Goin’ Out with a Whimper
The premise of this review is that you, fair consumer of all things Bioware, have played through all of the main game and perhaps the expansion as well. It is not overly clear that you necessarily must have played through Awakening to understand the story, or where Witch Hunt takes place in the Dragon Age chronology, but as the main character is at one point referred to as the “Warden Commander”, it seems likely this is what the writers intended this to be last. I feel this is a fairly safe premise for a review, as the whole idea of this DLC pack is the Warden Commander wants to find Morrigan. Without that context, you will get nothing out of this DLC.
As for the review: this quest pack is pretty lame. Your main character, imported or newly created, will revisit old environments in a series of quests to recover the fantasy MacGuffin that will lead to Morrigan’s location. Apparently she’s after a full-length mirror that the mages say operates as a communication device/portal to the Fade. This is the same kind of mirror that appears in the Dalish Elf origin story. There is probably a special plot hook or piece of dialogue if you played as that breed of elf, otherwise it just makes reference to two hunters that died next to an ancient mirror. (I played as an elven mage, so no hook for me.) This is probably the neatest thing of the pack as it gives you an incentive to play through that particular origin story, even if you have no inclination to play after the Dalish Elf origin cheevo unlocks. And as one of the characters in that origin story, Merrill, is in Dragon Age 2, is a fun way to see her first appearance. It is almost to make me want to go through the other origin stories to see if there were any other first appearances. Almost.
There is nothing tactically interesting aside from a battle to protect a mage as he performs the Rite of Wave Survival. While not particularly difficult, it is certainly harder than fighting the large Praying Mantis which serves as the final boss. There is no memorable loot, dialogue, new settings or any real challenge. Even without an optimized main character, most experienced players should be able to steam roll through the enemies on Nightmare.
At the end of the quest you find Morrigan just as she’s about to run into MacGuffin’s mirror. (It is strange that we didn’t see said mirror when killing the Mother from Awakening as its in the same pit, but hey, maybe Morrigan had it delivered from nega-Ikea directly from Evil Sweden and had just finished assembling it when the party rolls up.) There is a little dialogue between the main character and the witch, and even though the whole reason you would buy this DLC was to take care of that final loose end in the main story, nothing happens. She doesn’t explain anything, not where she went after the end of the game, what’s up with - and what is - her momma, why she cares about these mirrors, or, in short: what is her deal? The only revelations are that she has a son born from the Dark Ritual somewhere “safe” and there is some unknown, witchy gift left for the Warden.
I don’t know what the gift was, but it certainly was not closure.
Full disclosure: As of this review, I am only about six hours into the sequel, so I admit that maybe the final gift and Morrigan’s son make appearances in the second game and things will make sense and I will then see Witch Hunt as a great piece of narrative that masterfully bridges the stories of the two games. But as it is now, I see no references to the events of Witch Hunt in the sequel, remember none of the DLC’s unremarkable dialogue and combat, and think that this is a poor, overly priced piece of content. Even if you are way into the sultry tones of Claudia Black, can remember when she played a random amazon on Xena, and get into no less than five flame wars a week on the topic of Farscape vs. Star Trek, you’ll still be disappointed as Morrigan is barely in the few hours that this DLC lasts.
