Review by: Brandon "Witch Hunter" Cackowski-Schnell

Witch Hunt, the final piece of Dragon Age: Origins DLC and an epilogue of sorts for the campaign made one promise and had one job: provide closure to Morrigan's story line and to give you insight into what she was up to after abruptly exiting the main game. In fact, many, if not all of the people who purchased and played the DLC probably did so for that reason alone. Knowing this, the absolutely horrible way this DLC ends, not with answers but with vague comments and proclamations for the future makes this content pack all the more disappointing.

With all of the content that has come out for Dragon Age, both as packs that exist as missions in the main game and as one-offs that exist outside of the story, it's no wonder that the people at BioWare must be a little tired of making Dragon Age DLC. The problem is that this Ferelden fatigue is on full display in Witch Hunt. Rather than take you to new places, you visit locations you already went to as part of the main game or as part of the Awakenings expansion. You have two new companions and they're somewhat interesting but with the limited set of character skills there's only so much interest you can have in yet another dual wielding fighter or healing based mage. There is a bright spot in that an Origins character makes a return but it's your dog making your hope for an Alistair reunion short lived. Don't get me wrong, I loved my dog, but picking the only non-speaking character as the one to come back seems like a rip off.

The pack opens with you visiting Flemeth's hut in search of Morrigan and hooking up with a Dalish elf also looking for the witch of the wilds in hopes of getting back some ancient Dalish book. Before long you're back at the Mage's Tower enlisting the aid of a research focused mage who is hoping to get his hands on a piece of the magic mirror that caused so many problems in the Dalish elf origin story in Origins.

Somehow Morrigan is involved and it's up to you and your intrepid band of adventurers to find out how. Along the way you'll visit a bunch of places you've already been and fight more Darkspawn and deep road stalkers before coming across the content's only new enemy, a giant crab like thing called a varterral. To call this boss a joke is an insult to jokes as I think Henny Youngman could provide a greater challenge to a quartet of level 35 characters than this waste of pixels. Soon the beast is dead, you're talking to Morrigan and before you know it the pack is over, and you're left staring at the main menu wondering just what the hell happened.

The truth is it felt like BioWare provided this pack as something they felt like they had to do rather than something they wanted to do. Given that there are no tangible character benefits for your character, no cool items, no new spells or powers, nothing at all to give you other than more experience if you need it and the promise of a resolution that never comes, one has to wonder why this was even developed. Yes, using a group of high level characters is always good for a little entertainment, but you can only kill so many Darkspawn before you start getting tired of the same enemies in every encounter and honesly, that time came about three content packs ago.

Maybe if Morrigan's ending had been a satisfying one I would have been fine with paying for a 45 minute side quest through places I've already been but it wasn't—so I'm not. What's even more oddly infuriating is that this is how Dragon Age: Origins ends, with a glimpse of your character blankly standing alone as companions walk away before the player is kicked to the menu. This is the ending we're supposed to accept? Perhaps more of Morrigan's story will be told in Dragon Age 2 but rest assured, I no longer care. The only trick this witch pulled off is making my interest in the franchise disappear.