Technically, DA:I can be played alone, but you're doing yourself a disservice if you go that route. It's easy to think that all of these things are separate and playable alone, but DA:I weaves all three of them - because Awakening turns out to be important to DAII and DA:I later on - into one coherent narrative. DAII is a much more localized story than DA:O, focusing mainly on the tensions that can arise between mages, who are segregated from the general population in many places, and the templars who stand between them and everyone else.

The DA:O expansion, Awakening, gets more into the spirits of the Fade and some dark stuff that's happened in the history of the Grey Wardens. However, if you really want to understand what's going on in DA:I, you have to know the stories of both.ĭA:O sets up the grand lore of the setting, focusing on blights, dragons as elder gods, the Grey Wardens, the Fade, magic, and the politics of each of the major races, giving glimpses into their societies. It's true that the events of Dragon Age II are not directly tied to those of Dragon Age: Origins. Now, however, with Dragon Age: Inquisition having been thrown into the mix, I think it deserves revisitation. You'd be doing yourself a disservice by not playing Dragon Age: Origins in order to play Dragon Age II exclusively.Īt the time this question was asked, the chosen answer was a good one. Dragon Age II has better gameplay and a much improved user interface, but it's not the Godfather II of the series. Dragon Age II will give you the CliffsNotes version of a plot element, but the background behind that plot element is fully explored in Dragon Age: Origins.Īdditionally, there's a ton of dialogue points in sidequests and with companions which make reference to the events of Dragon Age: Origins that'll be lost on the person who doesn't play it.īut perhaps the most important reason to play Dragon Age: Origins before Dragon Age II is that it's the better game. That is, if you don't play Dragon Age: Origins, you're going to find yourself asking 'Who cares?' more often than not while the plot unfolds. While it's true much of what you do in Dragon Age II isn't directly connected to the plot of Dragon Age: Origins, the game assumes you are familiar with the setting established in Dragon Age: Origins so much so that it completely glosses over a ton of exposition which serves to give meaning to the motivations of the main character and the overall story.

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