Dragonage Veilgaurd, Coming Soon

September 28, 2024

I really like Dragon Age. In 2020, I built a pc for the express purpose of playing Dragon Age Inquisition, a game I had fond pre-plague memories of. Later I played through (most of) Origins (twice), enthralled, and last month I finally played through Dragon Age 2. I have also, eagerly awaited news of the fourth installment. I mourned a little during that brief window where it looked like it was going to turn into a multiplayer afair. In 2022, when they announced the game as dread wolf, I ignored it, because it seemed like the game was still a long ways off, and started sortof assuming it wasn’t actually going to happen.

But lo! This spring they re-announced the game as Dragon Age Veilgaurd and everything I’ve found out about the game since has me quaking. Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of posts of people who are for some reason, so mad about this game, and because I will not be arguing with them on the internet, I’ll write about my disagreements here.

First of all, the art style! I am a huge sucker for stylized 3d animation, so I’m really excited to see a more interesting visual style from such a big budget video game. I’ve seen a lot of posts hating on it as being Fortnite-esque. That’s not nessecarily an unreasonable comparison, I just don’t think it’s the insult they think it is. I personally like that sort of soft, blocky look it has going on, and while you (guy I saw on the internet) might think Fortnite is cringe, the fact that a game is popular is not actually a mark against its visual style. Additionally, I don’t think a lot of people leveling this criticism have the ability to actually articulate what look they would have preffered for the game. Something more like inquisition? Just making the style increasingly “realistic” might be what they mean, but I also think it would plunge players head first into the uncanny valley with no way out. Below is one of the Veilgaurd’s promotional images that I think does a good job putting the graphic style on display. It’s gonna be Awesome.

Second, the gameplay style! Veilgaurd is going to be more an action game than a tactical game like its predecessors. Personally, I am not patient enough to actually engage meaningfully with the time stop parts of dragon age. I think that while I will definetly be worse at the combat in Veilgaurd, I will also enjoy it more. Most of the coverage I’ve seen, seems to be suspicious of the combat, for reasons I can’t quite figure out. There’s a lot of ‘it’s different, that might be bad going on’. Personally, that seems like a poor argument.

Third like the games before it, it has homo in it! The smoochable game friends do not care about your gender when it comes to smooches. I think that’s great. I think it’s awesome. And furthermore, I think it is excellent. It was interesting in Inquisition to have the characters have gender preferences. Without it, we wouldn’t have gotten Dorian’s arc, and there wouldn’t have been a place for the quiet insistance that short haired, slightly more masc women can kiss men too. (Much to my chagrin as a newly gay highschooler.) That said, I’ve seen a lot of posts and articles bemoaning the new tact Veilgaurd is taking. Folks seem concerned that this will ‘completely flatten characters’, that this means the characters are ‘playersexual’, and that an entire pansexual cast is ‘unrealistic’. My response to those critiques in order are:

• Personhood does not begin, and end at sexuality (or gender), not choosing to sexuality as an area of exploration in your art does not turn a character into card board.
• Who cares? They gotta present the option somehow, and frankly the same people who say this shit seem to also be really upset about getting rejected by a fictional character, so chill.
• First of all, we queers find eachother, seven of us in one room is not unrealistic. Second, you can headcannon they are straight (or gay) if you want, and ignore the parts of cannon that imply they aren’t.

The final thing I want to mention is the… Vitriolic transphobia that is all too easy to stumble across when reading about the upcoming release of Veilgaurd. There’s a lot of it, people are hateful, and detest that you can make a trans protagonist. I doubt there is anything I could say to these people that would change their mind, but there are plently of things I can say that will make me feel better:

• You also have pronouns

• This is not a departure from the previous dragon age installations, it is a natural progression. There was literally a trans character in inquisition, dragon age has always had queerness in it. The ‘good old days’ you are mourning never existed.

• The same people saying this shit insist that none of the characters are attractive, that they are all hideous, unfuckable, and that it makes the game unplayable. To that I say, who’s got a thin skin now? And also, are we looking at the same art? All of them are gorgeous? (or are you just mad some of them aren’t white?)

Basically, I think my problem with the way I have seen this game discussed pre-release can be boiled down to this: This is a new thing, it can, should, and Must be different from what came before it. You can never experience something for the first time again–if you go around expecting sequels to be the same as the first thing, you will be forever dissapointed.

In conclusion, I’m so hyped for this game, I really hope my pc will run it.