Back in November I wrote about the announcement of the first post-release DLC (downloadable content) for the (now) multi award-winning video game Dragon Age: Origins, titled “Return to Ostagar”. The intent was to release the DLC before Christmas (in time for the holidays) for $5. Well … it is now January 14th, so where do we stand?

The only things that still hold form my article are that they DO plan to release the DLC, and that it will cost $5 (or 400 points on PC or XBOX360). As for the release date, it changed from ‘in time for the holidays’ to ‘the holiday season’, then to January 5th, then to ‘we’ll tell you when it is released’. Now it is supposedly January 14th (yes, today).

The problem is – it suddenly became available yesterday for XBOX360 gamers, causing many to rush to their consoles and buy it. Sadly, the release was unintentional. Bioware did a ‘title update’ for the XBOX360 to prepare for the launch, and apparently this triggered the availability of the DLC as well. Unfortunately, according to Bioware community manager Chris Priestly:

This morning a title update on the Xbox 360 for Dragon Age: Origins was made available in preparation for the release of Return to Ostagar … this title update introduced a previously undetected issue that causes specialization classes to not work correctly.

Yesterday Priestly said:

Return to Ostagar is now unexpectedly available for the Xbox 360. We will be making the
PC available version to later today and will have the PS3 version available later.

After the DLC and update became available by accident, they found the issue, and have since pulled the DLC and update, and will have to fix the issue before re-releasing. There is not yet a clear release window, and I am certain they’ll be much more careful next time from all standpoints.

So … who cares and why?

Well, aside from loads of frothing gamers who are currently engaged in a ‘scorched earth’ campaign on the Bioware forums, there is actually reason for anyone who owns Dragon Age to be concerned.

Bioware has created an amazing game, and I have poured a couple of hundred hours into playing it on the Mac and PC, and it was generally considered the Game of the Year for 2009. Yet since the announcement nearly two months ago they have been unable to piece together the release of a one-hour DLC that actually uses assets already in the game. A DLC that is significantly smaller than the ‘day of release’ Warden’s Keep and Stone Prisoner DLC that were included in certain editions of the game.

That concerns me as a fan of the game who was looking forward to the ‘two years of DLC’ promised by EA and Bioware – I mean, if they are having so many problems with THIS, what should we expect with the Awakening expansion in March and whatever comes after that? Also, the Mac version is still on the 1.01 patch while all other versions are on 1.02, is unable to do in-game DLC purchases, and it remains unclear if the Mac will get Return to Ostagar or any other future content.

Let’s hope that this is a case of growing pains as they deal with the massive success of the game, patch all of the bugs in the expansive game, and simultaneously try to work on future content. Let’s hope it all resolves soon and everything goes smoothly – in other words, a bump in the road rather than a sign of what is to come.

Source: Joystiq and pretty much every other gaming site on the planet … and my own experience.