Dragon Age: Absolution, the review of the animated series inspired by the famous video game

The Dragon Age universe returns to TV with an animated miniseries from Netflix that will especially appeal to fans of the BioWare series. We talk about it in the review of Dragon Age: Absolution.

The beloved series of Dragon Agewhich made its debut in 2009 with the video game of the same name bioware – an authentic RPG institution, just think of Baldur’s Gate And mass effects – it has disappeared from the scene for some time: the Canadian developer had created a multimedia universe, made up of video games and novels and comics, which over the years has gained more and more fans, now anxiously awaiting a new title, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, announced but still shrouded in mystery. Over time, the universe of Dragon Age has boundless also on TV, in 2009 with the film in computer graphics Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seekers and in 2011 with the web series Dragon Age: Redemptionwritten by and performed by Felicia Day.

In this sense, the output of Dragon Age: Absolutionwhich we tell you about in this review, was a pleasant surprise for those who have been waiting to return to Thedas for almost ten years, because so much has passed since the last game in the series, Dragon Age: Inquisition. Game which also represents a solid reference for the animated miniseries created by Mairghread Scott and proposed on Netflix in six episodes. Produced by BioWare and Red Dog Culture House – authors, always to stay on the videogame theme, of the short film on Doomfist for Overwatch and of the cartoon film The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf – Dragon Age: Absolution is a miniseries faithful to videogames, perhaps even too much.

The pros and cons of fanservice

The story takes place in the time between Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, so there are several references to the last game in the series and the universe created by BioWare. References that will greatly confuse those who approach Absolution without knowing absolutely nothing about Dragon Age. Unlike productions such as Arcane or Castlevania, Dragon Age: Absolution seems to assume that the viewer knows – and even well – the video game series of reference. It is a feature of the miniseries which, on the one hand, respects the fan without wasting time in captioned explanations, but on the other hand limits its audience enormously. Despite this, the premise is within everyone’s reach: the Elf Miriam she is hired by her human lover Hira to join a band of mercenaries and steal an artifact guarded by wizards in the Tevinter empire.

For those who know Dragon Age, this premise already suggests a series of interesting reflections. Tevinter should be the main setting for the next game in the series, an empire where wizards hold power, wield blood magic and tolerate slavery, especially to Elves like Miriam. And in fact Absolution is a miniseries focused above all on interpersonal relationships, which are the trademark of BioWare video games, in which the narrative is often intertwined with the relationships that the player can build by choosing the answers he prefers in the dialogues. Absolution is not an interactive mini-series, of course, but it puts its hand on the characterizations thanks also to the excellent dubbing – in Italian, but above all in English – and to the well-kept and expressive animations.

In just six episodes of about 30 minutes each, Absolution manages to manage a mix of action, fantasy, irony and drama, between flashbacks and introspective moments, winking unceremoniously at the theme ofinclusiveness. Unfortunately not all the characters manage to get the space they deserve: the sorceress Qwydion, for example, ends up being a nice speck and little more, and we would not have minded if the screenplay had better explored the dynamics between the antagonist, Rezaren, and his right-hand man, Commander Tassia. The fact is that, in just under three hours, Dragon Age: Absolution intertwines more subplots than what the first minutes suggest, launching several truly unexpected twists that continuously shuffle the cards.

25 best anime on Netflix to watch

A miniseries that looks like a DLC

Those of BioWare were smart to commission a story that remains confined to a limited space, preventing the protagonists from having to deal with a wider imaginary. In some ways, Absolution looks like what in video games is called Downloadable Content, DLC for friends: an additional content, a subplot that takes something from the original game and develops it in its own way. A couple of historical figures also appear briefly in the Red Dog miniseries Culture House – Cassandra Pentaghast and Evariste “Fairbanks” Lemarque – which for fasting viewers of Dragon Age they will mean little: fortunately, the cast doesn’t need them to make an impression, and the way the miniseries ends would make you want to see it continue… or to see the characters again in the next BioWare game.

Although it may appear as a kind of homage to the fans, just to entertain them while waiting for the video games to continue, Dragon Age: Absolution is a production that is cared for above all in terms of traditional animations, who give their best in the action scenes, which are very well shot, never banal and respectful of the reference games. In some episodes the animation limps a hair, perhaps for budgetary reasons, but in the climactic moments it gives its best, while the soundtrack, unfortunately, you forget almost immediately. It’s really a shame that the narrative races to respect the short duration of the miniseries: with these production values ​​and more time available, Absolution could have been an all-round memorable miniseries, and instead it remains a product designed for the fans and them only.