Bioware officially announced a new expansion pack for Dragon Age: Origins called Awakening. Above and below you will find two shots from the expansion, which seem to indicate players can expect some dragon battles and an encounter with an undead archer standing beside a bonfire (undead get cold to, ya know).

What’s the deal with Awakening? It will sell for $39.99 and be available for Xbox 360, PC and PS3.

Designed and written by the same team that brought you Dragon Age: Origins, the Awakening expansion pack offers a brand new area of the world to explore known as Amaranthine, featuring an epic story that will allow players to unravel the secrets of the darkspawn – and their true motivations! Players will face a range of horrific and terrifying creatures including an evolved, intelligent breed of darkspawn and other menacing creatures such as the Inferno Golem and Spectral Dragon. Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening provides exciting new ways for players to customize their heroes and party, including the ability to re-spec their character attributes, allowing even greater customization and replayability. Featuring an increased level cap, new spells, abilities, specializations and items, plus five all-new party members, players can continue their adventures from Dragon Age: Origins, or begin with a brand new character.

Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening, BioWare’s next thread in the Dragon Age: Originstapestry, occurs following the events of Dragon Age: Origins and puts players into the role of a Grey Warden Commander entrusted with rebuilding the order of Grey Wardens. In addition to rebuilding the ranks of the Grey Wardens, you will be tasked with uncovering the mystery of how the darkspawn survive after the slaying of the Archdemon. How players choose to rebuild their order, resolve the conflict with the mysterious “Architect,” and determine the fate of the darkspawn are just some of the many intriguing moral choices that will shape each player’s heroic journey. Players will be able to import their character from Dragon Age: Origins or start out as a new Grey Warden from the neighboring land of Orlais.

Dragon Age is a superb RPG from Bioware, a game made even better by the recent arrival of the Dragon Age toolset, the exact toolset used at Bioware to create the game. This editor presents budding game designers with an incredible amount of power, allowing them to create completely original campaigns and modules however they see fit. On the downside, the toolset has the uncanny ability to completely break the standard Dragon Age campaign, as I so rudely discovered over the weekend.

I knew something was amiss when I started a new game and a few hours in I noticed that NPCs who should have been joining my party weren’t. Worse, cutscenes depicted conversations between invisible people. Sensing something amiss, I restarted a new game and soon discovered that all NPCs thought my male character was female, which was quite funny for a few minutes.

Doing a little snooping around, I soon discovered the cause of these problems: the Dragon Age Toolset.

If you’re planning on exploring the toolset, I highly recommend you wait until a new version is released, as all manner of things will go wrong if you don’t.

From Bioware Toolset Wiki:

Verison 1.0 of the Dragon Age toolset has a subtle but potentially devastating bug. Put simply, the core plot resources that were included with the toolset had different internal identification numbers (GUIDs) than the versions that were used when the retail version of the game was created. The result is that whenever a core plot file is exported it overrides the plot in the preinstalled main campaign, and then none of the other resources in the game are able to reference it any more. The game’s scripts and conversations are unable to determine the state of the affected plots, and are unable to update the state of the plot.

Let’s say you didn’t listen too me or your disovered this post too late. Is there was a way to fix your game without reinstalling from scratch? Indeed.

The first thing you’ll need to do is to remove the faulty exported plot files from your core override directory. You will find them here:

My Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\packages\core\override

Delete the contents of this directory. Once they’re gone the game will revert back to using the resources that were originally included with the retail version.

If you have saved your game between exporting those core resources and now, the savegame will have faulty plot ID numbers recorded in it and remain broken. The savegame can be repaired manually but it will take a bit more work; if you’ve only lost a few hours of gameplay it may be simplest to just go back to a previous save and work from there.

If you’re an RPG fan then Bioware’s next opus Dragon Age is undoubtedly on your radar. After a string of hits, including their last effort Mass Effect, Bioware understands RPGs better than most and usually deliver on their promises. With Dragon Age, Bioware returns to a fantasy realm for old-school narrative and dungeon crawling. Better yet, day one DLC has been announced, making what is already a large game even more huge.

Dragon Age Products:

Dragon Age (Xbox 360)

Dragon Age (PS3)

Dragon Age: Collector’s Edition (PC)

What’s included in the DLC?

The Warden’s Keep premium DLC will provide players of Dragon Age: Origins with a new dungeon-exploring adventure, new loot including a set of ancient Grey Warden armor, a chance to gain two of six mysterious new abilities, a new base complete with merchants and a party chest to store their hard-earned items. The Warden’s Keep adventure is based on an ancient myth in the Dragon Age universe, where two centuries ago the legendary guardians known as the Grey Wardens were expelled from the land amidst a storm of blood and betrayal. Until very recently, the Wardens have been in exile, while their fortress remains overgrown and reportedly haunted. Over the long years, legends of great treasures and forgotten lore have been told of this hidden location, but no one has ever ventured there and returned alive. Warden’s Keep gives gamers the chance to unearth this lost chapter of Grey Warden history. With their trusty party and a new guide, Dragon Age: Origins players will have an opportunity to unravel the mystery behind the fall of Warden’s Keep, and finally reclaim it for the order. Warden’s Keep will be available for $7 on the PlayStation® Store, the PC via the in game menu or for 560 points on Xbox LIVE® Marketplace. It is also included with the purchase of the Digital Deluxe Edition via a code provided by retailers.

In addition, BioWare will release the Blood Dragon Armor DLC, a set of themed armor that will give players additional protection in combat. This DLC is available to players who purchase a new copy of Dragon Age: Origins (original or Collector’s Edition) via a code* included with the game. This armor will be available for use in both Dragon Age: Origins on the PlayStation 3 computer and entertainment system, Xbox 360 videogame and entertainment system and PC and in Mass Effect™ 2 on the Xbox 360 and PC.