Dragon Age: the first prototypes of Origins did not have dragons

Dragon Age without dragons now seems incomprehensible, as the monsters seem essential to the series. But early in the development of Dragon Age: Origins, the game didn’t have dragons – or, as you might have guessed, a title. In fact, the title came first.

According to a new interview with TheGamer, BioWare hadn’t considered adding dragons until it started coming up with a title for its fantastic new game. The studio had initially conceived the game as a fantasy epic set in a world past the age of giant monsters and high magic, where dragons were extinct. After the name “Dragon Age” was created (literally by chance), the team was tasked with finding a way to bring the dragons back into the game alive.

“Au début, Dragon Age n’avait pas de nom”, a déclaré l’artiste environnemental Ian Stubbington. “Il y avait quelques idées mais rien de concret, il a donc été décidé que l’un des codeurs créerait un générateur de noms aléatoires rapide. Ils ont assemblé quelque chose et ont ajouté tout un tas de mots fantastiques à la liste. et celui qui a obtenu le vote final de l’équipe à l’époque était bien sûr “Dragon Age”. [Lead writer] David gaider responded [with] something like, ‘Hmm, we better add dragons to the story then.’ “

Following the decision to use this name for the game, a series of decisions were made to radically reshuffle the direction of the game to incorporate the flying snakes. Perhaps most important is the change to the Archdemon, which was originally intended as a “kind of big, weird anime villain that looked like Lovecraft does Final Fantasy,” according to the editor of Dragon Age: Origins, Daniel Erickson. After coming up with the name “Dragon Age”, the studio realized they had to change the enemy into a dragon.

What’s striking about this is how much development happened and how important the decision likely ended up being to the series’ trajectory. These discussions began more than a year after the start of development, and there were moments of tension as a result. Be sure to read the rest of TheGamer’s interview, which has plenty of other interesting information.

The fourth game of Dragon Age is in the works, and there’s a good chance it’s filled with dragons. However, we have a long It’s time to wait: Dragon Age 4 probably won’t be released until 2023. Few details are known: it will take place in Tevinter, and it apparently still uses EA’s Frostbite engine.