How to play Dragon Age – Origins in 2020

I have never given the Dragon Age series a fair chance. From what I heard before, is that only ‘Origins’ is a decent game. Its follow-ups would suffer from a lot of immersion-breaking issues. Nevertheless, as the Ultimate Edition of DAO became available at a nice discount on GOG, I just grabbed it, in all high hopes it would be my next Skyrim-like experience.

But soon I discovered I had to work a bit for that result. Below you can find how I managed to make this game as much as possible enjoyable on a modern PC connected with a 4K monitor.

First things first: you really need mods. There is no way to get around the limitations of this old game when you are aiming at the best experience, so better get used to that right now. Here they come, the steps which will make your life more fun.

First, after installing and updating the Dragon Age – Origins game, download and install Nexus Mod Manager (NMM) from here. Yes, that’s right, that’s their old mod-enabling tool. I don’t like new things as they always tend to kill all the ‘good old stuff’.

Next, run the tool as Administrator in Windows (just edit the shortcut), let it discover DAO and let it download and install the mods “New Font for DAO”, “FTG/RG UI Mod”, “Advanced Tactics” and “Bigger Mouse Cursors” from https://www.nexusmods.com.

Now there is some post-install work to do as well, like copying files (f.i. the bigger cursors) into the right destination folder. Just follow the mod’s instructions for that. To make use of the automatic attack function of the Advanced Tactics Mod, you can best drag the newly created skill “Possessed” from the skills menu (K) onto your quickbar at the left bottom. Also don’t forget to run FtG_UIMod_Config.exe afterwards, check the option which moves the subtitles to the bottom of your screen, and save these new settings.

Now install the tool AutoHotkey and create the following script with extension .ahk:

#NoEnv
#SingleInstance Force
#usehook
SetTitleMatchMode 2
#Persistent
DetectHiddenWindows, On
sendMode Input
#InstallKeybdHook
#InstallMouseHook
SetDefaultMouseSpeed, 0
SetMouseDelay, -1
SetKeyDelay, -1
SetWinDelay, -1
SetBatchLines, -1
SetControlDelay -1
#MaxThreads 30
#MaxHotKeysPerInterval 1000
#MaxThreadsBuffer on
#KeyHistory 0
;==============
;===========HOTKEYS==============
;Press (Numberpad 4 or w/e you assign) to toggle right mouse button

hotkey, Numpad4, freelooktgl

;Press (ALT+v or w/e you assign) to pause/unpause the script
;! = ALT Key
 
hotkey, !v, Psescipt
;===========-------------========

freelooktgl:
sleep 10
GetKeyState, state, RButton
;===========-------------==============
 if state = U
  {
   GetKeyState, state2, RButton
    if state2 = U
    {
       send, {RButton down}
    }
    else if state2 = D
    {
       send, {RButton up}
    }
  }
;===========-------------==============
 if state = D
  {
   GetKeyState, state2, RButton
    if state2 = U
    {
       send, {RButton down}
    }
    else if state2 = D
    {
       send, {RButton up}
    }
  }

    Return
;===========-------------==============
Psescipt:

Suspend

Pause,,1
SoundBeep

return
;===========-------------==============

Or, for AutoHotkey v2.0+:

#Requires AutoHotkey v2.0+                      ; Always have a version requirement
#MaxThreadsPerHotkey 2

*RButton Up:: {                                    ; Make hotkey fire on up
    Static toggle := 1                          ; Static var so toggle retains value
    toggle := !toggle                           ; Flip between true <-> false
    if toggle                                   ; If toggle true
        SendInput('{RButton Up}')                  ;  Send RMK Up
    else SendInput('{RButtonDown}')               ; Else Send RMK Down
}

That’s about it. Don’t forget to always right-click this script before starting the game from NMM, choosing the option to run it as Administrator. This enables the missing Mouse Look Toggle option. Essentially it means you can now just move your mouse to look around (as it should be) without having to hold the right mouse button down each time.

By using the Numpad 4 button (or alter as you prefer) you can toggle this mouse look on and off (or by pushing the RMB), which makes the game controls feel more like you are really playing another Skyrim. Check the footage below to see how my DAO experience now looks like.