Lots of Mass Effect and Dragon Age DLC is now free for PC players

By Jesse Lennox Published July 14, 2022

EA has made almost all available DLC for the Mass Effect Trilogy and the first two Dragon Age games free via its Origin launcher.

In an email sent to players, EA revealed that DLC for Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3 (except for any multiplayer content), will all be made available for free going forward on the Origin launcher. This content is available for free immediately in advance of EA shutting down the BioWare Points currency on October 11, 2022. Any BioWare Points players still have can be used before October 11 to purchase any Mass Effect 3 multiplayer packs, after which all packs will only be purchasable using in-game credits. Any content already purchased with BioWare Points will remain available to players as well.

BioWare Points were much like Microsoft Points primarily used on the Xbox 360 marketplace, forcing players to convert real money into points available only at specified increments to purchase digital content in Mass Effect and Dragon Age games. Oftentimes, these conversions intentionally forced players to purchase more points than necessary, leaving awkward balances leftover on EA’s proprietary storefront.

EA launched the Origin storefront in an attempt to compete with the major PC marketplace, Steam, though it was never able to draw players away from their established libraries on that service. EA continued supporting Steam players by launching its games on the platform, though an Origin account still was required. That’s why BioWare points weren’t really used in the studio’s modern PC games and are now being shuttered altogether.

It is a pleasant surprise to see EA make this content free during this change, especially right after Ubisoft announced that it was not only removing online support for many of its games and making any DLC for those games unplayable. With game preservation becoming more important, this is clearly the right course of action to take.

Topics

Tech News

Jesse Lennox loves writing, games, and complaining about not having time to write and play games. He knows the names of more…

Gaming

The best Bioware games of all time

Male and female Shepard fist bumping.

BioWare has been one of the most prominent Western developers of RPGs for decades now. They made their mark on the industry early on by crafting deep stories told with a level of writing that was otherwise absent from video games as a whole. Not only were they masters of crafting original stories, but they even managed to inject new ideas and twists on existing franchises. In those early days, BioWare was strictly a PC developer, but have slowly transitioned into developing more console-focused experiences and are arguably more known now for these games than their earlier works.

After so many years releasing dozens of games, BioWare has given us some absolute classics -- as well as some major disappointments. No developer is perfect, and BioWare is proof that even sequels to critically acclaimed games can fall short of their predecessor for one reason or another. We felt it was time to look over the entire BioWare catalogue and list their best games of all-time. The top spots in this list in particular were hard to put in order, and depending on the franchise, setting, or gameplay style, you will probably order them slightly differently, but for the most part the games at the top of this list are agreed to be among the best this developer has ever made.

Gaming

Mass Effect: Andromeda: The best weapons in the galaxy you should craft

Mass Effect: Andromeda

Mass Effect: Andromeda has nearly 70 weapons to find, research, and craft, plus I–X upgrade tiers for each gun. With so many options -- and not nearly enough research data in a single playthrough to upgrade every weapon -- it can be difficult to tell which guns are actually worth the resources.

You'll unlock the best weapon blueprints as you advance beyond Level 25, so keep plugging away at quests to grab access to the best of the best. That said, we've collected our picks for the most powerful and versatile weapons in the Andromeda galaxy, so you don't waste time fighting Kett with a terrible weapon.

Gaming

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition gets May release date and new details

Mass Effect Legendary Edition box art.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition finally has a release date: May 14. EA shared new details about the remastered collection, including the content included in the package.

The game will launch on PC via Origin and Steam, as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. No next-gen upgrade will be available for the games, but they will be playable on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S via backward compatibility. The standard edition will retail for $60.