It has been some time since the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the latest entry into the epic fantasy series. And that means it’s time to replay the first three games, from Origins through Inquisition, to see all the obscure references to freshly revealed lore and how they affect worldbuilding and perception, I still don’t make the rules!
Previously, we have already shared a list of some impressive modifications for Inquisition, it’s high time to do that for Origins. The first game in the Dragon Age series released in 2009, and despite doing extremely well, some areas show their age regardless.
This list aims to make your playthrough smoother both in terms of gameplay and in terms of the game’s graphics without changing anything too drastically. To make it easier to sort and scroll through, the mods will be split into three categories: gameplay changes & fixes, visual enhancements, and miscellaneous, with the latter section containing programs to install mods and more.
Note that Dragon Age: Origins has an impressive amount of mods it received since the release. The list below is a subjective take, and far from an all-encompassing guide.
Dragon Age: Origins – Gameplay-related Mods:
Have you ever played through DA2 and looked in mild envy at how Hawke can summon their mabari with a simple whistle, while the DAO’s puppy takes an entire party slot? No more, Barkspawn is now always with you thanks to the Extra Dog Slot – and he won’t prevent you from taking your favorite party with you.
Don’t forget to interact with the dog from time to time while adventuring, it just might lead you to or bring you something good!
You might consider this cheating, but after playing through the Fade once/twice/thrice or however many times you’ve beaten Origins, I consider this saving time. Despite playing as a Mage in every single Dragon Age game, DAO’s Fade is the one part of the entire series’ playthrough that stumps me more than Deep Roads or Hinterlands.
Enter: Skip the Fade. It skips the labyrinth/puzzle part of the experience while still letting you interact with your companions’ nightmares. “When you defeat Duncan and use the pedestal, you will be teleported to each of your companion’s nightmares. If all companions are rescued, just click on the pedestal and you will be teleported to the Sloth Demon. From there on all will proceed as usual: kill the Sloth Demon, Neil appears and you are teleported back to the Circle Tower.”
Ever felt like forcing Zevran into being able to pick those locks that he lied to you about? Well, now you can with Character Respecialization! As comes from the name of the mod, it allows players to reset the attribute, specialization, spell, talent and skill points of any party member.
The add-on takes into account every bonus point the characters receive during the game including CE and DLC items, tomes, bonus points from the Fade, etc.
Speaking of picking the locks, have you ventured out without a Rogue or found their skills not efficient enough to open that chest that is taunting you? No more! With Lock Bash & Open Lock Spell mods, your Warriors and Mages alike get their own way to open chests and doors.
One of the Origins’ greats is its simple but effective tactics system that allows you to set up your companions’ behaviours. When to use certain abilities, items, disengage and so on. Alas, it shows its age as well.
Advanced Tactics fixes various bugs in the tactics system, party members’ behaviors and AI. It enables new conditions and actions that give you the opportunity to configure your followers more precisely. It also fixes some bugs that players may encounter during combat.
Arcane Warrior Weapon Drawn Casting
If you have played as an Arcane Warrior, you have no doubt noticed the following pattern: before every cast, your Mage puts away their weapon (unless you are using a staff), recites the spell, then pulls the weapon back out. No more wasting time on useless movements, cast with your weapons drawn!
It does change the flow of battle, making your Arcane Warrior more effective at spellcasting. Potentially even becoming overpowered when maxed out…
… especially if you increase the level cap, which is exactly what is being done in this mod. Leveling to 50 also allows you to unlock up to 6 specializations – but on the other hand, it greatly affects the balance of the game, so it’s up to you whether or not you want to install it. It persists for the Awakening DLC.
Dragon Age: Origins – Visual Enhancements:
A massive, massive one-stop-for-all visual enhancement mod. This mod will redesign ALL the NPCs (and companions, if you agree to it in the installation) in Dragon Age to fix face proportions in an attempt to make each character look a little bit more realistic in Dragon Age. A lot of time and thought was put into each character design for this project, and it affects all of the released DLCs as well – check out the installation instructions and full contents by following the link above.
Do you really want to wear that mage hood? Thought so, and this is where the No Helmet Hack mod comes in handy.
“This hack removes the helmet graphic from party members by placing helmets in the invisible \”cloak\” equipment slot. Item Sets fixed. Awakenings compliant.”
Medieval realism and all, but if you don’t want to stare at yellowish rotten teeth of characters all around, this is the mod to go for, especially if you avoid using packs that affect the appearance of multiple characters at once.
Have you found yourself falling in love with the Warden style from DA2/DAI? Now you can bring it to DAO with this mod, creating a unified look for the Warden armor across the first three games.
One of the areas where Dragon Age: Origins shows its age is the NPCs: the behavior, the way they interact with surroundings, even the sheer amount of NPCs around. And this is exactly what is changed by this mod.
Greatly improves ambient NPC behavior; adds hundreds of new items and then equips most NPCs with them in an attempt to improve immersion; adds new ways to handle certain situations; recreates cut content; fixes many vanilla bugs; adds dozens of new color tints… and much more. Most additions and changes are optional.
This mod changes several personal aura visual effects to have a very short duration. By the endgame, your character will be sparkling in all colors of the rainbow once the buffs kick in – this mod is used to prevent that.
Various appearance mods, hair, eyelashes & color customizations:
Dragon Age: Origins also has quite a few mods that add extra hairstyles, eyebrows, change the way your companions or important NPCs look and more. There are too much to list, so just put the name of your favorite companion in the search bar on Nexus and behold the width of people’s imagination.
Here are a few examples:
- Morrigan and Leliana Sacred Ashes Face Mod
- Pineappletree’s Vibrant Colors
- Pretty faces
- Morrigan Sacred Ashes Robes
- Malcolm Face Trailer CG – Grey Warden’s Calling/Sacred Ashes
Dragon Age: Origins – Miscellaneous Mods & Additions:
If you find that having heavy shadows from the letters gives you a headache or strains your eyes, this is the mod for you. It tackles readability improvements for cutscenes, the quest journal, the codex, conversation history, tooltips, the inventory, and other various menus.
This is an application that manages Dragon Age: Origins mods, fixing the .dazip files and overriding where needed. Check out the tutorial provided in the description!
Another application that helps you manage mods for DAO, and the one I personally used during my last playthrough.
“DAModder was designed as a replacement for Bioware’s DAUpdater program. With DAModder you can easily install and uninstall mods of all types.”
