Friends, here is my story: Coming home to the UK from Summer Game Fest, hungry and heatstruck, I arrived at one of Los Angeles International Airport’s many food and coffee stands. Blearily, I ordered a latte and some kind of egg salad sandwich composed mostly of bread. The cashier told me that this humble repast would somehow be $21, in violation both of the social contract and mankind’s covenant with the Lord God.
Being an assertive and self-confident type, I said absolutely nothing and meekly paid up. But I shouldn’t have, because if I still had that $21 I could have bought the entire Dragon Age trilogy—base games and all the DLC—twice over in the currently ongoing Dragon Age Steam sale. In place of a thin film of egg smeared on a loaf of wholewheat and a latte that tasted of nothing and which I eventually tipped down a new shirt, I’d have 300 hours of quite excellent fantasy RPG. Yes, Dragon Age 2 included: 94%, baby.
Until June 24 at 10 am PDT / 1 pm EDT / 6 pm BST, you can acquire Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, and Dragon Age: Inquisition on Steam for a mere $10 (£8.50). The first two games cost $3 (£2.50) each, while Inquisition is a buck extra, coming in at $4 (£3.50).
Like I mentioned up top, that’s not just the base version of each game, it’s the whole kit and kaboodle. Dragon Age: Origins comes with its meaty Awakening expansion and various content packs, DA2 comes with all three of its own expansions and all of its DLC weapons and armour, and Inquisition comes with the Jaws of Hakkon, Descent, and Trespasser DLCs as well its myriad disposable knick-knacks. Until The Veilguard hits, it’s literally all the mainline Dragon Age that exists for 10 bucks. You could do much worse for your money (especially in LAX).
Personally, Origins is my favourite of the lot: A mid-2000s attempt to modernise the classic Infinity Engine formula in a way that the Xbox generation (that’s me) could handle and appreciate. It was the new shit, in other words. It’s not perfect, but it gets more right than it gets wrong, and I’d be amazed if it got any cheaper any time soon.