Dragon Age 2 was, for any number of reasons, one of the more divisive games to come out from Bioware in some time. Some people thought it was a brilliant reinvention of the franchise, while others saw it as unnecessary tinkering with an already successful formula. Now the first major piece of DLC for the game has hit the digital shelves in the form of a new content based expansion titled Legacy. Does this previously unexplored story of the Hawke bring glory to the family name or is it simply another example of good intentions gone horribly awry?

Dragon Age: Origins had a decidedly mixed success rate when it came to the various examples of DLC released for the game. Outside of Awakening (which could have easily been a completely stand-alone game in the first place), the remainder of Origin’s expansions were fairly pointless affairs that did little to add to the overall experience of the original game. So it was with some trepidation that I began my journey through Legacy, the first major expansion for Dragon Age 2. Thankfully, what I got was less the kind of DLC that the original Dragon Age: Origins tended to produce, and instead an experience more akin to the excellent expansions that Mass Effect 2 continuously rewards fans of that game with.

Legacy tells a previously untold adventure of Hawke and company that can be accessed at almost any point in the game, including post-ending. The game opens with the now familiar scene of everyone’s favorite dwarf Varric being interrogated by the dour templar Cassandra. She brings up the fact that Varric has been less than forthcoming about a certain adventure Hawke had undertaken in regards to a previously unknown Grey Warden prison. With a shrug and his trademark grin, Varric agrees to tell the tale, but warns Cassandra that she will likely never believe how an encounter with the mafia-esque dwarven organization known as the Carta would lead Hawke to heretofore undiscovered familial secrets and, ultimately, into a confrontation with an entity out of the darkest recesses of the history of Thedas itself…

Legacy’s story is a well done and highly enjoyable narrative. While it never reaches the depths and complexities of the game’s main narrative, it none-the-less weaves an engaging yarn that has major implications for both Hawke and the overarching mythology of the Dragon Age universe. Depending on which characters a player chooses to bring with them, Legacy also gives the other party members (Varric, the Hawke sibling, and Anders in particular) a good amount to say and do, a fact that only serves to make the expansion’s story all the more engaging. Legacy’s climax also features the kind of tricky choices that Bioware likes to include in their games, with the aftermath of said choices promising repercussions for players somewhere down the line, be it in another expansion or possibility even Dragon Age 3. Overall, Legacy produces a tale that stands well enough on its own while also introducing elements that serve to hint at where the next major chapter in the Dragon Age saga is likely to be heading.

Legacy does not dramatically change Dragon Age 2′s approach to gameplay, but it does feature some significant tweaks that help to freshen up the overall experience. First and foremost, Legacy almost entirely (save for one brief encounter early on in the expansion) does away with the kind of limited and repetitive dungeon design that helped to mar the overall experience of DA2. There is nice amount of visual variety in the various areas that make up the Warden’s Prison, ranging from a desert landscape to crumbling dungeon tunnels to the mist filled caverns beneath the prison proper, and the layout of said areas is similarly less straightforward than what was typically encountered in DA2 proper. While Legacy is still a fairly linear affair, it at least features more than one straight corridor after another stitched together. The expansion even includes a good number of wholly optional side areas to explore, many of which play a part in Legacy’s handful of similarly optional side-quests.

Combat also tends to be both more difficult and enjoyable in Legacy, with a number of interesting new enemy types, such as the Genlock Alpha whose large shield makes him nearly immune to frontal attacks, present to give players new challenges to deal with. The lack of repeated homogeneous dungeon layouts also lets Bioware be cleverer in the placement and makeup of enemy encounters. Frequent ambushes (in the form of enemies positioned so that they blend nearly seamlessly into the environment or by having a smaller force flee and draw the party into larger encounters) abound, while the expansion’s various sub-boss encounters tend to feature more varied tactics than simply throwing a bunch of random enemies at the party. The final boss encounter in Legacy is particularly noteworthy, and it is easily among (if not simply the) most difficult encounters to be had within the entirety of Dragon Age 2. To be fair, this difficulty does arise in part because the game’s finicky party A.I. can easily lead to defeat without careful management on the part of the player, but this is a relatively minor annoyance in light of how genuinely epic and fun this boss fight ultimately turns out to be.

All in all, Legacy is a highly enjoyable experience but that is not to say it does not have its fair share of flaws. Legacy never reaches the level of ambition or accomplishment that the best Mass Effect 2 expansions strived for, such as introducing new/unique gameplay elements or creating locations with an almost startling level beauty. While the aforementioned gameplay tweaks do improve thing to a degree, ultimately Legacy plays near identically to the way it progenitor did. Also, while the Warden’s Prison looks better than most DA2 dungeons did, it never reaches the level of visual design that Bioware was able to achieve during the exploration of the Atlas Station or the exterior of the Shadow Broker’s lair.

In essence how players will feel about Legacy will largely depend on their overall feelings about Dragon Age 2 in general. Personally, I walked away from my time with the expansion feeling like I got my money’s worth, but I also was someone who never found the weaknesses of DA2 ever came close to outweighing its strengths. For someone who absolutely hated DA2, Legacy will do little to change this opinion. On the other hand, for those who enjoyed DA2 but wished it had more closely resembled Dragon Age: Origins, then Legacy could very well be exactly the kind of experience the kind of expansion you are looking for. While Legacy never reaches the heights that such Bioware expansions as Lair of the Shadow Broker or Overlord did, it also never hits the lows of Witch Hunt or The Golems of Amgarrak either. It remains an enjoyable and robust three to four hour experience, one that also hopefully bodes well for whatever future Dragon Age 2 downloadable content is yet to come.

A review copy of this game was purchased on PC by the reviewer. The reviewer spent approximately four hours playing the game and the game was completed.