Top Lists

The 10 Best Dragon Age 2 Mods

Published

1 year ago

July 26, 2023

What are the best Dragon Age 2 mods?

Dragon Age 2 is a solid game, but it lacked a lot of what made Origins great, and so ended up feeling a bit rushed in the end.

However, the modding community has been able to build this game into something truly spectacular and fun to play!

Today, we’re rounding up the best Dragon Age 2 mods on the Nexus so that you can start creating your own epic mod list.

The 10 Best Dragon Age 2 Mods

There are a ton of mods for Dragon Age 2, but not all of them are worth rushing to download.

To create this list, we’ve specifically selected mods based on their ratings, number of downloads, and how they impact gameplay.

So, before you pick a side between Mages and Templars, enjoy reading our list of the 10 best Dragon Age 2 mods:

10. Better Mages – Better Spells

Kicking off our list, we have a mod that makes mages as formidable as they should be, given their lore.

What this mod does is make all of the spells in Dragon Age 2 more powerful and useful in combat, so that mages can actually hold their own.

This mod also makes it so mages can cast spells more often, so you won’t find yourself having to chug potions or run away when you’re powers are on cooldown.

Seeing how DA2 revolves so much around the conflict between mages who want to be free and the templars who want them locked up, this mod makes perfect sense.

Now, mages will actually be as threatening as the story makes them seem, and if you’re playing as one, you can deal some serious damage.

While this mod is designed to work best on hard or nightmare difficulty, if you want to just tear through enemies, it also works on lower difficulties.

We love playing as a mage Hawke, so this mod has quickly become a must-have for us, but really everyone can benefit from it if you want powerful mages on your team!

9. Diversified Follower Armors

Are you tired of your followers always wearing bland armor? Well, you’ll be happy to know that this mod lets you spruce them up!

With this mod, all of the equipment slots for companions are unlocked, which allows you to equip them with anything within stat and class limits.

Like the best Skyrim clothing mods, Diversified Follower Armors also comes with unique armor pieces for each follower that comes with its own unique appearance and stats.

What’s more, this mod also changed all companion armor so that it scales to their level, so you don’t have to wait for their upgrades during Act II.

We feel these functions would have been added if DA2 had not had a rushed development, but fortunately, this mod works perfectly.

It’s nice to be able to customize what your companions are wearing, and it definitely helps make them more effective in battle!

8. Reinventing The Wheel

Like some of the best Fallout games, in Dragon Age 2, some dialogue options are locked behind personality types.

This mod seeks to revamp the dialogue wheel so that all dominant personality types will have access to every speech option.

So, if you’re playing as a sarcastic Hawke like we usually do, you will still be able to choose diplomatic options if you want.

Along with unlocking these dialogue options, Reinventing the Wheel also adds an optional persuasion check choice.

What this does is make it so that all options are available, but the ones not aligned with your personality type will have a chance of failing.

The odds of a speech option passing are dependent on your attributes and the companions you have at the time.

For example, your strength influences aggressive/direct dialogue, while cunning impacts humor/charm and willpower diplomatic/helpful options.

Likewise, direct companions like Aveline and Fenris will impact aggressive dialogue, while followers like Isabella and Varric will impact humor and charm checks.

If you fail a check, the conversation will proceed down a different route with potentially deadly consequences during some interactions!

7. Chargen Revamp

So, unless you play as the default Hawke, your character is probably going to look comparable to something out of the best PS1 games, which isn’t a compliment.

Seriously, every character preset aside from the default looks like it was modeled from low-quality clay, and there are no ways to improve them.

Fortunately, this mod completely overhauls the character generator so that you can truly create a version of Hawke that you won’t immediately hate.

Chargen Revamp adds a ton of sliders that allow you to tweak almost everything about your character’s face.

You can even make your character look elven if you want, which, while there’s no dialogue to accommodate it, we love.

We really hope that DA4 takes a few notes from this mod, since even the Dragon Age Inquisition character generator left a lot to be desired.

At least we have this mod to play with in the meantime, and it’s certainly made creating custom characters a lot more fun!

6. Kirkwall Expanded

Dragon Age 2’s development was extremely rushed, and this can be seen in the size of the main city, Kirkwall.

Unlike Dragon Age Origins, DA2 really only has this city and the surrounding area for players to explore, and its relatively small size was a letdown for many.

Thankfully, this mod addresses many complaints from fans by making Kirkwall seem like a larger, more thriving center of the Free Marches.

What this mod adds is more NPCs, including new merchants and female dwarves, which were all but non-existent.

There are also new items, new quests, and a new cooking option that allows players to craft food items with unique benefits.

If that wasn’t enough, new pets have even been included, ranging from a small adorable nug to a large and fearsome wyvern!

With this mod, Kirkwall actually starts to feel like the significant city-state it is in lore, and we’re totally here for it!

5. Dragon Age Save Generator

If you want to play DA2 on any device that doesn’t have Origins save files, you’re going to end up stuck with the default world state.

Moreover, sometimes you just want to play through different scenarios without having to replay Origins first.

That’s where the Dragon Age Save Generator comes in, and it really is a lifesaver when it comes to starting a new playthrough.

Like the Dragon Age Keep for Inquisition, this mod allows you to create an importable Dragon Age Origins save with specific plot details and character outcomes.

With this save editor, you can specify how you want events to have played out in Origins so that you can continue DA2 in that world state.

While we would highly recommend playing DA Origins at least once, since it is one of the best fantasy RPGs of all time, this mod is perfect for players who want to customize DA2.

This mod is an absolute must-have in our book, and we highly recommend checking it out if you’re starting a new playthrough of Dragon Age 2!

4. Unique Face Textures For Companions

Dragon Age 2 was released in 2011, and its graphics certainly betray its age, particularly when it comes to faces.

While this mod won’t make all NPCs look better, it does improve the appearance of those that matter the most; your companions!

When this mod is installed, all of your companions will have high-resolution skin and eye textures that are very well-designed.

This makes them look more like they belong in Dragon Age Inquisition, which is a huge graphical improvement.

Once you’ve used this mod, you’ll never want to play without it, especially when you see the difference it makes.

Although it won’t make the whole game look like one of the best open-world PS5 games, having good-looking companions is still a fantastic upgrade!

3. Valuable Junk

As is the case with many of the best games like Skyrim, one of the best ways to make money in DA2 is by selling what you don’t need.

Unfortunately, in the base game, the spoils of your exploits aren’t exactly highly sought after by the merchants of Kirkwall!

However, this mod changes things so that the junk you pick up will actually be worth selling, so that you can stock up on things you actually need!

For too long, the merchants of Kirkwall have lowballed the fruits of our labor, and now you can finally make them pay up.

There are two different types of this mod you can choose from depending on how much you want your junk to sell for.

One increases the value of junk by 10x its normal price, while the other raises all values by 100x, so you can get rich really quickly.

Both of these options are a huge improvement on the vanilla prices, since most junk would usually only fetch you a couple of silvers at most!

Valuable Junk may not overhaul the entire game, but it definitely makes looting feel much more rewarding.

2. Dragon Age 2 ReDesigned

Speaking of entire overhauls, Dragon Age 2 ReDesigned is exactly that, and this mod covers a ton of features.

With this mod installed, all of the locations in the game have been updated, as well as all of the companions and NPCs.

However, what we really love about this mod is that you can pick and choose what you want overhauled.

There are individual files for companions, darkspawn, and NPCs, as well as nature, the Deep Roads, and Kirkwall.

While you can download each file separately, there is also a main file you can manually install that lets you pick and choose what changes to make.

For example, you can choose to change every companion or just a few that you think need it the most.

Dragon Age 2 ReDesigned is perfect for when you want to replay the game but have become bored with the original graphics.

Plus, all of the changes really do help the vanilla game look a little bit more modern and interesting!

1. Dragon Age 2 Ultimate HD

Taking our number one spot is Dragon Age 2 Ultimate HD, an amazing mod that overhauls almost all of the textures in the game!

This mod replaces the vanilla textures with HD alternatives that aim to improve the visuals and make the game feel more realistic.

In addition to overhauling the textures of Kirkwall, this mod also covers all of the flora, caves, interiors, and clutter items.

While the average version of this mod has a texture resolution of 2048×2048, there is also an ultra-high resolution option.

The ultra version has a texture resolution of 4096×4096, but it will take a toll on your PC unless you have at least 4 GB of RAM and 2 GB of VRAM to spare.

However, the average version is nothing to turn your nose up at, and it definitely makes the game look a lot more polished.

That said, if you have a PC that can handle the load, the ultra option is pretty spectacular to look at, especially when paired with Unique Face Textures for Companions!

Dragon Age 2 Ultimate HD is definitely a must-have mod if you want to replay DA2 while waiting for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf to finally be released!