Dragon Age The Veilguard Criticism Thread (formerly Skepticism Thread) [Spoilers]

I like shadows of Mordor, but not in my Dragon Age. At least I'm convinced, this game is not for me.

A bunch of previews with comments from creators have been released today. Apparently, some selected peoples were paid by EA (not sure since only a single creator clearly told it was a paid trip) to come and play the game for 6-7 hours at a studio. Impressions are not very negative, which is reasonable considering that it may be more or less sponsored (not sure). So, I picked up some to watch and ended with looking through Fextralife, which I generally consider fair:



I then looked at Gamespot briefly



And ended up with Wolfheart's, which turned out to be quite extensive. And yes, this guy is very thorough:



IDK what to think of it objectively. My main concerns are inferior writing, if not outright bad, carttonish-smooth models and animations of player, npcs, and enemies, and downgraded KoA style of combat that seems to aim at breaking immersion as a priority. It is probably safe to assume that the narrative is stuck with largely heroic lawful good with minor deviations, which might or might not have a real impact.

As in top of the head or bikini top?

As in mastectomy scars, removal of the female breast. Which opens a whole other can of worms. Does Thedas have modern surgery now?

Wolfheart showed his gameplay where to takes Neve to help him in the intro and she ends up injured with the face bruising (that we've previously only seen on Harding).

This gives her a temporary? status effect that has three impacts: 1) She will no longer use healing magic 2) Her damaging spells do increased damage and 3) Her approval with Rook goes up more slowly

While its cool that they have these kind of effects . . .

I'm confused why the Approval would take a negative hit? From the introduction scene we have been shown both Harding and Neve volunteer to join Rook. It seems odd that if you accept their assistance they would then get pissed off at you.

I suppose its possible that the one who gets injured is actually the companion you leave behind? Although this doesn't seem likely because the game clearly warns you that whoever you select to accompany you will be put at risk.

I worry that this is a case of sloppy/inconsistent writing?

I'm so sick of playing these types of characters. I can't wait for the day morally-gray characters are popular again. Give me someone like Arthur Morgan please.

Maybe they're just trepanning other, softer parts than the skull now... yikes.

I'm quite sure some will maintain that "There's no messaging in this game!"  SMH

A  "bulge" slider too.

I sympathise also. I vastly prefer series that keep a character like Mass Effect and the Witcher over series that have a separate protagonist each game. Because I get attached to characters. It's part of the reason why I found it so hard to get connected to DA:2 after DA:O

(nope)

Man, they already lost me after Trespasser due to the Inquisitor being replaced (because screw that stupid arbitrary rule).

But holy moly, I see absolutely nothing from this product that appeals to me. It's worse than I even feared. Even the barebones basic backstories from Inquisition are gone. They've literally removed every single aspect of this series that kept me invested. No backstory flexibility, no Tapistry, no character moral leeway, nothing. The craziest part is...I'm not sure why I'm even surprised.

After Andromeda and Anthem, this result should have been obvious. But I guess I had placed too much stock in their claims that they "found their way" after the Legendary Edition. unless of course, this is what Bioware considers "their way" now. In which case, I guess after all these decades, I'm truly done with this company. Because I'm clearly not the target demographic anymore.