Dragon Age II: Mark of the Assassin DLC

The first major DLC for Dragon Age II featured main character Hawke and his or her family. In the second major DLC, Hawke will of course play a major role again, but this expansion is mainly about Tallis, a female elf who is one with conscience and who is also a follower of the Qun, the faith of the Qunari. Sound complicated? Just wait until you’ve played the DLC, because it also causes a lot of problems…

Tallis wants to get hold of The Heart Of Many that, how could it be otherwise, is in a vault on the estate of an Orlesian nobleman. Hawke’s stature makes it easy to get to the estate, but getting into the castle is of course a different story.

Listened to the fans

With this DLC, BioWare again shows that it has listened carefully to the fans. This was already clearly visible in Legacy due to the number of puzzles and the spicier battles, in which the environments played a greater role. Also in Mark of the Assassin there are more puzzles to be found, which this time also seem to be quite a bit difficult than puzzles we have seen before in Dragon Age II.

Personally, I don’t mind this at all, as it’s a good change from all the fighting. However, I can imagine that in this DLC, BioWare seems to go a little too far with compensating for the amount of puzzles, because in Mark of the Assassin, if you make the right choices, you might only have to play half the time. fight.

Sneaking through the shadows

Once you’re in the castle with Tallis and need to get to the vault, the red-haired elf gives you a choice. You can of course fight your way into the vault and take down everyone you meet, but this approach isn’t preferred by Tallis. As is the case with most hitmen, she prefers to be as unobtrusive as possible and, moreover, she doesn’t seem to want to kill anyone if she doesn’t have to. If you agree with Tallis, you’ll have to sneak through the shadows through the castle while distracting guards and sometimes knocking unconscious from behind.

In itself this section is a very nice change as it really makes you feel like you are sneaking into the castle. It’s something different and it’s not something you would expect in a Dragon Age game. On the other hand, this part could have been done a little better. There are some bugs here and there and because there are just too few checkpoints, this approach is somewhat frustrating. In hindsight, I would rather have had a horde of guards on my neck than have to hide in the shadows.

However, that does not alter the fact that Mark of the Assassin is again a very nice DLC, which adds a whole new piece of story to the already existing game. The dialogues and texts of your party members are also very cool and you notice that real attention has been paid to this extra content. Unfortunately, after the DLC, Tallis disappears and you can’t use her during normal play, but given the end of act two, this might be a good thing.

Conclusion

With Mark of the Assassin, BioWare once again puts down a very nice DLC, which is a good change and addition to the ‘base game’. Here and there there are some minor flaws and points that should have been paid more attention to, but that does not alter the fact that this extra content adds a lot of hours of fun for the fans.

Dragon Age II: Mark of the Assassin is available for 800 BioWare Points for PC, 800 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 and for $10 on the PlayStation Network.