The scariest places in the Dragon Age series

Key insights

• Brachmoor is a spooky area full of undead and demons.
• Raw Fade is a spooky, demon-warped dreamscape with grotesque sights.
• Chateau d'Onterre is a mansion haunted by zombies due to tragic events.

It's always nice to have those happy and cozy moments in games. But they hit even harder if you've been sufficiently unsettled by something particularly scary and repulsive. Of course, this doesn't apply in every situation, so please leave Kirby alone.

The Dragon Age games are particularly good at both the cheerful and the spooky, although the developers seem far more intent on pushing the latter, these wonderful agents of chaos. Which locations in this appropriately dark fantasy series really make you pray for some levity?

8 fallow moor

Dead and wet, an insult to injury

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the Barren Moor is often one of the first regions you visit. Or maybe you'll never come around at all, you scoundrel. This swampy section full of mud and disease is hauntingly beautiful, emphasis on the first word.

The story here is that a plague swept through the area, leaving most of the village there deserted except for the fortress occupied by Avvar. You'll be fighting undead and demons all the time, but don't be afraid to stop and admire the game's atmospheric atmosphere. Your captured soldiers can wait for a while while you vibrate.

7 Raw fading

Sweet dreams

It doesn't get much scarier than the fade in Dragon Age. In the games, it is where your consciousness moves while you sleep (unless you are a dwarf), and it is the source of your dreams. It twists your perception so that you see what it wants to show you, which in itself is a frightening prospect, especially when it wants you to see spiders.

But this is exactly the moment when you send your mind to what you have seen several times in previous games. When the Inquisitor and his party physically went to nothingness in Dragon Age: Inquisition, it's a much more grotesque sight, filled with landscapes unaffected by physics and a sickly green, piercing glow. Plus, the spiders are still there.

6 Blackmarsh

Somewhere a nameless metal band is sulking

If there was a place in the waking world that could rival Nothingness in all of its extremely uncool aspects, then perhaps Black Marsh would be a contender. From the moment you first reach it in the Dragon Age: Origins expansion Awakening, you can tell it's one of the most unpleasant places in existence.

To choose the best possible name for a place: Blackmarsh is a swampland that is also very dark and full of dead things. In fact, the brightest thing there is probably the Queen of Black Marsh, a spectral dragon that wants to kill you. The most chaotic light source since the Pixar lamp.

5 Chateau d'Onterre

The rolling dead

At first glance, Chateau d'Onterre may seem downright pleasant. It's a bougie villa in the middle of a sacred elven land, so colonialism aside, it's not so bad, right? If you find this location in Dragon Age: Inquisition's Emerald Tombs, you'll quickly realize the problem.

The problem is zombies. There are so many zombies. But the cause is even more haunting and heartbreaking. The master of the manor tried to suppress his daughter's burgeoning magical abilities and imprisoned her, which led to her eventually becoming possessed by a demon that ultimately killed everyone there.

4 Abandoned orphanage

As if life in Alienage wasn't hard enough

In a place called the Abandoned Orphanage, there can only be a happy ending, right? Yes, you already have an idea of ​​what to expect when you investigate this disturbing location in Dragon Age: Origins' Denerim Alienage.

During the events of the game, Arl Rendon Howe sent soldiers to massacre the alienage, tragically including the orphanage. The violence was so terrible that the orphanage attracted demons that you must exterminate. From demon attacks to persistent screams of children, it's a quest and a place you won't soon forget.

3 Bone pit

Imagine seeing that name on the deed and buying anyway

In Dragon Age 2 you'll be faced with some really pretty wild quests. But one thing that runs through almost the entire game essentially involves you co-managing a mine they like to call the “bone pit” and acting as a liaison to the workers.

But it turns out that the Bone Pit is somehow cursed, likely because Tevinter's slave-owning overseers treated their workers horribly, even feeding them to dragonlings as punishment. Whether actually cursed or not, death has always lurked in the mine and has even attracted an entire High Dragon.

2 Dead ditches

“On the first day they come and catch everyone…”

When you first arrive in the Graveyards during your trip through the Deep Roads in Dragon Age: Origins, it seems pretty similar to what you've seen so far, save for the giant Archdemon stalking a horde of Dark Ones right in front of you Brood commands. But the abandoned stone structures soon give way to something much more galling.

The further you trudge through, the softer the rocks and stones become. Fleshy remains line the hallways as a spooky poem echoes through them. Then you meet Hespith, who's been through a lot, and she's there to warn you about the absolutely nightmare-inducing Broodmother you'll be fighting. Her story about how it came to be is sure to haunt you long after you've finished reading it.

1 Killer hideout

A final farewell surrounded by nightmares

Fortunately, one of the most heartbreaking moments in Dragon Age also takes place in one of the scariest locations. There's a seemingly insignificant side story in Dragon Age 2 involving a serial killer kidnapping women across the city, and you might not think much about it… until your character's mother disappears.

What emerges is far more twisted and heartbreaking than you probably expected. Hawke's mother Leandra is kidnapped by an evil magician who attempts to restore his lost love using parts from women he kidnaps. His lair is as disgusting as you might expect, and fighting through his hordes while your Frankenstein's mother rages in the background is made all the harder when you know what happened here.