Unless you’ve been living in the Korcari Wilds since November, you’ll know that Dragon Age: Origins has been released to rave reviews. One of the (many) benefits of owning the PC version is the ability to modify the game to your heart’s content. The modding community has been hard at work, poking and prodding at the inner workings of the game, and there are already a number of mods to choose from.
MyGaming has done some of the legwork for you, filtered out the crud, and compiled a list of great Dragon Age mods that enhance, improve, and expand upon the already superb game. For those that have played it through already, this is a good way to spice up the gameplay for another run. For those that haven’t yet had the chance to get going with this epic game, these mods will improve your experience from the start.
All of the listed mods (and many more) are found on the fantastic Dragon Age: Origins community website, Dragon Age Nexus. Be sure the grab the latest patch for Dragon Age: Origins before getting started with the mods.
It’s a good idea to use this, as it keeps track of the various mods and ‘overrides’ you are planning to install and is generally an improvement over the DAupdater and manual methods of installing mods. It handles the *.dazip modules in which numerous mods come packaged, and can create packages from the ‘override’ files some modders haven’t had time to pack in a *.dazip yet. It can also insert code into the Dragon Age config file, and manage the screenshots directory.
This mod should be considered ‘must-have’ for PC gamers with screens of 20 inches and above. When playing at high resolutions, the fonts and user interface can be painfully small, especially after long sessions of bleary-eyed gaming. Thankfully the FtG mod addresses this issue and makes for a far more comfortable gaming experience.
Since a good portion of the game is spent in dialogue screens why not give your character a hairstyle that truly reflects their personality? The latest Denerim style might not improve your stats but at least you’ll look good while slaying the Darkspawn.
Dragon Age: Origins – Redesigned
An experienced modder is behind this one, with the goal of tweaking the appearance of all of the NPCs, and it’s looking good. The proportions of faces, skin and hair tones, and overall appearance have been touched up. So far 139 characters have been done, with some receiving two or more different redesigns. This is so that the player can decide what they want the NPCs to reflect – a close resemblance to their personality, realism, or something more in line with Dragon Age lore. It is recommended that this mod be used after the initial playthrough, so as not to detract from Bioware’s original work.
This is done by the same modder responsible for DAO – Redesigned. Extensive work has been done to recreate the likeness of the model upon whom Morrigan was based, to great effect. It also uses a hairstyle from the ‘More Hairstyles’ mod.
Whilst there is nothing wrong with the vanilla textures, there is also nothing wrong with some high resolution eye candy. This is one for those with a capable system, as it will tear through RAM and VRAM like Sten through a farmer’s family. The files are also rather large to download, but they do sharpen up the visuals quite a bit.
If you didn’t get an edition of the game with the Warden’s Keep DLC, or simply don’t feel like forking out more money, you can still enjoy the benefit of the camp storage chest. Store all of your phat lewt while you go off in search of more.
This improves on the original tooltips by adding more information about the effects of various items, spells, attack moves, and so on. Some purists may hate it, but those who want to get a deeper insight into the myriad elements of the game will find it useful.
As of the latest two patches, the player character has been given a base critical hit chance of 0% whilst the rest of the party characters start with 3%. If you think this is unfair, then this is the mod for you.
In the vanilla version every character looks like they have a serious coffee drinking and/or tobacco chewing habit going on. This mod simply takes care of some personal hygiene issues and cleans up all the winning smiles the player will encounter.
Remember to back up your save games before installing anything – you never know if a glitch will mess up all your hard work. There are many other mods to explore that alter all elements of the game, from textures and meshes to combat and dialogue tweaks. Happy modified dragon slaying!
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