Dragon Age has changed considerably since BioWare first introduced players to Thedas, but a fan-driven 2027 release will bring it back to its roots. The series has gone from the tactical, party-based role-playing of Dragon Age: Origins to the more action-focused direction seen in later entries, but the original Dragon Age game has never disappeared from the conversation. Its characters, branching choices, romances, and so forth have kept Dragon Age: Origins alive well beyond its 2009 release.
One of the biggest headaches around Dragon Age: Origins today is getting it running. The Eclipse engine was built specifically for the game, and keeping a 17-year-old CRPG running smoothly on modern hardware is a very different problem from simply installing an old game. Players have continued to find ways around those limitations through mods and community tools, but one group is taking a considerably more ambitious approach to Dragon Age: Origins.
Dragon Age: Origins Recomp Will Bypass the Many Issues on PC
A group of six developers has been decompiling Dragon Age: Origins, and the project has now reached a major milestone. According to one of the developers (Reddit user Shot_Let_1344) behind the project, it is currently 60% decompiled and 55% linked after nearly three years of work. The team says it has a strong understanding of Dragon Age: Origins‘ Eclipse engine and most of the game’s general logic, with the eventual goal of making the decompiled project publicly available once it reaches roughly 90% decompiled and linked.
Scratch & Peek
Identify the cover art while scratching off as little foil as
possible.
The scale of the Dragon Age: Origins decompilation becomes clearer when looking at what 60% actually represents. According to the dev, Dragon Age: Origins contains 34,415 functions, each of which needs to be worked through during the decompilation process. The team is effectively converting the original game’s machine code back into readable C code, with some functions requiring considerably more work than others. With the project now 60% decompiled, the developers estimate the Dragon Age: Origins decompilation could be ready for release in 2027.
Reaching that milestone could give Dragon Age: Origins considerably more room to evolve on modern hardware, at least thanks to this fan contribution. The developers want the decompiled Dragon Age: Origins code to eventually support modern compilers and a 64-bit build, while also exploring official controller support, engine fixes, and potentially co-op, going well above even the best Dragon Age: Origins mods. That said, the Dragon Age: Origins decompilation could also give modders new opportunities to create tools for custom campaigns, although the developers have explained that decompiling the original Dragon Age toolset would be a separate project.
For now, the Dragon Age: Origins decompilation project remains a work in progress. The project is currently closed-source, with the developers planning to release the Dragon Age: Origins decompiled code on GitHub once roughly 90% of the project has been decompiled and linked. The team intends to continue working toward 100% afterward, although the developers acknowledge that the final stretch could be more difficult because of differences in compilers, hardware, and environments.
- Released
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November 3, 2009
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood, Intense Violence, Language, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content
- Publisher(s)
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Electronic Arts
- Engine
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Eclipse
