Respect for your elders.
The year is 2009 and Bioware is about to release one of their greatest, and most terrible, achievements. Because you see, 'Dragon Age: Origins' is a game that would shoot the already accomplished developer into the spotlight once again on a golden horse of quality, and would unfortunately be the absolute peak of their life from which the studio would spiral into ignominy. Every success they make from then on would be compared and contrasted to it, every failure would be heightened in the knowledge that they once made this; the entirety of Bioware history would be whittled down to before 'Dragon Age: Origins' and after. At least in the eyes of some. I'm someone who still remembers that this is the studio who bought both Knights of the Old Republic (an arguably better game) to the world and the Baldur's Gate Trilogy; an actual classic masterpiece. None of which is to say that Origins isn't another masterpiece for their shelf, because it absolutely is; but when I see people heralding it as the unbeaten gold standard for RPGs I can't help but roll my eyes.
'Dragon Age: Origins' is a spectacular RPG, not least of all because it's the only RPG I can think of which has managed to create genuinely impactful origin story set-ups so that the character you make in character creation is firmly cemented in the world. Cyberpunk 2077 even tried to copy that feature, and ended up screwing it up because they forgot to add the follow-up main narrative tie-in which makes the origin stories impactful! Origins also balanced its narrative between several big self contained stories with their own climaxes that all leant towards the bigger goal, so that by the time you reached the credits you really felt like you'd embarked on a world shaking adventure novel the size of a Tolkien book. It presented a simple RPG system which, whilst lacking depth for a game of it's genre, provided a very fun set of tools to navigate the world with. And it also toyed with action and consequence in a manner that felt like it had impact, even if as-a-whole it sort of feels a bit like the whole 'Mass Effect 3' style story where you shore up allies for some big final battle at the end because you need the numbers rather than because you're shaping the specifics of the future.
All of which I lay down in praise, because Dragon Age has been one of my favourite fantasy worlds almost exclusively through of it's stellar introduction in 'Origins'. (And that's still the case after watching that Cassandra Anime which that convinced I'm the only one who has ever watched. So that goes to show you how much of a fan I am.) Thedas succeeds in being a fantasy world lacking the backing of a well established book franchise to lean on or any of the other dozens of helping hands that some game devs rely on, and is still pretty interesting and cool, apart from the elves who are cookie-cutter cliché fantasy elves. And that isn't a given, by the way; lest I remind everyone of Larian's Divinity and that total sewer of a fantasy world so rotten that Larian literally reimagines the entire world canon every game or so. But in Bioware's failure to really nail the formula of Origins again, or to try and supplant it with something better like they've tried to do twice now, I think it's safe to admit to ourselves that the golden boy of 'Dragon Age' is no longer at the top of the pecking order for RPGs anymore. Well, unless you're looking specifically for a mildly deep, narratively formulaic, fantasy cliché ridden, role playing game. By Bioware. If you want those specifics; then 'Dragon Age: Origins' is your king. But if you're looking at the buffet that is RPGs; the genre has moved and branched beyond what that old classic can offer.
Rather than just living in the world of the RPG. Or the western RPG and the JRPG, if you're cultured. We now have the RPG and the CRPG. And for what it's worth, I think that CRPGs have effectively overtaken the western RPG market and made those old titles largely irrelevant, at least from a gameplay standpoint. (Origins will forever be well written, afterall.) These CRPGs harken back to the old days where RPGs existed to adapt robust and expansive board game rulesets into the digital landscape, which provided vast swathes of gameplay potential as they were designed to do. Bioware came at a time when RPGs were smoothing out a lot of those complexities in an effort to become more widely playable, and at the time that made the most sense; but we're leaning back towards an industry of niche and specialisation, such that those old games that tried to balance the fence just don't really cut in comparisons anymore.
Pillars of Eternity was the big return to form for a lot of people out there, as Obsidian slid into the space left behind my the death of the original CRPGs to remind everyone what we love above board-game based RPGs. Options. So many options and builds and styles of play beyond the bog standards 'rouge, mage or warrior' that everyone and their mother usually does. Although for me it was Tyranny which really tipped the cart over on DA:O's shoes. Their unique narrative presentation of being someone who serves the dictator sparked to life that world in a manner I hadn't felt for a new RPG in a very long time, that same spark which had gone stale for Dragon Age after two entries that felt like they weren't giving themselves to the world building quite as much as they could. (What the series needs is a single globetrotting action RPG that really highlights the beauty and diversity of Thedas, rather than redesigning a whole race and telling us to just go with for the third time.)
But what about that unique structure which DA:O rocked? True enough, no matter how many other RPGs you find which get the individual bits and pieces down pat, none quite capture that epic feeling of a total adventure told in one great stride. DA:O is really the successor to the Baldur's Gate trilogy in that regard, only without the ramp up in challenge to match the stakes of the narrative. Except... Pathfinder Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous give it a damn good try, don't they? Both adaptions of entire adventure campaigns, those Owlcat Games titles go even further than 'Dragon Age: Origins' to tell branching and intricate epic journeys that feel like a whole sweep of novels by the flipside. They haven't perfected that formula just yet, and there's still some ways to go for Owlcat but they're not stopping improving their craft. Unlike Bioware they aren't moving away from that style of RPG, they're embracing it and expanding it to create games that challenge RPG diehards. Whilst Bioware let the mantle rot and fester.
Ah, but I can't extol the virtues of Bioware RPGs without talking the cinematic presentation that they alone have possessed and perfected for all these years, now can I? Unless... oh, Larian is in the process of nabbing that crown of excellence with their work on the upcoming Baldur's Gate 3; a game which is a follow-up to Bioware's own legacy work too, which has got to be something of a double whammy. Soon Bioware won't even have the façade of epic narrative storytelling to hold up as their saving grace, which is going to end up leaving the studio practically bereft of virtues to call their own. And that's probably because in the years since DA:O came out, the game development industry has grown and involved in ways that version of Bioware could never imagine.
Some games really do stand the test of time and remain the shining beacon that everyone looks back to for inspiration, but they are very rare exemplars of their genre. With how busy the RPG genre is, it shouldn't really be news to anyone that even a classic like 'Origins' isn't going to remain the top-dog golden standard forever, this medium evolves too quickly for that. None of which is to say there isn't still lessons to be learned from Origins, specifically in it's still unmatched character origins mechanic. (I really would have thought Larian would have managed to trump that one in the years since, but no such luck.) But even legends need to be put to rest, lest we leave them on the pedestal as more of a curtsey and it just becomes an embarrassment, like giving Martin Scorsese an Oscar for Gangs of New York instead of Goodfellas; it's just unseemly. So sing of how good Origins was during it's time all you want, but don't pretend it's still the king of the crop. Give it the respect to let the game rule it's time, why dontcha?
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