Dragon Age 2 – where the story is being told by poor Varric while he being held by Seeker Cassandra to find the location of “The Champion”. Forward to Inquisition where they are both in your party, and you only find out hours into the game why she was searching for the Champion – and what the possible consequences were of him not giving her completely forthright answers. You will go through the keep and pre-load choices to make Inquisition possible, but it won’t have the same kick in the gut feel the rest of us had for a character (Varric) that we loved in DA2 and the character we hated (well, we didn’t know her as anything other than the woman interrogating Varric – Cassandra Pentaghast) suddenly reverse in our hears because we now kinda disapprove of what he did. What he did was funny, but we didn’t know until now that lives were possibly on the line.

What i’m getting at is that the feels  that the storyboard worked so hard to coax from us are very often dependent upon us having played the previous games. If you’re going to play Inquisition – which I heartily suggest that you do! – play Origins and Dragon Age 2. You’ll have put your time to some great stories! (ALSO: If you wait for a steam sale, you can very often get Origins and all the DLC together on sale for about $8.00!)