SummaryDesigned and written by the same team that brought you Dragon Age: Origins, the Awakening expansion pack offers a brand new area of the world to explore known as Amaranthine, featuring an epic story that will allow players to unravel the secrets of the darkspawn - and their true motivations! Players face a range of horrific and terrifying creatu... Read More
Rated Mfor Mature
Developer:BioWare
Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Released On:
Mar 16, 2010
Metascore
Generally Favorable
82
User score
Generally Favorable
8.1
My Score
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
82
95% Positive
36 Reviews
36 Reviews
5% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100
It admirably accomplishes what an expansion is supposed to do, and doesn't in any way diminish what made the great one of the best RPGs ever made.
89
New enemies and ordeals, a bunch of killer abilities, fat loot and a couple of well-fed dragons – what else can a level 20 character wish for?
User score
Generally Favorable
8.1
76% Positive
500 Ratings
500 Ratings
21% Mixed
142 Ratings
142 Ratings
3% Negative
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
Nov 25, 2025
10
Some stories end, but some worlds still have more to say. Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening feels like a heartfelt return to a world that still has plenty of life in it. Again, yes, playing it in 2025 makes many things feel extremely dated, old. Nostalgia can’t really be used as a crutch for too long, yet at the same time, playing it doesn’t feel like a burden.Even though it is an expansion, it carries enough weight, content and personality to feel like a real continuation of the journey rather than an extra chapter. From the very beginning, it is clear that the developers wanted to give players something meaningful, not just more of the same. How naturally the expansion builds on what came before stands out. It respects the tone and themes of Origins, but it also brings new layers of lore, new characters and new choices that add depth to the world. It never feels like a side project. It feels like the story still had unfinished business, and this expansion gives it room to breathe. The new companions and conversations are a strong point. While the cast is smaller than the one from the main game, the characters are memorable, charming and easy to connect with. Their dialogue feels warm and grounded, and their side stories help make the world feel lived in. There is something comforting about returning to the Grey Wardens and seeing how the world continues to change. Gameplay wise, Awakening adds a good amount of new skills, specializations and enemies to keep things interesting. Combat feels familiar but refreshed, especially with new builds and strategies to try. Exploration also feels rewarding, with locations that carry the same atmosphere and sense of danger that made Origins so fun to experience. Visually and musically, Awakening remains loyal to the original style. It is not a huge step up, but it keeps the charm and mood that defined Ferelden. The darker tone fits the story well, reminding players that being a Warden is never a simple task. It's a DLC, so it's naturally shorter than the full game, but it is packed with content and has a satisfying flow. It respects your time, gives you meaningful decisions and provides a strong continuation for fans who wanted more. It is the kind of expansion that understands why people loved the base game and tries to honor that love. Awakening felt like a warm return, full of familiar strengths and new ideas. It delivers a solid mix of story, gameplay and world building, and it reminds you why this series became so beloved in the first place: a generous and heartfelt expansion that keeps the adventure alive.
Nov 4, 2024
10
One of the best DLCs ever **** this day..long campaign with meaningful story..everything anyone want from a DLC
85
Nothing is strikingly different, and nothing is really any better. It's just more, and for some, that's more than enough. It's an expansion in the truest sense of the word, literally expanding on the experience of the first game without stepping on any toes and cheapening what the first accomplished.
80
A content-stuffed expansion that will thrill fans. If only it did a better job of paying attention to events in the first game. [June 2010, p.56]
80
Awakening is a great expansion. It delivers around 20 hours of role-playing goodness, which flows better and is more varied than what we got in the original game. We also get new and interesting characters and a bunch of new abilities and items to play with.
78
Awakening is the biggest DLC Dragon Age Origins has ever seen. New lands, new weapons and new evils are the reasons to buy it for who loved the game, but same old graphics, the price and the classic gameplay won't make it more appealing for everyone else.
70
A competent but relatively unambitious expansion that adds plenty of new content but no new ideas.
Feb 14, 2021
10
Дополнение очень понравилось. В этом дополнении ты можешь узнать: что же случилось с Серым Стражем, после победы над Архидемоном.
Jan 17, 2026
7
An okay side story. I really liked the idea of managing the castle, it's a shame they didn't expand on it. The party members are quite interesting, and the short dialogues between them are very good. The developers have prepared new subclasses and skills for each class, which gives it a slightly fresh feel. In some levels, it's clear the developers are forcing us to run back and forth across the map to spend more time on it. While the overall quality of the game is similar to the base game, the technical aspects are terrible. From what I understand, many bugs have been fixed since launch, but throughout the DLC, I had problems with dialogue and music audio stuttering, the only temporary solution being to restart the game.
Jan 6, 2021
7
Awakening felt more like a mini direct sequel to Origins, and I was more than okay with that. However, as I got further in, it got seriously tedious. It's bloated with a bunch of side quests that don't really amount to much, though there are some fun ones in there. The new NPCs like Anders and Velanna were excellent additions, and the main plot was intriguing, if a bit disjointed. Or maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention. Either way, it didn't really capture my interest as much as Origins did, which I suppose was to be expected. Still an excellent preface to DA2! Not to mention fascinating from a lore perspective.
Apr 17, 2016
4
While mechanically decent (but far from groundbreaking or innovative), the characters were so unbearably flat in interactions for the most part that I couldn't bear to play long enough to learn any more about them. I can accept that with a darker, "edgier" game compared to past Bioware titles to date, they would seek to have more cynical, "adult" characters, but they were so miserably sarcastic and annoying that any time they spoke, I wished desperately that you could just murder your companions. I've loved Bioware's games since I was a child, but never will I ever choose to pick up another Dragon Age game because of how terrible the companions were. It's rare when bad characterization can force my hand into giving a poor rating on its own, but that's just how bad it was. Deekin Scalesinger is bae.
Aug 6, 2011
3
Unimpressive and underwhelming - does not 'expand' on anything. BioWare should let the design department design the game, not a committee of producers, writers, and marketing executives. This franchise is well on its way to ignominy. The quests are unbelievably mundane - now a BioWare tradition it would seem. Converations overly verbose. Unnecessarily long and pointless cutscenes. The new items are game-breakingly overpowered.
