Jaws of Hakkon DLC

I’m a fan girl of Dragon Age, that is no secret, so take it with a grain of salt when I tell you, you should play the DLC for DragonAge Inquisition: Jaws of Hakkon. For $15 it is more of the game that I loved, that fits in if you’ve finished the game or not (as long as you’re level 20+, those mobs are no joke). I’m still surprised that this DLC came out with very little fanfare from EA and Bioware, though maybe that’s because it was a delayed release for some platforms (older consoles and PS4 won’t have access to this DLC until May!), but at least they will know what they’re getting into when they finally get their hands on the DLC for Jaws of Hakkon!

Once you find yourself in the camp for the Frostback Basin area and you have a chat with Scout Harding, this first big change is that she doesn’t leave. You can continue to chat with her, and even initiates a quest – a departure for our favorite dwarf that we still want more from!

Aside from Scout Harding though, here is the real reason I think this DLC is worth the $15 – it’s another 5-6 hours of the same game I loved. The same game – it’s not more hats or a pack of mounts, and it isn’t Awakening (that lets face it, was a second game in itself) or Stone Prison, that was a new character for you to start the whole game over with and play again. The Jaws of Hakkon DLC is an addition to Inquisition that’s meant to be an add-on content to what you’re playing, without having you re-play the whole game. (Which is what I’m currently doing, though not everyone is ready to marathon a 120+ hour game multiple times!)

I started the zone at level 20, and everyone else in my party trailed behind at 19, and the first thing that happened when I walked out of the camp and targeted my lightning at the first clear dinosaur that isn’t a dinosaur in the area,  was pull a mob of 4 of them, and I had to down 3 health potions to make it out of that fight. I’m not saying this zone is hard on everyone, but it really tested me! And because we’re finally adding more Dragons to a game called Dragon Age – there is a dragon. For those that played through Dragon Age: Origins, do you remember the Archdemon fight that sucked for soooooo many of us?  The dragon fight at the end of this zone reminded me of that fight – not that it felt impossible, but that it really tested me and made me change up the way I approached the fight. I died the first two times I tried to fight the dragon, and thankfully unlike Origins there is a save point directly before so I could change up my party and try again. (First few times I went with my standard party – Inquisitor mage, Verric, Iron Bull, and Cassandra- I had to swap out the rogue for another fighter and have Blackwall do more damage)

I’ve heard from folks criticizing the DLC for being a lot of fetch quests or gather these items only to find a new quest zone, and I do have to hold back from asking, did these people play any of the other Dragon Age games? If you’re not prepared for traipsing all over a zone, picking up quests you weren’t expecting and gathering items for NPC’s that could probably walk across the hall and pick up the book for themselves, you’re likely not going to like any of these games – not just the Jaws of Hakkon DLC!

TL;DR – It’s a good DLC, just more of the same that we loved, challenging, and Scout Harding adorably yelling MAYHAAAAAAM!