Hawke is a character in BioWare's Dragon Age media franchise, first appearing as the player character of the 2011 role-playing video game Dragon Age II. Hawke is the eldest child of the human Hawke family, originally from the nation of Ferelden in the fictional world of Thedas. At the beginning of Dragon Age II, Hawke and their family flee the destruction caused by the Darkspawn during the Fifth Blight and settle as refugees in the city-state of Kirkwall. Over the following decade, Hawke rises from relative poverty to become a prominent figure in the city and receives the title "Champion of Kirkwall". Hawke later returns as a supporting character in 2014's Dragon Age: Inquisition.
The player's version of Hawke can be customized by gender, character class, first name and physical appearance. The player's cumulative choices also shape Hawke's personality, political allegiances and relationships with other characters. Unlike the protagonist of Dragon Age: Origins, however, Hawke has a predetermined family, nationality and broad personal history. The male and female versions of Hawke are voiced by Nicholas Boulton and Jo Wyatt, respectively. A male mage version of Hawke was used prominently in the marketing of Dragon Age II.
Reception towards Hawke was initially divided, particularly over BioWare's decision to replace the more freely customizable protagonist of Origins with a voiced character possessing an established background. Later criticism has frequently reassessed Hawke as an atypical role-playing game protagonist whose growing fame and power do not provide control over the events that shape their life. Critics have interpreted the character in terms of tragedy, refugee identity, limited player agency and the inability to prevent the loss of family and friends. Hawke has also been discussed in academic studies of morality, interpersonal relationships and sexuality in role-playing games.
Character overview Hawke is the eldest child of the renegade Ferelden mage Malcolm Hawke and Leandra Amell, a noblewoman originally from Kirkwall. During character creation in Dragon Age II, the player chooses Hawke's gender, first name and one of three character classes. A warrior or rogue Hawke served in the Ferelden army at the Battle of Ostagar alongside their younger brother Carver, while a mage Hawke is an apostate who, like their sister Bethany, has spent much of their life evading the Chantry and its Templars. Hawke's class determines which sibling survives the family's flight from Ferelden: Bethany survives alongside a warrior or rogue Hawke, while Carver survives alongside a mage.
Hawke's facial appearance can be customized by the player, and this customization also affects the facial structure, skin tone and hair of most members of the Hawke and Amell family. Charade Amell, the daughter of Hawke's uncle Gamlen, is an exception because she is established as resembling her mother. The player's decisions subsequently determine aspects of Hawke's combat specialization, relationships and political allegiances.
Dialogue is selected through a radial dialogue wheel which presents paraphrased responses. Repeated choices contribute to one of three broad personality types: diplomatic, humorous or aggressive. Each personality type influences Hawke's delivery when the character speaks without direct player input and can provide additional dialogue choices. Dragon Age: Inquisition allows the player to recreate their version of Hawke through its character creator and the world state imported through Dragon Age Keep.
Concept and design The 1998 role-playing game Planescape: Torment influenced lead writer David Gaider's approach to the story and characters of Dragon Age II. Gaider contrasted the largely malleable protagonist of Dragon Age: Origins with Hawke, who was designed with a pre-existing history and character arc while retaining player control over appearance, gender and major decisions. Gaider argued that introducing a voiced protagonist inevitably defined more of the character on the player's behalf, but cited the Nameless One from Planescape: Torment as an example of an established protagonist whose life could nevertheless be meaningfully shaped by the player.
An early visual concept for Hawke was a mage design referred to by the development team as the "Biker Mage". BioWare art director Matt Rhodes later recalled that exploratory visual-development work by the team provided a starting point for the eventual protagonist. The default male mage version of Hawke subsequently became the primary version used in the game's cover art, trailers and other marketing.
Where Origins was structured around an epic struggle against the Darkspawn, BioWare presented Dragon Age II as the story of a specific individual's life over approximately ten years. The player's actions determine Hawke's changing relationships, reputation and regrets during that period. The story is framed as an account given by Hawke's companion Varric Tethras, whose status as an unreliable narrator allows the game to selectively dramatize events in Hawke's biography. Gaider said the developers also wanted companion relationships to develop more organically and for Kirkwall to react to Hawke's increasing prominence over time.
BioWare did not intend Hawke to function as either a completely predefined character or a blank avatar. Jim Rossignol of Rock Paper Shotgun described the game's personality system before release as effectively allowing several substantially different versions of Hawke to emerge from the same established biography. The approach was compared with BioWare's Commander Shepard from the Mass Effect series, another voiced protagonist identified primarily by surname but whose appearance, gender and choices can be determined by the player.
Voice Nicholas Boulton and Jo Wyatt provide the voices of male and female Hawke, respectively. Boulton said that he approached Hawke's three principal personality styles as different expressions of the same individual rather than three unrelated performances. He began from what he considered Hawke's natural emotional position and then varied the delivery according to the diplomatic, humorous or aggressive dialogue options.
Boulton reprised the role in Dragon Age: Inquisition. He said that returning to Hawke several years later required portraying someone older and changed by the events of Dragon Age II, describing the character as more experienced but also more damaged. He regarded the return as familiar despite the time between performances.
Cut content A substantial amount of material involving Hawke was removed during Dragon Age II compressed development. In 2021, Gaider discussed several ideas he would have restored in a hypothetical expanded version, including additional contextual dialogue from characters whose responses reflected prior encounters with Hawke. One proposed storyline concerned a mage Hawke confronting the possibility of demonic possession while trapped within their own mind. Gaider regretted its removal because mage characters elsewhere in the setting routinely face this danger while Hawke does not. He also would have restored an endgame option allowing Hawke to refuse to support either the mages or the Templars.
Appearances Dragon Age II Dragon Age II presents Hawke's life through flashbacks narrated by Varric Tethras to Cassandra Pentaghast, who is attempting to determine Hawke's role in the conflict between the mages and Templars. Following the defeat of the Ferelden army at Ostagar, Hawke's family flees the Darkspawn destruction of Lothering. One of Hawke's siblings is killed during the journey before the survivors reach Kirkwall, the former home of their mother Leandra. The family discovers that Leandra's brother Gamlen has lost the Amell family fortune and estate, leaving them to begin their new lives among Kirkwall's poorer population.
A year later, Hawke joins Varric in a Deep Roads expedition and eventually acquires sufficient wealth to restore the family's position. Over the following years Hawke becomes increasingly involved in Kirkwall's affairs. Hawke fails to prevent the murder of Leandra by a blood mage, and later becomes central to a confrontation between Kirkwall and its resident Qunari. After defeating the Qunari leader, Hawke is celebrated as the "Champion of Kirkwall".
During the following years, relations between the city's mages and the Templar Order deteriorate despite Hawke's interventions. Hawke's companion Anders ultimately destroys Kirkwall's Chantry, precipitating open conflict and forcing Hawke to choose whether to support the mages or Templars. Regardless of that choice, the confrontation ends with the deaths of the factions' leaders and Hawke subsequently leaves Kirkwall.
Dragon Age: Inquisition Hawke returns in Dragon Age: Inquisition after the outbreak of the Mage–Templar War and assists the Inquisition in investigating the Grey Wardens. Hawke discovers that members of the order are being manipulated by servants of Corypheus, an ancient adversary previously encountered by Hawke. During a confrontation, Hawke and the Inquisitor's party become trapped in the Fade. The player must choose between leaving Hawke or an allied Grey Warden behind while the others escape.
Other appearances Hawke appears as a recruitable character in the Dragon Age II tie-in game Dragon Age Legends, with variants of the character later appearing in Heroes of Dragon Age. The default female Hawke is also depicted on the cover of the 2018 in-universe novella Dragon Age: Hard in Hightown, whose fictionalized story includes counterparts of several Dragon Age II characters.
Reception Hawke's conception as a more defined player character divided commentators before the release of Dragon Age II. Joe Juba of Game Informer welcomed the introduction of a fully voiced protagonist, believing that spoken responses made conversations more natural than scenes in which a silent customizable protagonist did not visibly react. Mike Fahey of Kotaku, by contrast, was concerned that Hawke's established identity would diminish the degree to which players could regard the protagonist as an extension of themselves. Although Fahey appreciated Commander Shepard as a character, he distinguished that experience from the greater identification he had felt with his character in Origins. In a separate article, however, he praised the design of the default female Hawke.
The friendship and rivalry system was likewise debated before release. Joseph Leray of Destructoid questioned whether rewarding both friendship and rivalry might lessen the consequences of Hawke repeatedly disagreeing with companions, because a sufficiently committed rivalry could preserve a relationship that might otherwise have collapsed.
Reception after release continued to reflect disagreement over Hawke and the game's narrower narrative scope. Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku defended the more personal story focused on Hawke's years in Kirkwall, while Electronic Arts later acknowledged that Dragon Age II had alienated some players. BioWare initially intended the protagonist of Inquisition to again be restricted to a human character, but restored multiple playable races after the reaction to Hawke. Fraser Brown of Destructoid nevertheless defended Hawke's fixed human origin as appropriate to the more specific story Dragon Age II attempted to tell.