Genghis_McKhan Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review

The game is not objectively bad. It's technically competent (surprisingly so for a modern AAA release), the systems mostly work as intended, and there are a couple of decent moments. The environments also look great, though it seems like they were made by an entirely different art department from the rest of the game. Unfortunately the core of any RPG, and especially BioWare RPGs, for me is the writing and Veilguard's writing is embarrassingly bad. It has lost any semblance of the dark fantasy tone of the franchise and consists of YA dialogue, delivered by character models more at home in a mobile game, with no friction and everything in black and white. The Antivan Crows have gone from ruthless assassins to brooding Batman wannabes delivering non-lethal justice. You have no choice but to follow the heroic therapist role they have written for you, dialogue choices amount to varying flavours of heroically supportive. I could riff for hours on the writing and the shame it brings to BioWare but I'll leave you with a couple of quotes from YouTuber Josh Strife Hayes on why he liked Origins, that perfectly exemplify why I do not like Veilguard: “If I can’t be an arsehole in the game, then me being good doesn’t mean anything. Because the game is saying that I have to be good, no matter what. In order for me being good to actually have weight, it needs to be in contrast to something else.” “If all of the replies are positive, or all of the replies are negative, that’s not a choice. That’s the game just saying ‘This film’s just going to keep playing and this character has already been written. You just get to choose the flavour of response, instead of the actual mechanical decision of the response.’”