Fresh on the shelves, BioWare has already released the first patch for its highly praised RPG Dragon Age: Orgins, taking things up to version 1.01.

As you'd guess by the version number, this isn't a major update, but is welcome nonetheless. Included are mostly minor bug fixes, though one major for users playing with a very large display. The other notable bit is the tweaking of difficulty. As noted in our review, the game is quite challenging; BioWare have seen fit to tone down the Normal and Easy difficulties a bit.

Release notes are below; grab the 13MB file at the source.

Patch details:

• fixed potential corruption of character statistics
• fixed portrait appearance sliders when importing a character from the downloadable Character Creator
• fixed import for preset face settings from the downloadable Character Creator
• made Easy difficulty easier
• slightly increased attack, defense, and damage scores for all party members at Normal difficulty
• fixed video issues when running on a very wide screen display, including ATI Eyefinity displays