Dragon Age has established itself as one of the most beloved fantasy RPG series in the world. Like its sci-fi sibling Mass Effect, it boasts a compelling cast of characters that excel largely because of the way in which you get to know them - gradually and mostly in private.
If you were to ask a fan why this is the case, they’d likely tell you it’s a result of the series’ phenomenal writing. It has to do with the characters, narrative, and themes that are woven into a brilliantly cohesive single-player experience - it’s strange, then, that Dragon Age: Origins almost launched as a multiplayer game.
“The big [change] was a multiplayer mode that was cut sometime in the middle of development,” Dragon Age: Origins writer Jay Turner tells me. “There was celebration in the streets at that point because multiplayer was causing all sorts of problems for single-player, and those of us focused on the story got a lot of resources and freedom back.”
Dan Tudge, who was creative director on Dragon Age: Origins, explains that this was one of several measures that were taken in order to keep the game on track. While it wasn’t technically a cut in the conventional sense of the word, the decision to drop multiplayer was one of the biggest and most important ones Tudge and his team were forced to make - especially given how expensive the origin stories were becoming.
“We were going to do a multiplayer version and we didn't really have enough time,” Tudge says. “There was a large chunk [of the team] that wanted to cut multiplayer, but the previous leadership couldn't make the decision - they wouldn't make the decision. So I said no, we're cutting multiplayer, it's gone. I remember Ross Gardner, the lead programmer, was like, ‘Once this is cut, it can't ever come back.’ He was in the office next to me - he must have told me 50 times, ‘You can't change your mind on this,’ and I'm like, ‘Yeah, I know.’ I said, ‘No, it's cut.’ We trimmed quite a bit of the game, if you can believe it, because the game is ginormous. We dropped a couple of origin stories. Once we all got working together, it really was a magical team - the best team I've ever worked with, ever, in 25+ years.”
According to Tudge, Origins’ multiplayer component would have largely revolved around co-op. There were no traditional invasion or horde mechanics planned - essentially, everybody would play through their origin story and come through to a multiplayer experience that matched you with other players.
“It was really, really ambitious when you consider how ambitious the single-player game was alone,” Tudge says. “While the multiplayer was in there, that part of the engine was not really robust enough to handle it. It was sucking a lot of time.”
Not only was this ambitious - it was totally different to what eventually shipped. It might seem logical to assume that the multiplayer narrative was just revamped in order to make it better suited for a solo experience, but just like the fact Dragon Age originally had no dragons, the changes necessary for satisfying this radical developmental shift were far bigger.
“It was a whole separate story and campaign which was meant to work with multiplayer,” Origins lead writer David Gaider explains. “A big part of why the team took years to spin around in circles: half the team wanted DAO to be multiplayer-only, the other half wanted single player-only, and never the twain met until finally the issue was resolved.”
Origins producer Kevin Loh tells me that it eventually got to a point where the multiplayer version of the game would have demanded a whole rework - and as Gaider mentions above, even redirecting it back towards single-player required quite a bit of adapting and revising. While studios like BioWare at the time mostly operated around an “it’s done when it’s done” mantra, Loh notes that, “Eventually the title has to ship, or will… well... never ship [...] It would have to be a whole new title, and ultimately led to massive multiplayer worlds like The Old Republic and Anthem.”
It’s important to note that Loh is absolutely correct here. “I spent quite a bit of time building a prototype design for multiplayer storytelling during the window when we were asked to consider making the game multiplayer,” Origins managing editor Daniel Erickson says. “Thankfully in the end that didn’t happen, but that design did become the backbone of the dialogue system I would later design for Star Wars: The Old Republic.”
So there you have it - Dragon Age: Origins could very well have been a multiplayer game from the end of your origin story onward. Instead of taking on the darkspawn with just your companions, you would have been matched up with other players, all of whom had created their own custom Wardens with proprietary skills and tactics. In hindsight now, it was clearly a clever decision - Dragon Age has become massively popular for its single-player adventures and the prototype didn’t go to waste thanks to its later resurgence in The Old Republic. Still, it’s a fascinating premise to think about - who knows, maybe we’ll see a multiplayer Dragon Age game yet.