Dragon Age: Origins Human Noble Preview

IGN was able to get their hands on Dragon Age: Origins again, and this time they were given the chance to try out the game’s Human Noble origin.

If you’re going to play someone in Dragon Age, you’d be hard pressed to find a better position than the human nobles. In the game’s universe, the humans are the dominant species, with the dwarves sort of like helpful craftsmen and the elves little more than indentured servants to the humans. Throughout the game you’ll be treated as nobility, as pretty much everyone treats you with courtesy and respect, which is a far cry from some of the other origin stories. You play as the youngest scion of a noble house; your father is an arl, which is probably the Dragon Age equivalent to an earl. You can create a male or female character, and the dialogue (all fully voiced) adjusts for whichever gender.

First, we should probably discuss character creation, since you actually need to create a human noble before you get to play one. Humans can play as warriors, mages, and rogues, though human nobles can only play as warriors and rogues. Human mages are an entirely different origins story, which means that they have a different starting point and plot. Not surprising, but the character creation system is built off of the one found in Mass Effect; you use sliders to choose and adjust facial features, such as eye height, jaw width, cheekbone height, ear size, and much more. Mass Effect fans will probably recognize many of the facial parts, such as the eyes. One nice thing is that you can adjust your character’s in-game portrait; remember the old days when BioWare supplied hand-painted portraits for your characters? Now you can pose your character’s face, and even adjust their facial expression. There’s something cool about having a wry smirk for your portrait.