Dragon Age: Absolution (Netflix): Home Cooking in the Fantasy Realm – Special

Fantastic BioWare

With Dragon Age, the US development studio Bioware has established a classic fantasy setting alongside Mass Effect, which moves in the sci-fi milieu. The three games released so far have all been very successful, each selling millions of copies and receiving at least one DLC. In addition, an anime film was released in 2010, there is also a web series, numerous comics and also some novels. A rich cosmos, then, from which the new series Dragon Age: Absolution could draw. But when and where is the series, which was adapted by the Korean studio Red Dog Culture House for Netflix, set?

Deep in the heart of the Mage Realm

The main character of the series is the elf Miriam, who grew up as a slave in the Empire of Tewinter, but managed to escape and has since hired herself out as a thief. When her great love Hira, who once left her, suddenly appears and asks for help, old feelings well up in Miriam again. So she agrees to help the group around Hira and the charismatic Fairbanks. The mage Hira is on a mission for the Inquisition to steal a powerful artifact from the kingdom of Tewinter before the mages can use it against the rest of the world.

Miriam’s sidekick Roland, an Orlesian warrior, is there as well as the Qunari mage Qwidion and the dwarven warrior Lacklon. Miriam is supposed to bring the group into the palace unseen as a local. There, Fairbanks and Hira want to recover the artifact and then disappear as quickly as possible. But the order does not go as planned as hoped. This is ensured by the powerful Magister Rezaren, with whom Miriam still has a personal score to settle, and Tassia, the commander of the palace guard…

Action off the shelf

The story of the series is set in the time after the Inquisition, which plays a major role in the third part of the game series. So e.g. B. Cassandra, the right hand of the Inquisitor, can be seen briefly. The clashes between the mages and the templars, a theme from the beginning of the series, also appear in Dragon Age: Absolution. However, the connections aren’t so tight that a newcomer to the world of Dragon Age wouldn’t understand – quite the contrary. The series tells such a generic high-fantasy story that it works entirely on its own. Previous knowledge from the games is nice, but not absolutely necessary.

A group of heroes is hired to steal a large treasure from a well-secured building — and then everything doesn’t go as planned: Robert E. Howard already came up with such plots 90 years ago for his fantasy barbarian Conan. And there should also be hundreds of adventures for Dungeons & Dragons or The Dark Eye that begin like this. Although the makers were looking for experienced screenwriters – Tim Sheridan wrote a number of DC animation film adaptations, Mae Catt was the author of the much better fantasy series The Legend of Vox Machina, among other things – but nobody from the BioWare studio or its Environment put on an important creative post.

The magic of the games is missing

Now one can argue that fantasy is limited in its themes if it is to be as classic as possible – and that cannot be argued away either. But it should have been a little more original than Dragon Age: Absolution. Especially the ambivalent magicians in the games, who often appear as unwilling villains and therefore also have a tragic component, are stereotypical villains or heroes in the series, even if the authors give the nasty magister at least one understandable reason for his actions. Now the games certainly don’t tell the most original stories under the sun, but score with an epic length and corresponding gravitas in terms of the effects of the events on the fantasy world. On the other hand, Dragon Age: Absolution is unfortunately only an appetizer, which with its six episodes of barely half an hour also has little time to build up a big plot.

Even at the end of the first season, which is definitely designed for a sequel, the story is no more imaginative than at the beginning. After all, the makers dare to include “woke” themes, which, however, experience has shown are not well received by all fantasy fans. And that should also cause criticism. The aforementioned Vox Machina series on Amazon Prime shows how it can be done better. It is based on the adventures of a well-known D&D game group from the USA and, in addition to a more original approach, brings something that Dragon Age: Absolution completely lacks: humor. Although Vox Machina also tells a dark story at its core, the weird characters and dialogues allow you to laugh – and that would have looked good on the Dragon Age series.

You can see it, but you don’t have to

Visually, both series are very similar, although Dragon Age: Absolution was created in Korea and Vox Machina in the USA. However, this special anime look pleasing to western eyes is also widespread: The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf looks very similar, as does the Dragon’s Dogma series on Netflix. When it comes to blood and violence, Dragon Age: Absolution doesn’t hold back, but the series isn’t as brutal as Cyberpunk Edgerunners or Vox Machina, both of which have been given an 18-year rating. Nevertheless, it is definitely unsuitable for children, Netflix itself rated the series with a rating of 16 years and over.

When it comes to the voice output, the English version, stated as the original by Netflix, is slightly ahead, but the German version of the series is also absolutely successful and convinces with professional speakers. And so the bottom line is that the plot is very expected, but exciting and emotionally told fantasy story that offers a few Easter eggs for fans of the Dragon Age games, but also doesn’t leave newcomers out in the rain. And if you’re a fan of Dungeons & Dragons or the Divinity series, you’ll have enough to invest 150 minutes in the series. But it’s not a real pearl like Arcane! Anyone hoping for big revelations for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, the announced fourth game in the series, will also be disappointed: the series has nothing more to offer than brief mentions of a few well-known characters. Important for series fans: Dragon Age: Absolution gets a decent ending and could end like this, but is still clearly trimmed for a sequel. Whether that will come remains to be seen given the quality.