The game is tiered with linear play that begins the game, and then it opens into a sand-box format that allows players to go where they will in the lands of Ferelden. The game begins with a player choosing one of six possible origins, and this will determine the course of the action and how you are perceived. There are three races and players can play as a rogue class, mage or warrior. As players level up, the classes get more specialized. A rogue, for example, can become a ranger. The customization options allow players to tweak faces in a wide range of ways to create a look they will be very happy with. Unlike previous BioWare games, like Neverwinter Nights or Baldur’s Gate, those customized faces will translate to the character portraits (which can also be uploaded to the community site).

The game begins with a set class –specific path that will end up with Duncan, a member of the Grey Wardens, intercedes and in order to save the life of the player’s character that player will have to journey with Duncan to Ostagar, where the battle is brewing between an army of Ferelden and the Dark Spawn forces.

As a back-story, several hundred years in the past, there were mages who were cast down and reappeared in the world as arch-demons leading the forces of evil known as the Dark Spawn. As the world’s armies were on the edge of defeat, the Grey Wardens showed up and turned the tide of battle. But as time drifted along, the Grey Wardens were regarded as legend. It appears, though, that they did not totally disappear and Duncan is trying to rebuild the Grey Wardens.

As the story evolves, there is betrayal and death and only a couple of Grey Wardens survive – your character being one of those. It is up to you to rekindle the unity that bound the various armies of the world and pull them together to combat the Dark Spawn before the world is lost.