Negativity Fest 2024--Dragon Age: The Veilguard Edition

This week has been a veritable whirlwind of news and emotions surrounding the fourth chapter in BioWare's Dragon Age series.  First fun fact--it's now called "The Veilguard" and no longer "Dreadwolf."  I'll preface this post by stating that I'm more of a Mass Effect fan than Dragon Age, but I've enjoyed all of the DA games--I'm definitely not the person who's going to be pre-ordering or playing on day one.  I do follow gaming news and am a member of a couple of great groups on social media so I've been tracking the official releases and the general vibe in the socials.  And wheeeeew-ie....it has been a real rollercoaster of emotions on the ol' socials!  (And, sadly, not in a good way.)

The first big freak out came with the release of a trailer introducing the cast of characters who will join our playable hero (called "the rook") in The Veilguard.  If you haven't seen it, here it is:  

Now, to me anyway, this is exciting--you get basically everything that a fan of Dragon Age could want...and then some!  There's a beloved character from the previous games in the form of Varric Tethras who is apparently going to play some role in the story (but is notably not a member of the crew).  A lot of chatter online surrounded the fact that he looks noticeably older and de-cried the fact that his chest hair is seemingly diminished (sad?  I guess.) You get a side character that everyone WISHED was a playable character in Inquisition, Scout Harding.  Then, you get a wide array of intriguing new characters that seem cool!  A Grey Warden...with a griffin!  A necromancer (everyone loves a necromancer)!  A female Qunari!  And besides the character reveal, there are other gameplay/plot related nuggets there too.  The Darkspawn are coming back--I've missed slaughtering them in overly blood-soaked battles.  There's new dragons to fight!  So, what's not to be excited about?

Well, apparently, basically everything.  People immediately started freaking out over the graphics and the fact that they felt like they looked like a mobile-MOBA mashup.  They didn't like the way that the characters were introduced stating a similar sentiment.  I felt like the freak out was a little overdramatic as this is a trailer and not actual gameplay.  Yeah, they're gonna style it up and make it look exciting, that's how trailers work.  Immediately though, the vibes were off and the reaction was very negative.

Seemingly in response to this wave of negativity, a 20 minute long gameplay trailer was released.  Give it a gander if you haven't yet:

The response to this trailer wasn't as negative, but definitely still leaned in that general direction.  It seemed to calm the freak out over the graphics but there were, of course, other aspects of the gameplay that garnered plenty of snark.

I've picked out some notable (good and bad) info from a few articles that might be of interest.  Here's my list:

1.) The party size has shrunk from 4 to 3.

2.) As you can see from the trailer (which maybe isn't the best indicator since it takes place at the beginning of the game) the combat style is more like DAII/Inquisition.  Expect more hack n' slash style than the Origins tactical focus.  I have seen it mentioned that there will still be the ability to issue commands to your followers and utilize combos.  I'm hoping it's better than Mass Effect: Andromeda because your squad mates are next to useless (but I don't have high hopes there).

3.) Apparently The Veilguard won't be open world.  Personally, I'm glad about that.  If BioWare does choose to stick to it's strengths (which have traditionally been strong story and characters) I think that's for the best.  I find that open world games tend to lose story and characters beneath the layers of random, meaningless tasks that are inherent in the larger scale.

4.) Controversially, they went the DAII route with romance--everyone is an option.  Is it "realistic?"  No.  Does it avoid the whole "I can't romance that person so I'm sad/mad" subset of players?  Yes.  I'm a bit mixed on this one.  One the one hand, it's always nice to have options.  On the other hand, that also means that we're going to miss out on the unique romance options like Dorian.

Since we're on the topic of romance (a HUGE part of any BioWare game), it was also stated that members of your crew will also start their own relationships with whoever you don't choose.  This likely means there are some set pairings (think Tali/Garrus) that will play out in dialogue/side content.  Sounds fun to me.

5.) There's no release date yet, but I would not anticipate it this year.  It feels like there is going to be a lot of big titles coming in 2025.

Honestly, I've been a bit stunned by the negativity around what should be an exciting time for Dragon Age fans.  The whole thing is tainted by the "is BioWare dead" narrative that seems to flavor any discussion of a new title.  Sure, Andromeda was a flop and let's not forget about the disaster that was Anthem, but it would be nice to just have a little bit of happiness or excitement.  My advice, don't get sucked into the doom and gloom of the many opinions and comments out there--steer clear of it and make your own judgements (which is hard to do).