Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age: Origins (formerly Dragon Age) is an award-winning role-playing video game developed by BioWare's Edmonton studio and described by them as an "epic tale of violence, lust, and betrayal.

The game incorporates "origins" for each race and some classes. For example, a Dwarf Noble begins the game as part of the royal family in one of the dwarven cities, whereas the Dwarf Commoner origin story begins on the streets of the city. Origin stories determine the background of the player's character prior to the main events of the game's story, forming an introduction to the world while also comprising hours of play. Characters that the player meets during the origin story may reappear throughout the game, some of whom may be adversaries.

There is no tracking of moral alignment as in previous BioWare games, but the moral choices of the player will still affect the story throughout the game. The player will save the world regardless of choosing to be good or evil, but the decisions that the player makes in the process will change the game world accordingly – deciding who will become king, for example, and affecting nations and races and their places in the world. These decisions will also influence the companion NPCs, possibly causing an NPC to leave the party or even attack the player if they disagree strongly with his or her actions.

As with the Baldur's Gate series, players are able to issue orders to NPCs in real time, but pause the game to queue up actions such as spells and special attacks.

Players are allowed to change game views throughout the game, by zooming in or out. Zooming in affords players a detailed overhead view, allowing them to spot important features in a scenario that may be positioned up above, such as a dangerous lurking creature. The overhead details are not visible in the zoomed out view.

The camera is in an over-the-shoulder third person view when zoomed in, and an isometric-style view when zoomed out, though the console versions cannot zoom out to the extent of the PC version.

The spells in the game interact with the effects of others, such as a fire spell igniting a grease slick before being put out by a blizzard.