Why Did Dragon Age II Leave Some Fans So Cold?

Freelance writer and frequent Gamasutra contributor Katherine Cross has penned an article on the widespread negative reaction to Dragon Age II, in which she suggests that part of the reason the game is so reviled is that it eschews the traditional scheme of the heroic power fantasy and instead chooses to make its protagonist an impotent refugee that can’t meaningfully affect the events of the story. In other words, according to Cross, Hawke is much more similar to one of the NPCs than the protagonist of the previous title.

Here’s an excerpt that makes the point rather strongly:

It’s disempowering to stand in the shoes of someone who can’t bend the world to their whim in a videogame. It disrupts the power fantasy if you find yourself cast adrift in a relentless storm instead of causing it.

It’s a less common path taken in RPGs and one that the fan base built up by Origins was unprepared for. But it is not without a certain measure of precedent. Another controversial second entry in an RPG series, Knights of the Old Republic II, does something similar with your character’s relationship to her mentor Kreia. One of the most common complaints I heard, regardless of one’s status as a (hardcore) or (casual) gamer, one’s political affiliation, or age, was that Kreia’s manipulations throughout the story mean your character’s choices don’t matter.

A similar charge is often leveled at Dragon Age II, though it’s complicated there. There are places in Dragon Age II where, narratively, choice should’ve mattered–like choosing the Mages or Templars at the end of the game; that was reduced to something that was functionally cosmetic. You get the same boss fights with basically the same ending. But the complaints go beyond that. Hawke, some seem to think, should’ve had the power to dispel all the plagues of Kirkwall, fix and heal everything that was broken, and conjure perfect endings for everyone.

I’m sure Hawke herself would have loved to have that power. She can’t save her sibling, she can’t save her mother, she can’t stop Anders’ act of terror nor the Mage-Templar War it initiated. Hawke’s story is one of winning the battle and losing the war.

But that, really, is the point. Bioware wanted to tell the story of a person who could credibly have those longings: someone with some strength and ample talent, but still just that erstwhile refugee, sword or staff in hand, who was just trying to defend her family.

Bioware wanted to tell the story of someone who was, at times, just as much buffeted by change as the catalyst of it. That Hawke never quite seizes the reins of history, save for fleeting, almost accidental moments, has a kind of realism to it and makes the struggle of her and her companions all the more compelling to me. But it might also repulse players who wonder why they’re in the middle of this refugee’s story when they could be off ending another Blight, or at the epicenter of some other global existential crisis.