Dragon Age: Origins is a 2009 role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. It is the first game in the Dragon Age franchise. Set in the fictional kingdom of Ferelden during a period of civil strife, the game puts the player in the role of a warrior, mage, or rogue coming from an elven, human, or dwarven background. The player character is recruited into the Grey Wardens, an ancient order that stands against monstrous forces known as "Darkspawn", and is tasked with defeating the Archdemon that commands them and ending their invasion. The game is played from a third-person perspective that can be shifted to a top-down perspective. Throughout the game, players encounter various companions, who play major roles in the game's plot and gameplay. BioWare described Dragon Age: Origins as a "dark heroic fantasy" set in a unique world, and a spiritual successor to their previous Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights franchises. Its setting was inspired by The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice & Fire, and was described by BioWare as a mix between high fantasy and low fantasy. Development of the game began in 2002 and BioWare employed more than 144 voice-actors, and hired Inon Zur to compose the game's music. The development of the game's console versions was outsourced to Edge of Reality. Origins was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 in November 2009, and for Mac OS X in December 2009. Origins received critical acclaim upon release, with praise mostly directed at its story, setting, characters, music and combat system. It sold more than 3.2 million copies and 1 million pieces of downloadable content. It won multiple year-end accolades including Game of the Year and Best Role-playing awards from several gaming publications, and has widely been considered to be one of the greatest video games ever made. BioWare released several instances of downloadable content after the game's initial launch, an expansion pack for the game titled Awakening in March 2010, and two sequels, Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition, were released in 2011 and 2014 respectively. Gameplay Dragon Age: Origins is a role-playing game played from a third-person perspective. The player is a Grey Warden, part of an order of elite fighters, whose task is to defeat the Archdemon and save the world from a disastrous event called the Blight. Players create their own