EA pulls a “reverse Ubisoft,” makes some old BioWare DLC free

Enlarge / Don't worry, my sweet. BioWare Points can't hurt you anymore.

Single-player downloadable content for the PC versions of Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3 will be available for free going forward. The change—which EA is announcing via apparent emails to some Origin users—comes alongside the pending shutdown of the BioWare Points digital currency system.

Those BioWare Points used to be the only way to purchase DLC for the developer's legacy titles. And because those points rarely went on sale, the price of that DLC relative to the heavily discounted base games would sometimes get a little ridiculous. As an angry change.org petition noted in 2015, "to purchase enough BioWare Points to own all DLC for the [Mass Effect] series would total $105; over 3 times the cost of all three base games."

In 2017, though, EA released moderately priced DLC bundles for its legacy BioWare titles, making it much more affordable and convenient to purchase story-based expansions and content packs that offer more character customization options.