Dragon Age Legends launches on Facebook

Dragon Age is the latest franchise to make the free-to-play jump, as Electronic Arts today announced that Dragon Age Legends is now playable on Facebook for all of the social platform's users worldwide. Billed as a collaboration between EA's BioWare studio and its free-to-play development house EA2D, Dragon Age Legends brings turn-based combat to the fantasy series' swords-and-sorcery setting.

In the game, players can enlist the aid of their Facebook friends to work through a storyline's worth of quests, upgrade characters, and build their kingdoms. As an added incentive for fans of the franchise, players can earn exclusive unlockable items for use in Dragon Age II by completing specific quests in Dragon Age Legends.

Dragon Age Legends is just the latest effort in Electronic Arts' ongoing campaign to carve out a presence in the free-to-play market. In 2009, the publisher acquired Facebook developer Playfish for $275 million, and the company has also invested in adapting franchises like Battlefield, Need for Speed, FIFA, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour to microtransaction-based stand-alone PC games.

For more on Dragon Age Legends' source material, check out GameSpot's review of the recently released Dragon Age II.