(DAY/NIGHT) WOLF HUNT

A major one is the fact that there are few choices implemented from dai and it showing in dialogue and the overall story. They revealed this in an interview before the release of the game and it disappointed me a bit going in. And when you play through the story, you can tell that the writers are trying their best to skirt around this issue. But as someone who has played inquisition and the other games, I can tell what's going on and it results in awkwardness in the writing and the overall narrative for me. I wished they would have implemented more major choices in dai regarding the divine, what the inquisitor did with the wardens, who drank from the well of sorrows, etc. I don't mind them not implementing stuff from da2 and dao, but I think they cut too much here from dai considering the story.

He missed his mark twice in a row because apparently he was having problems focusing owing to his demon partner. Zevran would have made mincemeat out of this Lucanis. Of course, everything is so watered down in DAV that instead of leading a band of ruthless, cut-throat assassins who have no mercy on anyone who betrays them, he is basically just the head of the family business who can't even bring himself to execute a traitor because he is family. A real Crow would do that without any hesitation. Not to do so in front of the entire Crow organisation would be seen as a sign of weakness. Then again, this is no longer the Thedas we knew and loved.

The whole business with Varric was so contrived and disrespectful to his character. In a way though, what they did with Varric was symbolic of their attitude to the old fans and previous world states. They didn't fit with the narrative they wanted to tell, so they just chucked them on the rubbish heap. Now there were hints, particularly in DAI and its DLC that the main narrative was always something along these lines but from what has been revealed in the Art Book and other leaks the way it was going to be told was far superior to how it eventually turned out. This is partly the fault of the multiple reboots but not entirely.

I remember how a few years back John Epler was quoted as saying that Dragon Age was all about people working as a "found family" or words to that effect and people responded by saying "no it isn't". If anything it was about people working together against a common enemy despite their differences, which could often be quite profound (think of the antagonism in DA2), and the player character could even end up betraying their companions if they so chose. At the time optimists like myself were saying we shouldn't read too much into it, despite him now being one of the main Devs in control of the game, but it turns out the pessimists were right to be worried at the time.

Several of the characters would have seem to have been profoundly changed from what they were originally meant to be. Mary Kirby admitted that Lucanis had undergone the most changes of any character and it shows. I don't care what his defenders say on the Lucanis thread, this was not the character depicted in Tevinter Nights. I bet anything that she wasn't happy what they did with Varric either but I dare say was prevented from saying as much. I do hope she and the others win the law suit against Bioware/EA for how they mistreated them over the redundancy.