BioWare earned its respect and admiration from fans. After amazing video game players with their RPG entry in the Star Wars universe, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the company moved to original content, creating their own space opera with Mass Effect. At that point, players had bought into the studio's ability to handle science-fiction, but some were a bit wary as the developer announced they were turning their eye towards the realm of fantasy. The result: Dragon Age: Origins proved that players had nothing to worry about, winning a slew of 2009's awards (including Best PC Game and Best RPG Game from Spike TV's Video Game Awards and PC Gamer's Game of the Year) and a ton of positive reviews from critics and players alike.

BioWare's development of sequels has been interesting. The company tends to be blamed for the weaker Knights of the Old Republic follow up, even though they weren't the developer behind the sequel (the second game was handed off to Obsidian Entertainment when BioWare realized their plate was too full). Meanwhile Mass Effect 2 received high praise, despite carrying on some of the bugs and flaws of the first title in the series. It's become readily apparent, however, that BioWare's interest isn't just in making games, but in creating worlds, and that means expanding the universe of their games beyond the titles into full blown franchises, crossing across games and beyond to create franchises at a level that few game publishers pursue. Pardon the pun, but Origins was only the beginning for Dragon Age.

The notion of expanding the game into a full world isn't something that's just developing this year. Fans of the game already know BioWare has been expanding the universe of Dragon Age: Origins with a slew of digitally distributed content. Almost a dozen add-on packs were released for the game over the past two years, including a brand new campaign (Awakening), new characters (The Stone Prisoner), and even some celebrations (the April Fools Day parallel, Feastday Gifts and Pranks). Even within the one game, the world of Dragon Age grew over time.

This week sees the release of the official sequel to the game, Dragon Age II. The sequel moves the player to a new character, but the choices that the player made within the first game can be imported into the sequel, not just expanding the world of the game, but continuing to have the player's decisions carry long-term consequences for the story. While previous games from other companies have given players the ability to import characters and previously gained gear and achievements, this is the first time I recall a player having such an impact on the actual story. It's an element that I felt was missing from other franchises, where subsequent games would often dictate how history played out in previous games or ignore the past altogether (I'm looking in your direction Final Fantasy).

BioWare isn't setting out to just release a sequel, however, and some of their other plans are expanding the world of Dragon Age considerably. First of all, the story is invading Facebook in a new game designed specifically for the social network. Dragon Age Legends tells the story of the Free Marches, which is the setting of the sequel. This isn't just an opportunity for players to expand the lore of the game world, however. The plan is that, through the social network game, players can actually unlock items from the primary game. This is added incentive for die-hard players to participate in the Facebook game, even if they haven't gotten involved in other social games.

The growth of Dragon Age doesn't just go into social networking. BioWare is expanding the world of their game through an online web series. Announced last month, the series, Dragon Age: Redemption will be brought to life by Felicia Day, the geek-genius who turned her World of Warcraft addiction into the hit web-series The Guild. Day has already proven her fantastic talent in combining drama and comedy in the short-form style of a web series, so I can't wait to see how she will add on to the world of Dragon Age. The series will be released some point this summer, which is far enough from the release date that BioWare could easily wrap the series back into the primary game with downloadable content.

Of course, the Dragon Age phenomenon has also grown in more traditional ways: comic books, action figures, and even a comic book, but it's the way BioWare is building into new venues like social networking and a web-series that is really creating something new with their fantasy world. Here's hoping their sci-fi series, Mass Effect will get similar treatment in the future.