When Dragon Age: Origins hit shelves, so did free vouchers for "The Stone Prisoner," a nice piece of DLC that added a golem named Shale to the game. We can now call this move something of a tradition, as EA has announced that character-based DLC will be shipping with copies of Dragon Age II this January as well. A few catches, and a few bonuses, though, before you get too excited.
Foremost, you should be aware that this DLC won't be available to those who don't pre-order a copy of the RPG before January 11, 2011. You'll have to decide quick. Also, this pre-order copy won't be a regular version of the game. It's being called by a different name, the Dragon Age II BioWare Signature Edition, and it will come with an EA-estimated 20 dollars worth of DLC. The aforementioned "playable character and new missions" DLC is included, as well as an "exclusive in-game digital armory featuring a variety of weapons and other digital items" and the game's soundtrack.
Note that It appears as if nothing with the core disc is being fiddled with.
This isn't exactly an unusual move. As I mentioned, the previous Dragon Age title shipped with DLC and so have other EA titles like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 or even Mass Effect 2. If you want to save on DLC down the road, make sure you find a pre-order Signature Edition copy at a store or, you know, you could always pre-order it. Just do it soon.
“Over the past 15 years, we’ve been privileged to have the support of a passionate community of fans, who continue to grow in number with every game we release,” BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzyka said in a statement. “The BioWare Signature Edition of Dragon Age II is a chance for us to reward loyal fans who pre-order the game by providing them with additional high-quality content for free.”
Dragon Age II (still no subtitle, Ryan!) hits the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on March 8.