Dragon Age: Origins

Many have already found solutions for achievement, but details themselves seem to be all over the place. I will confrim my method of earning this achievement, including savegame strategy, as I do NOT think it is bugged.

I have the latest patch (as of the writing of this guide) and alll DLC installed. I did not uninstall the patch, clear cache, or transfer my saves to another Xbox 360 as some other sources have suggested.

As many others have pointed out, I can confirm my opinion that this counts for MAIN character kills only, while the main character is under your direct control. I do not believe that it counts other characters' kills while under your direct control. I also believe that this counts only for ONE playthrough, and not across all playthroughs. Simply put, your character must kill 1,000 darkspawn, by him/herself, in one playhthrough beginning to end.

My process and Savegame strategy:
Begin the final fight for Denerim after the march from Redcliffe. Eliminate Darkspawn at the gates and choose your party. I chose Allistair, Oghren, and Morrigan. I headed first to the Elven Alienage and immediately saved my game (overwriting a savegame previously used by this character.) Begin dialog with the elf, and nearly immediately it will auto-save. I held my party back while I went to work on the darkspwan with my main character.

There are sources that indicate that the quest line, started from the elf before the auto-save, must be completed before darkspawn are counted. I do not know if this is true as I did not test it specifically, but I completed the elf quest by speaking to Shianni at the tree after all darkspawn in the alienage were eliminated. After speaking to Shianni, I saved my game by overwriting a previous save, keeping the original Alienage save intact.

After saving the game, I loaded the AUTOSAVE to continue the Alienage from the beginning since there is no autosave after the darkspawn are eliminated from this area, nor is an autosave kicked off after speaking to Shianni. After eliminating darkspawn, the general, and speaking to Shianni a second time (a second full playthrough of the Elven Alienage from loading the autosave,) I saved the game again by overwriting a different, previous savegame.

By this time, there are four saves that I am keeping track of. As far as I can tell, the actuall savegame number doesn't hold any special meaning, so I'll use it to illustrate. Assume that all 20 slots are in use from previous saves throughout the game:
Elven Alienage (10) -- the end of 2nd playthrough of Alienage
Elven Alienage (9) -- the end of 1st playthrough of Alienage
Auto Save (1) -- the autosave from the beginning of Alienage
Elven Alienage (8) -- the beginning of the 1st Alienage

I simply alternated saves between (9) and (10) above at the end of each run.
Save 8 was never truly needed again, but I kept in in case I needed to go back just before the autosave was kicked off, or if I progressed too far on the bridge to kill darkspawn which would start the cutscene and kick off a new autosave.

Blight-queller unlocked as I killed the last darkspawn in the Alienage after about a dozen runs.

**other notes:
When first attempting this method, I chose Allistair, Morrigan, and Wynne as my party. Each Alienage run would crash after about two minutes of play. Some sources have observed this and indicated that too many darkspawn were spawning in the area, causing the game and the Xbox 360 to crash. I did observe the crashing, but may have identified the source: Wynne casting haste as a tactic.

Throughout the game, I had Wynne casting haste as a 'self > any' tactic throughout much of the game and didn't see a crash. It began happening regularly at the Alienage, and I noticed on two occasions Wynne, on screen, in the exact same spellcasting pose as the game froze and the Xbox 360 become unresponsive. I narrowed it down to this tactic. I then reloaded the game at the March to Denerim, chose my party omitting her, and continued as indicated in the guide above.

Edit, 9/5/13: According to PuckJunkie in the comments below, there may have been a patch that removes the requirement that the MAIN character must make the kills. Other members in your party *while under your control* may also count kills toward the total. Secondary confirmation is appreciated, and I can update this solution guide if made - I have not tested it personally.

Edit, 3/6/17 (Six years later!!): Thanks to GrimmLAN13 for confirming that this solution still works in the back compat version on Xbox One!!

Edit, 11/25/23 (TWELVE YEARS LATER!!): Thank you to UncaringBoot9 for confirming that this solution works on the Game Pass version of the game when it's in the catalog, and to DivxKiller for providing some updating timing. It's so cool to see this game continue to get this kind of attention!

Kill 1000 darkspawn for this achievement. While this is supposed to be a cumulative achievement across all playthroughs, it can be buggy so it's unclear what is exactly needed for it to unlock and whether all playthroughs actually count.

If you're having trouble and own the Awakening expansion, one solution is to make your companions hold at the start of the the quest to save the Keep [You can't do this if you decide to save Amarantine] and go to the front gate alone. As long as you are alone in this area infinite darkspawn will spawn here. Therefore it's just a case of killing until the achievement pops.

There are other suggestions such as playing offline and making sure you do not have the latest updates, but I used the Keep solution so it's the only one I can vouch for.

For those thinking that they can play the Awakening expansion to add to their kills, here is something I noticed.

I had gotten the 500 kill achievement sometime around the 3 out of 4 ending battles to see all the endings, so maybe I was at 600 or so. I played the Awakenings expansion, usually solo or having my team on hold so that I could get all the kills. The 1000 achievement never unlocked.

I went back to Origins to a save right before the last battle, then created a save at the Elven Alienage like others have suggested. I counted 430 kills before my 1000 kill achievement unlocked so obviously the Awakening kills didn't count going back. While getting the kills, I just loaded the same save over as I was low on health or killed all the easy enemies. Never did I have to re-save after killing.

I got this by slightly altering the Elven Alienage method. I had a level 22 dual wield ranger. My party also included Lelliana. Speak with the elves and then -
1) Put party on hold position
2) Use Leliana to activate the Song of Courage
3) Head towards the gate
4) Save just before you get to the platforms
5) Go up to the top of the platform on the right
6) Stand in the front right corner (up against the building and also the wall looking out towards the darkspawn)
7) Watch small groups of ~5 run through the gate towards you and up the stairs
8) Fight the small groups of darkspawn at the top of the stairs
9) Return to front right corner to beckon more darkspawn
10) When they are all dead, save and the reload.
11) Lather, rinse, repeat.

Usually the ogre will stay where he knocked down the gate until after you've killed ~20-25 darkspawn. When he comes lure him onto the stairs and then use him to block the other darkspawn from coming up to hit you as well.
When archers stop on the ground to shoot at you, just move back to the beckon spot. They can't see you and will charge the stairs with their swords instead. Usually the general stays put and you can save him for last with no other bad guys to deal with at the same time.
The only time this method gets tough is when alpha darkspawn and an ogre come at you at the same time.
Using this method, you won't need to call additional armies for backup and should get 59-64 kills per go round (unless the Ogre takes out a handful with mass attack).
Each go round takes ~20-30 minutes.

I have seen on some guides that you can't get this achievement on the first playthrough, but that's incorrect. I got this during the final battle, but well before I made it to the Archdemon. My "Darkspawn killed" count on the load screen remained below 1000, but I think the game must count ALL darkspawn you kill, including those that you kill before dying and having to reload your game.
An obviously easier way to get this (and to get the Defender achievement while your'e at it) is to not call any allies during the final battle, that way you save all of the Darkspawn for yourself.

First off big thanks and shout out to achieve360points for this tip. Moving on...

This achievement is like catching Chlamydia, a right pain that only some of us have manage to catch however where there is a will, there's a way...

Play the game until you reach the 'Darkspawn battle at Denerim'.
Once you are given the chance to eliminate the generals, do so.
You want/need a scrapper team to help you – Shale, Sten, etc.
Give them the most powerful weapons, armour and accessories you have, specially anything that improves attack damage.
Take out the first general – pretty easy to do on casual.
Then off to the Eleven Alienage... Save at begin of the level.
Talk to Elves – send them away as you don't need them stealing Darkspawn kills.
You will need to call in Army support – Templar Knights worked well against the General. The reason for Army support is to distract the attention of the Ogres and General, if you don't keep them occupied they'll focus on you and your team – preventing you from getting kills and generally prolonging the fight.
Easy method for mass Darkspawn kills is to whore Holy Smite and Weapon Sweep – multi one hit kills on casual. Braap Braap!
There are around 50 Darkspawn here, you can kill around 35-45 of them depending on how macho you characters are. I was Level 20 and could pretty much annihilate any low level Darkspawn quickly.
Once you have eliminated all of the Darkspawn run back to the Elves, complete mission and SAVE in a new slot.
Reload the Alienage save file and redo the mission... over and over again.

Note: you MUST save in a new slot each time so that the game tallies up all your Darkspawn kills under that main character.

Abandon all hope of doing this quickly, as this will takes about 3 hours ( I had 521 DS kills before I started) but doesn't need to be done in one sitting and you don't need to clear cache either.

I'd suggest you put some music on to help pass the mind numbing boredom, a cold brewski or two will help too. Have fun.

Just to let you know this is for MAIN Character kills, NOT Party kills. I kept wondering why it didn't unlock when it said i had 1250 darkspawn kills.
The other solutions mention getting a specific amounts of darkspawn kills but when you look at main character it just says kills. I used the 'skymadeofglass' guide on awakenings and by the time it unlocked my character had 1682 kills, so i must of also killed 682 other creatures.

I just unlocked this achievement while doing the "Save the Vigil" quest on Awakening. I kept my party back the entire time. The only thing not mentioned is that it technically isn't an infinite respawn point. Once the Heretic Disciples(and Armored Ogre) are dead, they stop respawning. There was nothing I could do to stop the soldiers from eventually killing the Disciples and the Armored Ogre. I was a level 34/35 Mage and kept using force field on the Disciples(and Armored Ogre) as much as possible. I advise following PtarThanes save advice while trying to get this achievement. I used his save method with 3 different saves.
1. Inside the Throne Room before talking to Varel to start the Quest...save. This was my reload point
2. After killing The Herald.
3. Another save after killing The Herald.

I just kept alternating overwriting saves 2 & 3 then reloading save 1. I saved the Vigil about 4 times before the achievement unlocked. My stats would always say my main character had 1500+ kills when I was done saving the Vigil. I used the Ultimate Edition and when I started Awakening I pretty much tried to kill everything myself while holding my party back. I believe I had around 1200-1300 kills before the "Save the Vigil" quest.

I thought i would write down the method I used here as I have been trying for this achievement for ages and finally got it using a fresh playthrough. I had all DLC and game updates as of June 2012.

Game difficulty: Casual
Character class: Fighter

Start a new game on casual as a fighting character. Play through the game as normal, but in any areas where there are Darkspawn (Such as Orzamar) hold your party at the beginning of the map and then go around solo and kill all the darkspawn on your own (its fairly easy to do on casual but if you get stuck right at the beginning you can use your party a little). Play through the game doing this until the final battle. By now you should have around 600-700 Darkspawn kills. Play through the final battle until you get to the Alienage.

--- Alienage Battle (As in many other solutions)---

Speak to the elves and then create a new save point. Now progress and kill all of the darkspawn. Save the game in a new slot after you have killed the last Darkspawn in the Alienage. Then load the save game you made just after you spoke to the elves and repeat the process until the Achievement pops. Took me about 11 repeats and it popped finally!.

NOTE: If you dont hold your party members for the Alienage fight it will take longer as they will steal kills of of you.

Hope this helps you all

This not a solution, but just something to add since everyone is dealing with this bug. Bioware has talked about it before, so I figured it's best to give the official answer.

You DO NOT have to clear your cash, delete DLC, or anything else for that matter. This achievement is actually working how it's suppose to.

Originally, the achievement worked so that all Darkspawn kills counted to your total. That is no longer the case. Now, your kills will only count if you took down the enemy yourself, not your party members.

This means that the count total in your menu will always be incorrect and total more than you actually have.

You must get all the kills as the controlled character in order for them to count towards the achievement. This means you can still switch party members to get the kill, but any Darkspawn that they kill without you being in control will not count.

Besides that, everything else works fine. The achievement still counts across playthroughs and saves. Just be aware that you must be the one to kill them.

A good tip for this is to turn on "hold position" in the tactics menu, so that your party members won't attack the kills you need. Most every method up here works, so feel free to try the Alienage and other locations. Hope this helps!

Adding to the Awakening method described by skymadeofglass :

I got this achievement yesterday with the least effort possible starting at 300 darkspawn kills on my character. This is mainly for people who want to AFK farm this achievement.

My method :
At the start of the "saving the keep" mission have your party members hold and go alone to the gate. Stand right in front of the gate and AFK without any shield or shielding spells. That's right, this makes you attract darkspawn agro like insects to a lightbulb. To further clarify, I had an arcane warrior / keeper class where I was tanky enough to not die with my HP regen items and had the 1st spell in the keeper class tree which roots you into place. I basically stayed rooted and retaliated to the darkspawn that would attack me and sometimes the AOE damage from the roots attracted darkspawn which my character would retaliate to and kill as well. I plugged in my wired controller for this so that it does not switch off after some time like wireless ones.

I then proceeded to take a 2 hour nap and woke up to this achievement along with the level 30 Grey Warden one. Though I still think this is easier with the agro spells that warriors can use, rogues should not have much problem either because of having the highest DPS even if they attract the least enemies.

I had not played Origins on the character I got this achievement on, and got it from Awakening alone. I did this online and did not clear the cache.

Hope this helps

-Zelectic

Darkspawn are Hurlocks and their variants, Genlocks and their variants, Ogres, and possibly Shrieks and their variants. I'm not too certain if Shrieks count though.
I can say this, that you HAVE to be at least in control of the character that delivers the killing blow on the darkspawn if not your main character only. How I know this is because I finished 1 playthrough and under my Heroic Accomplishements it shows that I've slain over 1,200 darkspawn. Yet this achievement did not pop for me...even the 500 darkspawn kills didn't pop for me! I'm on playthrough #2 and am at the point where I have to fetch the Urn of Sacred Ashes to heal the Earl in Radcliffe. My current count for darkspawn kills is at 590 and Master Warden (500 darkspawn kills) achievement hasn't popped yet. On my second play through, I spent much of the "darkspawn" encounters by telling my party to "hold" while I scouted ahead and killed all the darkspawn myself. Playing on "easy" makes this painless except for a few battles especially when Ogres are encountered. I'm thinking that the achievement hasn't popped for Master Warden yet because some of the darkspawn kills were stolen by my other party members when they had to rush in to help me after my character was killed or if darkspawn attacked my party immediately upon entering an area. I'll update this as soon as my Master Warden achievement pops with my darkspawn kill count and again once this achivement pops.

Update: 01/15/2015, Hallelujah! It finally unlocked. This unlocked during the Final Battle questline where you fighting through Denerim to get to Fort Drako to face the Archdemon. The achievement unlocked in the Alienage where elves at the tree in the middle ask you to defend them from attacking darkspawn. Right after you accept the quest there's an Auto Save point that happens. I had my party "hold" while I ran forward at killed the darkspawn. The general will be pain in the behind and ended up killing me the first time around. What I did was used my rogue character to pick off the darkspawn near him then shot him with my arrows a few times which lured him to chase me. I then ran back to my party and removed the "hold" from them and we ganged up together and killed the general near the big tree in the center of the map. I then requested my party to "hold" again and then went forward and started killing all the darkspawn myself after that. My achievement Master Warden unlocked during that battle. I hit select and went to my Heroic Achievements and my darkspawn killed counter was at 742. This leads me to believe that only darkspawn kills with the PLAYER CONTROLLED character (possibly even only with the MAIN character, not confirmed though) count. It's important to note that this is place I used to farm Blight-Queller (1,000 Darkspawn kills) and was able to get it to unlock successfully as was recommended in other guides on this achievement. I simply created a save after all the darkspawn were killed and then reloaded the Auto-save checkpoint, replayed the battle, saved at the end and then reloaded Auto-save, and repeat. At the start of the battle, my darkspawn killed count was 705, at the end of the battle it was either 767 or 768. Which meant about 61-62 kills each time. After about 8 or 9 times of reloading the Auto-Save checkpoint, Blight-Queller popped for me. 61*8 is 488 so it sounds like pretty much every kill counted with my main character. Hope this helps others.