Dragons in Video Games

Video games are a fairly big part of the entertainment industry these days. And within them are a fair selection of fantasy games. And within that, are the dragons.

It may surprise you to learn that I haven’t played all the video games with dragons in them. In fact, the number of video games I have actually played is fairly small. More often than not it takes me years to get round to playing a game. I still haven’t played Mass Effect, for example, but I have watched my house mates play it, so I know the major story lines.

Oh, and just as a warning, some spoilers ahead. Just in case anyone else is worse than me when it comes around to playing games!

We’ll start with a game that I have played. Dragon Age. Now I have only played origins, but that very, very good. It’s an RPG game, where you play a character that become a grey warden for a reason that depends on your class and race as each one gets a different introduction chapter, which is really really cool. I went with a Dalish Elf Rogue, duel wielding swords. All of the stabbing.

For a game being called Dragon Age, it didn’t contain all that many dragons, but the title does make sense. The Darkspawn are rising again, with an Arch-Demon in tow, and they threaten to wipe out the human, elf and dwarven population unless the Grey Warden’s stop the horde before it gets going.

The Arch-Demon takes the form of a dragon, and he pops up in your dreams every now and again, because your a Grey Warden and you can sense these things. There are also a couple of other dragons around the place, and as befits them, they are super hard to defeat. In my play through the only one I did defeat was the Arch-Demon, the other ones were too hard for me when I found them. Maybe on another play through I’ll get to them.

The next game is one I haven’t played, but I did watch my partner playing through it. Dragon’s Dogma is another RPG where the dragon is evident right from the start. The first thing it does in the game, is called your character the chosen one, and then rips out your heart. Yes, it is a bit of an evil dragon. One of the main plots is to then find the dragon and get your heart back. No, you don’t die from having your heart ripped out. Well, you technically do, but then magic happens and you’re kind of fine. Fine enough to go on an adventure quest.

I quite liked this dragon because it was huge, and made no secrets about being evil and going on rampages, and it was terrifying in that opening scene. If a dragon is going to be a baddie, then it’s got to be a really scary one for me.

World of Warcraft, does indeed have dragons. These ones are mostly good and on your side, but sometimes they go a little bit mad and evil and you have to fight them as bosses. The dragons are split up into flights, which are based on their colour. Red, Green, Blue, Bronze and Black are the main dragonflights. There were others, but they are not as big, and have mostly dwindled away.

Each flight has their Aspect – the leader of the flight and the embodiment of what the flight stands for, as each one was given powers over an aspect of the realm:

• Nozdormu, the Timeless One, Aspect of Time, Bronze Dragonflight
• Alexstrasza, the Life-Bonder, Aspect of Life, Red Dragonflight
• Ysera, the Dreamer, Aspect of Nature, Green Dragonflight
• Malygos, the Spell-Weaver, Aspect of Magic, Blue Dragonflight
• Neltharion, the Earth-Warder, Aspect of Earth, Black Dragonflight

Neltharion later goes a little insane, as does most of the black dragonflight, and this forms most of the expansion of Cataclysm, as he takes on the name Deathwing and tries to cause a cataclysm to end the world. His the last big boss of the expansion, and I must say, fighting him with the other four dragon aspects on your side – it was epic.

Spyro is a game I vaguely remember playing in my childhood. I love the little purple dragon, since he was small but courageous, and there were elements of puzzles in the games. I got so stuck trying to find my way around certain areas of the map, it was great.

Of course I have to give mention to Elder Scrolls as well. Another game I haven’t played but do intend to get round to doing so in the future (maybe in those six weeks off I have coming up). Skyrim will be the one that I start on, and boy does that have a lot of dragons in it. The main character is even a Dragonborn – a man who was born with the soul of a dragon, and can therefore use powers known as dragon shouts to accomplish things others cannot. The most prolifiv of these being ‘Fus Ro Dah!’, the fling things across the map shout.

Dragons form a lot of the enemies, and they tend to turn up randomly and when you least expect it, giving you a nice battle for your life. They fly, breath fire, and generally are a bitch to kill, but when you do kill them, you as the Dragonborn, get to absorb their soul and power up. It’s almost like recycling. In a sense at least.

But it does looks amazing from what I have seen other people play of it, and it’s so open world that you can do whatever you want in whichever order, so I don’t even feel like anything has been spoiled for me. And the glitches can be hilarious as well.

Now I know that I haven’t covered every game out these with a dragon in it, but these are the ones which stand out in my mind, and this post is already rather long. So do you, my lovely readers, know of any games with dragons in them that you enjoyed playing?