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Ten Years Ago… Where was i ten years ago?
Well here at TYTL i was, writing reviews on Star Trek movies, posting links to pieces by Bach, and i made this .gif :
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I was also booting up Dragon Age Inquisition for the first time, and quite liking what i was playing; so after all that time: 10 years after the release of Dragon Age III, 9 years after the release of its proper ending Trespasser, 5 years after the first teaser, and 3 years after the first Cinematic Trailer, we finally get to see the actual trailer for what was then called Dragon Age, then Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, and now Dragon Age: Veilguard.
Behold a decade of waiting ends:
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And after all that time, my only reaction is one of caution, and honestly just… meh.
First impressions?
I hate the art style, as it’s some sort of mix of pixar, blizzard cinematics, and promo art for League of Legends or something, it’s some sort of mutant hybrid of Inquisition‘s turn to colourful high contrast imagery with Dragon Age II‘s paintbrush aesthetic. I hate how the proportions are off, everybody’s skin looks like wax, and the colours and effects are obnoxiously loud.
One thing that strikes me is how contemporary and/or dated the trailer feels, just digging up all of the trends from the last 10 or so years (maybe even 20) and going full throttle on them as if bringing out tired tropes like freeze frame character introductions, a wildly changed cover of a popular pop song, and detached and quippy dialog hasn’t (likely by most of the people watching it) already been seen hundreds of times before.
There was just nothing here for me to get excited about, i honestly got more excited by the teaser trailer 5 years ago than this.
Moving on though, the gameplay has to be where the money is right?
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It’s easier (in some ways) to stomach the new art style of the characters here, the lighting effects are pretty spectacular, however: the cyberpunk influenced art choices are really at odds with what i’ve come to identify as Thedas; the neon signs and colours, spotlights, and the demons look particularly bad. The buildings look like they’re made out of cardboard, and i could go on but the most important part is how it looks like it’s going to play.
And just like the trailer, i’m struck by how average it looks; i’ve seen this gameplay before, not specifically mind you (how could i), but there was just nothing that stuck out. Nothing that made me excited or curious about actually playing what will in all likelihood be 80% of the game’s content. That’s not even getting to what would appear to have been removed: gone are the playable and impactful teammates, gone are the dozens of special abilities (replaced by 3), and i didn’t see anything resembling a tactics or team strategy menu.
The combat was so bland that i just skipped ahead to where i thought it looked interesting, in order to see what i could glean from the story, and what i was left with was a giant question mark, and not in a good way. As fighting Solas on the cusp of him tearing the veil down so early on is a big red flag; firstly by having Varric attempt to talk him down without any of the members of the Inquistion there trying to stop Solas is patently bizarre, deflating, and stretches belief.
Secondly, if i as a player stop Solas just as he’s about to complete his main objective, then what happened in the mean time? Will i find out? Or will it be swept away to deal with the new threat of those two figures emerging out of the veil; much like how Corypheus literally blew away the Mage/Templar war that was painstakingly set up in Dragon Age II?
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THE RESPONSE
Community response has been all over the place; there’s the (what has become the norm these days) culture war crap that has people who either have no idea about the history of the series, or have completely forgotten it hilariously calling it “WOKE AGE” or other such things.
But i’m not wasting anymore time with that, what i really want to talk about are the people who are disappointed that this still isn’t resembling Dragon Age Origins.
Honestly it’s baffling that anyone would still hold a hope, or expectation that anything moving the Dragon Age series forward would resemble Origins. Their usual defence is that it’s somehow wrong of me to tell them to move on, or that the gameplay is old and outdated (pointing to Balders Gate III‘s recent success), or that i think they’re weirdos for wanting to experience the story first.
Firstly, Origins came out 15 years ago, and while Inquisition made some call backs to Origins tactical camera, every single game has been a complete departure from how Origins looked and played. No one currently at BioWare on any design or any management level was there when Origins was being made. As a result it has nothing to do with gate keeping, or thinking that a game like Origins wouldn’t be able to find an audience these days.
To put it plainly it’s like expecting your favourite restaurant that changed management, closed and reopened over a period of 15 years to still have all the same menu items, and still somehow taste the same.
It’s just not reality, that restaurant from your memory is closed, you’re older and more stressed and cynical, the cooks have moved on, the managers have moved on, the waiters have moved on, the kitchen has been renovated, it’s as Red in Shawshank Redemption said so beautifully: “… a shitty pipedream…” to ever think that you’ll chow down on your favourite food there again (even though the building and name are the same)*.
Yes, move on guys, you’ll find no sympathetic ear here; honestly i think criticisms from this angle are at this point a dead horse, and just aren’t very valid or useful anymore.
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ANYTHING GOOD AT ALL?
I’m not exaggerating when i say i’ve been waiting for this game for a decade. I loved Dragon Age Inquistion, i did multiple play throughs and sunk about 500+ hours into it.
In the end i honestly couldn’t care less about how the game plays, or its cringy art style, or shitty dialog. What i desperately want is some closure, I don’t want this to end up like Reboot, where i’m either left hanging or am completely dissatisfied with a story that i’ve experienced, participated in, followed and invested emotion into for pretty close to half my life (i’ve been playing the series since Origins first released).
I’m hoping against hope, that my cynicism is wrong, that i can once again be thrilled and emotionally satisfied by Dragon Age: Veilguard as much as i was at the end of Trespasser.
I’ll find out this Autumn i suppose.
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*of course i’m projecting guys, but at the same time we’ve all had a similar experience. It helps to remove and reframe things from time to time.
Oh, and Doom is getting a new game, yippy
Ten Years Too Late 