All this week we're looking back on the best of the Dragon Age series, to celebrate its 15th anniversary. We've got loads of great Dragon Age opinions and retrospectives, and we'll be adding more to the list in the days to come.
Few RPG party members are as beloved as the companions of the Dragon Age games, and there's good reason for that. Across memorable story moments, sprawling dialogue trees, companion quests, and a certain amount of adult fun, we've gotten the chance to get to know BioWare's creations on a startlingly deep level—and they've rewarded the investment with complex personalities, rich backstories, and emotional arcs.
Every one of them has their fans—but I think we can all agree that some of them do stand taller than others. Here are our picks for the most memorable and lovable of the bunch—and if we missed out your favourite, that's your cue to make your case for them down in the comments.
Morrigan
Companion in: Dragon Age: Origins
Other appearances: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Robin Valentine, Senior Editor: RPG players are pretty much the exact demographic primed to want a snarky goth girlfriend who lives in the woods, but there's more to Morrigan than that. There's a reason she appears in almost every game in the series.
From her first understated appearance, immediately soaked in cynicism and sarcasm, she stood out as a rich and nuanced character—confident and prickly, but behind that afraid and confused. As brilliantly noted by Rob Jones in his case for her as the best RPG companion of all time, what makes her so memorable and exciting in Origins is that she challenges you as a player. She prods at your dialogue choices and plot decisions, rankles at your choice of other companions, and all the while obscures her motives and goals—her plans within plans. Her trust (and her love) must be earned—and even then, you'll never truly know where you stand.
I'd be remiss to not give credit, too, to the talents of the wonderful Claudia Black, whose vocal performance brings all of BioWare's efforts together to make Morrigan leap out of the screen. Her clipped tone and oddly archaic way of speaking do as much to mark her out as someone from another world as her actual dialogue or her strange appearance. Every time she's appeared in a later Dragon Age game, just the sound of her voice has seemed to let in some creeping shadow of the dark and wild fantasy atmosphere of Origins—even in the much more colourful and friendly world of The Veilguard.
Alistair
Companion in: Dragon Age: Origins
Other appearances: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Harvey Randall, Staff Writer: I've had to restrain myself from getting in a big fight with Robin over why Alistair doesn't fulfil the scientific criteria for being a "himbo". I'm breaking from my chains and giving a mighty roar to defend my clever boy.
What works about Alistair is due, in part, to the grimdark setting Dragon Age: Origins plonks you in. Here's a world drowned in darkspawn, political intrigue, religious oppression, elves getting shafted, mages getting shafted, Grey Wardens getting shafted—you get the picture. The game's opening hours are drenched in blood and death. Yet here's a guy cracking jokes, despite the fact that he went through the horror of the Joining just like you did.
In my discussion of why Dragon Age: The Veilguard's early dialogue doesn't work for me, I highlight his first appearance as a great example of how to introduce a companion character—his back-and-forth verbal slap fight with a mage is both hilarious and immediately endearing, and a perfect starter kit to his personality. From then on, he continues to pop little surprises out of his sleeve like a handsome magician.
Alistair comes off as a dumb cynic with a motor mouth (and he is that) but he's also thoughtful, insecure, and deeply empathetic. Scratch that thin layer of smarm and you get a stand-up bloke whose sharp tongue gets turned on you with a vicious proficiency if you screw up.
I think that's why I can't himbo-ify the guy in my head, being honest—himbos are all brawn, no brains, and kind goofballs. Alistair's brand of goofball, however, is a film-flimsy shield against a world that's routinely disappointed him, a barely-present mask to slap over his roiling insecurity, and that's what makes him interesting. Morrigan can make you worse, but I can fix him—though I recommend having them in a party together. Their bickering is endlessly entertaining.
Varric
Companion in: Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Other appearances: Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Jody Macgregor, Weekend/AU Editor: My glib summary of Dragon Age 2 is "best companions; worst everything else" and while that's a slight oversimplification, it did give us my favorite Thedan homie in Varric Tethras.
Varric exemplifies Dragon Age's commitment to the "our dwarves are different" bit, being a surface-born scoundrel with a light dusting of stubble rather than a beard. (He seems to have refocused all that follicular effort into growing the luxurious chest hair of a 1970s loverman instead.) A born exaggerator, Varric made a great choice for the narrator of Dragon Age 2, and the sequels, because it means you can never be quite sure how accurate the story he's telling is.
It also makes for a great gag when you catch him doing it in-game—following Hawke's statements with asides like "Hawke said sarcastically" if you choose the snarky options, as you absolutely should.
Varric grows over the course of the series, from a charlatan who practically lives at the pub in Dragon Age 2 to a trusted advisor of the Inquisitor in Dragon Age: Inquisition. By the time The Veilguard rolls around he's become a mentor figure responsible for plucking Rook from obscurity and putting them in charge of his new gang. Which makes sense. After spending so long as Hawke's ride-or-die bestie and a member of the Inquisitor's inner circle, Varric can spot a videogame protagonist a mile away.
Just by dint of sticking around for so long, Varric's become a de facto face for the series, and I love that said face has a boxer's nose and a lantern jaw and belongs to a dwarf with a profitable sideline in turning videogame plots into trashy pulp serials. What a guy.
Dorian
Companion in: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Other appearances: Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Lauren Morton, Associate Editor: It's hard to choose just one standout from Inquisition's cast but I think Dorian deserves a spotlight. After two full games of hearing the words "Tevinter" and "magisters" whispered like boogeymen, we meet this 30-year-old trust fund kid going no contact with his family while taking a gap year in the uncultured south. It would be easy to hate him if he weren't so darn charming.
Dorian is a breath of fresh air among all the mage party members we'd had in the series to date—knowledgeable without lecturing, sarcastic without spite, and an unrepentant flirt. BioWare really broke the mould on Dorian, just the right amount of twinkle in his eye on top of his snobbish facade.
His sidequests are a deeply personal journey about being a gay man seeking closure after a falling out with his intolerant father. It's a story that could have come across heavy-handed if he weren't so believably flawed himself. There are parts of life in Tevinter, like slavery, that he'd just never questioned until the Inquisitor gets the opportunity to press him on them. Dorian eventually acknowledges that Tevinter's imperial culture has even more flaws than the ones that affected him personally. Seeing some nods to that journey of his sprinkled into The Veilguard was a treat too.
Not to mention, Dorian's alluded-to fling with The Iron Bull played no small part in making them both beloved. It was such an enjoyable little treat for those paying attention in Inquisition that BioWare doubled down on the bit for The Veilguard by giving companions overt relationships with one another—when not in one with Rook.
Leliana
Companion in: Dragon Age: Origins
Other appearances: Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Jeremy Peel, Contributor: When BioWare first came up with the Dragon Age setting, the big challenge was to distinguish it from the Forgotten Realms. The risk was that players would recognise the actual origins of Thedas—a corporate need to replace the D&D license with a world the company owned itself. One that still resembled medieval Europe and featured fireballs, but didn’t involve working with Hasbro.
With a French accent alone, Leliana went a long way to breathing life into Thedas. While the temperate muddiness of Ferelden felt familiar to players of Baldur’s Gate, Leliana convinced us that there were lands with varied and different cultures beyond its borders. Namely Orlais, which until Dragon Age: Inquisition existed only on the lips of characters who had travelled there.
What’s more, she embodied one of the key differences between Thedas and D&D—the matter of religion. In the Realms, the gods walked the earth, empirically proving their own existence. Leliana’s dedication to the Maker, by contrast, required blind faith, and was subject to that most human and relatable of feelings: doubt.
Shale
Companion in: Dragon Age: Origins
Other appearances: N/A (What an injustice!)
Fraser Brown, Online Editor: Shale was, ludicrously, a piece of day one DLC, which is a terrible way for BioWare to treat one of its best characters. She falls into the category of leftfield weirdo, like Mass Effect 2's Legion, Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening's Justice or Jade Empire's Wild Flower. What makes Shale weird? Well, she's a rock.
She's also an absolute riot. Deeply sarcastic, with an incredibly (and appropriately) dry sense of humour, she is immensely quotable. Case in point: "Now, let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?" She likes a bit of violence, to put it lightly. And she has a deep hatred of birds. Wouldn't you, if you had to spend countless years as an immobile statue while the little critters sat on you and covered you in poop?
Her interactions with the rest of Origins' fantastic party are a constant delight, but she's not just a moody comedy sidekick. I mean, she's a war golem for one, so she pulls her (considerable) weight in battle. And her personal story is a potent one, too. When she cropped up again in Awakening, I was gutted to discover she wouldn't be joining me on that adventure. In DA2, some incidental tavern dialogue confirms that she's still knocking about, so I'm hoping we'll bump into her again one day.
