Patches (Origins)

See BioWare's Dragon Age Patches for the latest patch for Dragon Age: Origins.

See Witch Hunt#Patch for information on the Witch Hunt 1.1 patch.

Legend

marks changes that are especially helpful to players.

is used to highlight changes that removed an exploitable bug from the game.

denotes changes that will noticeably affect gameplay.

Patch 1.05

Release date: 28 November 2011 (PC Version patch)

General Fixes

Downloadable Content

• Downloadable content will properly authenticate once installed.

Performance

• Fixed an issue where some users with DirectX10-era video cards were experiencing significant lag within menus and interfaces as well as sudden spikes in area load times.

Dragon Age: Ultimate Edition Fixes

Installation

• The Ultimate Edition installer for the EA Download Manager (EADM) version of the game was placing the CD-Key in the wrong location in the Windows registry. EADM has been replaced with EA's Origin system and this error has been corrected in the new Origin installer. For those who purchased and installed the Ultimate Edition via EADM, the Patch 1.05 installer will copy that CD-Key into the correct Windows registry location.

Patch 1.04

Release date: 19 July 2010 (PC Version patch)

Note: Installing Awakening after patching to 1.04 will revert it back to the 1.03 patch. It is recommended that the 1.04 patch is installed after the Awakening expansion.

General Fixes

Achievements

• On the PC, sometimes an achievement image and message would not display properly. This has been fixed.

Downloadable Content

• Fixed some authorization issues with downloadable content
• Blood talents from the Warden's Keep premium downloadable content now work properly in other modules.
• Installing new downloadable content no longer leaves the Other Campaigns selection grayed-out.

Gameplay

• Multiple transitions in and out of Fade areas were multiplying the number of visual effects running, which slowed down gameplay. This no longer occurs.
• Fixed pick-pocketing. Characters were successfully stealing, but not receiving any items.
• Stealing, however, remains absent from the available abilities under Tactics configuration. This change was made in 1.03 and remains in effect in 1.04 with no explanation.

User Interface

• Floating numbers no longer appear over the player's head.
• Damage statistics are now being updated properly on the Inventory screen when weapons are unequipped.
• Names with accents and special characters now show up correctly in the "Story So Far" load hints.
• Switching between Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening no longer resets options to default settings.
• Selling too many items to the same merchant no longer corrupts the save files.
• Screenshots were being uploaded automatically on the PC by default on new installations. This no longer happens.

Importing Characters

• Importing a character to a new module from a save game that did not have the hero in the party caused the game to crash. This is fixed.
• Imported characters to Dragon Age: Awakening now start the game with equipment and clothing on.

Performance

• A number of memory leaks have been fixed, which will reduce the frequency of crashes.
• Audio drivers have been updated to fix a number of audio-related crashes.

Social Site

• Fixed a number of issues with portraits not being uploaded correctly to the BioWare social site.

Other

• A new system for authorizing DLC was implemented in 1.04. This system is the source for many player's DLC appearing as unauthorized after applying the update.

Dragon Age: Origins Fixes

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue with the wrong characters appearing in Morrigan's ritual.
• Players who rescued their party members in the Fade of the Broken Circle plot are no longer forced to fight the sloth demon alone.
• It is no longer possible for the player to get blocked during gameplay by pursuing both candidates' quests in the Orzammar plot line.

Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening Fixes

Gameplay

• Fixed a variety of bugs related to party members' approval and personal quests not triggering.
• Lillith will now only thank the player once at Vigil's Keep after being rescued.
• During the Assault on Amaranthine, a bug would occasionally make some enemies invincible, which impeded game progress. This no longer happens.
• Players may now receive notes of appreciation from former love interests.
• Masterpiece and paragon silverite runes are now weapon runes instead of armor runes.
• The masterpiece slow rune is now available for purchase from merchant stores.

Importing Characters

• Imported rogue characters now properly detect traps.
• The message, "Legacy tattoo asset do not use!" no longer appears on the face of some imported characters.

Patch 1.04 (Alternate Notes)

Victor Wachter from BioWare released alternate release notes on the BioWare forums with greater details on the patch.

General Fixes

• Daggers will now properly assign the dexterity-based damage bonus
• Achievement images and messages will now display properly.
• Resolved some authorization issues with downloadable content.
• Blood talents from the Grey Warden Base premium downloadable content will now work properly in Awakening.
• Fixed an issue where installing new downloadable content would occasionally leave the "Other Campaigns" selection greyed-out without a restart of the game.
• Multiple transitions in and out of Fade areas will no longer multiply the number of visual effects running and slow down gameplay.
• Floating numbers no longer appears over players' heads.
• Damage statistics will now be updated properly on the Inventory screen when weapons were unequipped.
• Importing a character to a new module from a savegame that did not have the hero in the party caused the game to crash.
• If a character is imported into Dragon Age: Awakening and is stripped of their incompatible gear from DLC, they will be equipped with default equipment.
• Names with accents and special characters will now show up correctly in the Story So Far load hints.
• Switching between Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Awakening will no longer reset options to default settings.
• Fixed a number of memory leaks that were increasing the number of crashes
• Audio drivers were causing a number of audio-related crashes. As such, audio drivers have been updated.
• Fixed issues that were preventing portraits from being uploaded to the BioWare social site.
• Game saves on Xbox 360 were being corrupted if you sold too many items to the same merchant. Saves will no longer be corrupted if you do this.
• Screenshots are no longer automatically uploaded on the PC by default on new installations.
• Fixed pick-pocketing. Characters were successfully stealing, but not receiving any items.

Dragon Age: Origins Fixes

• Fixed an issue that would cause incorrect characters to occasionally appear in Morrigan's ritual.
• Players who rescued their party members in the Fade of the Broken Circle plot were still forced to fight the sloth demon alone. This has been resolved.
• It is no longer possible for the player to get blocked during gameplay by pursuing both candidates' quests in the Orzammar plot line.

Dragon Age: Awakening Fixes

• A variety of bugs were preventing personal quests from triggering and causing issues with party member approval have been fixed.
• Lillith will no longer repeatedly thank the player at Vigil's Keep after being rescued.
• During the Assault on Amaranthine, a bug would occasionally make some enemies invincible, which impeded game progress. This no longer happens.
• Imported rogue characters will now properly detect traps.
• The message, "Legacy tattoo asset do not use!" will no longer appear on the faces of imported characters.
• Masterpiece and paragon silverite runes are now weapon runes instead of armor runes.
• The masterpiece slow rune is now available for purchase from merchant stores.
• Players may now receive notes of appreciation from their Origins love interests.

Known Issues

While we have fixed the party member approval/personal quest issues, it is important to note that players may not experience the results of this fix until starting a new game.

Because of the nature of the bug and the fix implemented, while it is possible that it will still affect party members that are not yet in the player’s group, in general existing game saves may still not see proper approval results.

(Awakening) Silverite Mine Issues

Some players have experienced a situation where it is possible to enter the Silverite Mine in the Wending Wood early by picking the lock to the door (despite the lock initially appearing to be impossible to pick) prior to completing the quest with Velanna. Due to technical limitations, we will be unable to patch this issue and as such we wish to communicate to players to avoid this situation.

Entering the Silverite Mine early may result in loss of some inventory as well as broken plot flags due to prior quests not being completed properly. Normally, the door will unlock after fully resolving the encounter with Velanna and the player should not attempt to enter the Silverite Mine before then.

(Origins) Arl of Denerim’s Estate, Basement (immediately post-Riordan rescue) Issues

Some characters that have an area-of-effect aura, such as Miasma, enabled may cause the guards on the other side of the door in the basement of the Arl of Denerim’s estate to attack the party prior to the party having had their encounter with them.

Due to technical limitations similar to the Silverite Mine issues, we will also be unable to patch this issue. Unfortunately, if this happens then the player’s party is stuck in a state where they are unable to remove the guard’s disguise they had earlier donned.

The only way to fix this issue after it has occurred is to re-load an earlier save and ensure that any area-of-effect auras are disabled prior to getting the party too close to the door. Normally, upon opening the door the party will have an encounter with the guards where the disguises will be dropped and the party’s equipment will be restored. So immediately after rescuing Riordan and taking the stairs to the basement, ensure that the party disables any aggressive area-of-effect auras and refrains from casting any area-of-effect spells prior to opening the door in the basement so the guard cutscene triggers properly. It’s safe to resume those effects after the guard encounter.

(Awakening) Armor sets: Sentinel Armor & Vigilance Sword (Xbox 360 and PS3), Blackblade Armor (All platforms)

Unfortunately, we are unable to fix the issues concerning these armor sets and the Vigilance Sword. Due to various limitations surrounding what we can and cannot patch concerning DLC content, very strict limits in the size of console title updates, and the state of some of the assets we attempted to implement, we regret to inform you that these items will not be fixed at this time.

There is a workaround for the appearance of the Sentinel Armor and the Vigilance Sword on consoles, and that is to not have the Soldier’s Peak/Grey Warden Base DLC installed. We realize this is not by any means an ideal solution, but regrettably we will be unable to fix this properly and for that we apologize.

Note concerning Silverite Mine, Arl of Denerim’s Estate, and Item issues: Please accept our apologies. While we wish we could have fixed these issues to the community’s satisfaction, we are unable to do so at this time. As indicated, we realize that none of these workarounds are ideal in any way but regrettably have no other course of action as we have very strict limitations with what we are able and not able to patch, on consoles especially. We have taken into account the root issues related to the implementation of these areas/pieces and will carry it forward in an effort to avoid things like this happening in the future.

Note on Installing Awakening to a version of DA:O already patched to 1.04 [PC only]

If you install the 1.04 patch prior to installing Awakening, you must run the 1.04 patch installer again after the Awakening install is complete.

There are Awakening specific resources and other assets that will not be patched in properly unless the 1.04 installer detects that Awakening is present and as such will not install those additional resources. In addition, the pre-1.04 installer that comes with Awakening may revert some 1.04 files back - this would result in a game that is apparently missing many of the fixes included with 1.04, while the game config tool still reports it as the 1.04 version.

In short, if you plan to re-install DAO and Awakening at some point in the future, we recommend installing DAO, then Awakening, then latest patch. If you plan to add Awakening to your DAO install, we recommend installing Awakening, then always re-apply the latest patch.

Patch 1.03

Release date: 3 March 2010
You do not need to download patches prior to Patch 1.03. Downloading Patch 1.03 contains all previous patches. Downloading Patch 1.03 will provide you with all patch data available.

• Various changes have been made to code and resources to support the Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening expansion pack. Most of these changes do not affect Origins itself.
• Some players were experiencing increasingly long load times. A major cause of this problem has been fixed.
• At higher levels, non-player characters now receive a bonus to armor penetration. This mitigates an unintentional imbalance with well-armored high-level characters, since armor penetration previously did not scale as aggressively as armor itself did.
• Elite-rank enemies (lieutenants) can no longer be shattered. This preserves the intended tactical design of many combat encounters.
• Portraits for summoned creatures (like a ranger's wolf) were displaying improperly while in the party camp. This no longer occurs.
• On the PC you can no longer use the exploit to redistribute your attributes on level-up (via the reset button).
• Stealing has been removed as a usable ability in Tactics configuration under all circumstances.
• Successfully pickpocketing a non-player character no longer awards the player with random items - only when specific items are stealable (e.g., Kolgrim's Chevalier Mace).
• Stealing has been removed as an option for Tactics - it is no longer possible to assign Stealing under any circumstances through Tactics.
• Find Vitals, a new talent in the Dual Weapon chain of talents references the wrong effect and therefor does not provide the appropriate bonuses.
• Shale's Rock Barrage ability will no longer function after applying the 1.03 update - the ability's animation and stamina cost will execute correctly, but the ability will then reset with no combat or non-combat effects.

Note: Warning! Patch 1.03 fixes none of the major mechanics bugs: to name just a few, Crossbows remain attribute-less; Ranged Attack Speed Bugs persist; +X Healing Received Bug was not addressed. Moreover, the patch is incredibly buggy by itself. It can, and probably will, conflict severely with your DLCs: for instance, Return to Ostagar and/or Warden's Keep may get disabled or reset to uninstalled status (see also this short 1.03-DLC conflict troubleshooting note). On some systems, GUI will get 'fixed' by this patch, too: stamina/mana bar will look permanently empty. Sadly, that is not all: in fact, new bugs were introduced into the game -- 1.03 Bugs Discussion on BioWare Forums.

Patch 1.02a

Release date: 21 December 2009

• Fixed the "Rally bug" introduced in 1.02 where going through area transitions caused the Rally bonus to keep stacking.
• Fixed errors in Russian 1.02 patch notes.
• Fixed GDF file for Windows 7.

Patch 1.02

Release Date: 7 December 2009

Balance

• Daggers now apply 0.5 points of damage per additional point in Dexterity and 0.5 points of damage per additional point in strength, as originally intended. This increases dagger damage for high-dexterity characters.
• During combat, mana or stamina reserves now correctly regenerate more quickly when reserves are low. This allows players to occasionally use an talent or spell in the later stages of lengthy fights.
• When exploring, mana and stamina now regenerate more quickly at higher character levels. This reduces downtime between fights.
• The spells Force Field, Crushing Prison, Cone of Cold, and Blizzard now have shorter durations and/or longer cooldowns. This ensures that combatants can no longer stun-lock each other by repeatedly casting the same spell.
• The cooldowns for several low-level sustained abilities are now shorter. This ensures that players are not penalized for accidentally deactivating them.
• Certain battles were not scaling properly, resulting in excessively difficult fights. They now scale as intended.
• Enemy corpses now drop Health Poultices and money more appropriately, resulting in less clutter in the player's inventory.

Gameplay

• In rare cases, enemy corpses were selectable when they contained no loot. This no longer occurs.
• Party members whose combat tactics were set to defensive behavior no longer stop attacking after using a spell or talent.
• In rare cases, combat tactics conditions could fail to determine whether a character had enough mana or stamina to use an ability. This no longer occurs.
• The Rally talent no longer repeats its audio effect if it is active during certain conversations.
• The Rally talent no longer deactivates upon area transitions or conversations.
• The Shimmering Shield spell now deactivates when the character is out of mana.

Plot

• Promotional downloadable content items now remain in the player's inventory when standard items are removed at the end of the dwarf noble origin.
• Additional release notes with spoilers below.

PC Specific

• Controlling a summoned creature (like a ranger's pets) during certain special area transitions no longer results in odd behavior.
• Creating a character in a custom module did not create a folder for saves. This could result in corruption of main campaign saves. This no longer occurs.
• In some cases, the class icon was set incorrectly for characters imported from the downloadable Character Creator. This no longer occurs.
• The options menu now includes a setting to automatically download previously purchased content that is not currently installed.
• After installing new downloadable content, the game now always reminds the user to restart the game.
• The icons for some promotional downloadable content items were missing. They now appear correctly.
• The screenshot upload GUI would stop working from time to time on the client. There was a memory override that was fixed. It is a client fix. It doesn't affect the other problems we have seen on the server.

Unofficial Notes

• Appears to have fixed Death Blow talent so that it properly restores stamina. .

Additional Changes to Plot

• Repeatedly talking to Duncan after gathering the vials in the Korcari Wilds but not the treaties no longer provides duplicate experience. (Still works on Xbox 360.)
• Leliana's personal plot can now be completed if the player substantially increased her approval (through gifts) before talking to her.
• During the siege of Redcliffe, enemies are no longer able to spawn in locations that would break the plot.
• Bann Teagan no longer disappears when he is supposed to be accessible during Urn of Sacred Ashes.

Patch 1.01b

Release Date: 17 November 2009

• Fixed potential corruption of character statistics.
• Fixed portrait appearance sliders when importing a character from the downloadable Character Creator.
• Fixed import for preset face settings from the downloadable Character Creator.
• Made Easy difficulty easier.
• Slightly increased attack, defense, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty.
• Fixed video issues when running on a very wide screen display, including ATI Eyefinity displays.
• Fixed an issue with Vista and Windows 7 Game for Windows Explorer.
• Fixed an issue with Dragon Age and Windows Game Explorer.
• Updated Visual C runtime libraries.

Patch 1.01a

Release Date: 6 November 2009

• Fixed potential corruption of character statistics.
• Fixed portrait appearance sliders when importing a character from the downloadable Character Creator.
• Fixed import for preset face settings from the downloadable Character Creator.
• Made Easy difficulty easier.
• Slightly increased attack, defense, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty.
• Fixed video issues when running on a very wide screen display, including ATI Eyefinity displays.

Known Issues

• PC: The 1.01a patch can cause the launcher's Play button to stop working; this also causes an error when starting the game from daorigins.exe instead of the launcher. This can be resolved by updating your MS VC++ 2005 Runtime Libraries.

Download Links

Patch 1.04 Release