I picked up Dragon Age Origins again lately to break in my new rig and it has been a breath of fresh air. It's really the last time Bioware was in proper form as far as I'm concerned and it's a grand send off. The whole siege at Ostagar just has this classic feel of an epic to it, from the rain to the drums to that one guy who falters and the guy behind him steadying him as they prepare to face the oncoming horde. I can't say that it's a game devoid of the mind virus of the current age, but it's nice to see a high fantasy setting that's just overbearingly white in essence and in depiction. Hell even the characterization of Ferelden as a country that adores its dogs is just quintessentially European. It's a quirk that's uniquely pronounced in white people and I don't think they even realized they were leaning into that. Then we've got Sten, who has long been a favorite of mine. He is resolute and unabashedly opposed to the very concept of women being warriors to the point where he will chide your companions and even the player for trying to be men. His dead pan delivery of it all is just the icing on the cake. He knows what is true and does not hesitate to state it plainly.
It's just been nice to go back and remember what a AAA game can be when it isn't completely overflowing with poison.
We weren't using language like "woke" at that point. There were some obnoxious politics in DA:2, but I remember what annoyed me most about it at the time was the shitty writing. DA:O had a fantastic story full of nuanced player choices that could make each play through different, but there was solid logic behind each choice you could have made. In 2, it was just transparently "Here's the 'good' option we want you to pick and here's the 'evil' option, but that would make you a bad person and we're going to punish you for it.' It was just Fable with more gore.