Dragon Age: Origins is a really fun game, and it can be made even more fun with console commands. Console commands, also known as cheats, are codes you enter into the console to do things like give your character items, change your appearance, adjust the world, settings, and a lot more!
In order to use console commands, you first need to enable the developer console. The method to do this varies based on which platforms you're playing DAO on. See help for your specific platform below.
Once you've got the console enabled, it can be opened by pressing the ` (grave) key on your keyboard. If this key isn't on your keyboard, or you want to change the key that opens the console, see How to Change Console Key.
To run a command, type it into the console and hit ENTER. You can also press ENTER to close the console.
Enable the Console on Steam
The method to enable the console on Steam varies based on whether or not you're playing Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition or the regular edition. See help for your edition below.
Ultimate Edition
To enable the developer console on the Ultimate Edition of Dragon Age: Origins, visit your Steam Library, right click "Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition" and select "Properties…":
In the properties menu, click "LOCAL FILES" in the left menu and then click "Browse…":
Go into the "data" folder:
Open "DAOriginsLauncher.xml". If you are asked what to open it with, select Notepad (or a text editor of your choice).
Press CTRL + F and search for:
true action="execute" file="${BINARIES_DIR}\DAOrigins.exe" path="${BINARIES_DIR}" autoquit="true"
Add arguments="-enabledeveloperconsole" after autoquit="true" (there should be a space between the two), so that the final line looks like this:
Regular Edition
To enable the console on the regular edition:
- Navigate to your Steam Library
- Right click "Dragon Age: Origins" in the left menu
- Select "Properties…"
- Enter -enabledeveloperconsole in the text box under "Launch Options"
- Open the game (if you already had it opened, you'll need to close and re-open), and the console will be enabled.
Enable the Console on Origin
To enable the console on Origin:
- Right click "Dragon Age: Origins" in the Origin client
- Select "Game properties"
- Go to the "Advanced launch options" tab
- Under "Command Line Arguments" enter -enabledeveloperconsole
- Click "Save"
- Open the game (if you already had it opened, you'll need to close and re-open), and the console will be enabled.
How to Change Console Key
If you don't have the default console key on your keyboard, or you just want to change it to something else, it's not too hard to do! First, open File Explorer and go to Documents, then go into the following folders:
BioWare > Dragon Age > Settings
Open the KeyBindings.ini file and go to the line that has the following text:
OpenConsole_0=Keyboard::Button_Grave
Replace the text Keyboard::Button_Grave with the button you want to use to open the console. Here are some options:
- Keyboard::Button_Tilde (~)
- Keyboard::Button_F6 (F6 key)
- Shift + Keyboard::Button_X - (SHIFT + X at the same time)
- Control + Keyboard::Button_C - (Control + C at the same time)
As an example, the first option in the above list would look like:
OpenConsole_0=Keyboard::Button_Tilde