Dragon Age: The Veilguard

After nearly 100 hours on my first playthrough of the game I am ready to throw my hat in the review ring. I got 90% completion on my first playthrough, so I am hoping to be able to give a thorough report. There are only three major observations that I feel merit discussion as BioWare moves forward; 1) the discussion between characters/therapy talk. 2) Clearer mission distinctions. 3) All characters are pansexual.

Let’s be honest, there are some people who are going to complain whenever any franchise moves further into the twenty-first century. These are the people who cry that games and book are “woke”. I will go on the record as saying that we as a society are still learning how to treat other human beings with basic decency. The more mainstream culture reflects us making moves in this direction the more people will realize that treating people with basic human decency is the bare minimum. It’s a low bar and quite frankly you should be able to step over it. That being said, two of the three things I’m focusing on stem from these complaints.

I would like to take a moment to celebrate some things I think this game did really well. The closed map with Eluvian travel aids. Can we all agree that if Dragon Age 2 had had this kind of closed map that no one would’ve been able to complain? The factions allowed for various missions and even if they were in the same locations, they expanded as they game progressed. They didn’t try to make the dungeon a new dungeon in the same area, they admitted it was the same area, and expanded where you could go. The character missions felt important. They didn’t feel like filler and they were important in the final battles. I theorize that the character mission might impact game play during the playthrough in other places, I’m playing with the theory on my second playthrough.

Discussions between characters is very careful. Even aggressive comments are more “firm” than “angry”. One of the things BioWare has always been great on is letting you choose how you save the world. Are you a paragon, or a renegade? Are you saving this world because you believe it should be saved, or are you saving it because you think you can do better than what is on offer? The thing I don’t like about the therapy speak is that it whitewashes many issues. It acknowledges the Elves problem, without making it an Elven Rook’s problem. It acknowledges the Dwarfs history, without making it the teams problem. I do not know which is better. In Dragon Age Origins you can bring the chant of light to the dwarves which changes things in Thedas for generations. Is that better then expecting one dwarf, three elves (with Elven Rook), and a bunch of humans to right centuries of wrongs done to these people? Expecting a person in power to answer for something they only just learned? It doesn’t bother me that there are options for people to be non-binary. I do not mind characters exploring non-binary concepts. This is part of making sure every person is visible in media and is important. Is Rook a licensed therapist? Sometimes I think they must be given the way they problem solve their team into working together despite backgrounds and circumstances. Pretending something didn’t happen isn’t ok. Pretending years of oppression of the elves didn’t happen isn’t ok. Sorry my gods are rampaging around the world, but I didn’t do it? There should be blood in the streets over this. I’m glad Thedas has grown enough that they no longer feel killing people is the right action, but this is a medieval fantasy game and based on how medieval times went I can’t see how this shook out the way it did. Should we grow as a people and learn? Absolutely. Does that start with a historical fantasy game? I guess it can. In the words of my husband, “Just because it isn’t historically accurate doesn’t mean it isn’t what we are currently striving for. The writing team knows that.”

On this same vein I want to talk about a common complaint I’ve seen of lack of character development in your companions. If you are going back to the lighthouse regularly and engaging your companions in discussions, eavesdropping when they are talking to other companions, etc. You are going to see a lot more character development. Probably around the time I started part 2 I saw a message pop up on the game about making sure to talk to my companions and they might have quests for me. I don’t know if BioWare always planned on that happening there, or if they did it in response to the haters.

I missed out on a major mission on my first playthrough because it was labeled “Story Mission” and I mistakenly thought that would progress the storyline before I was ready. The character I wanted to romance turned out to be a late grab in part 1 and getting the grey warden actually triggers the end of part 1 mission. If this had been labeled as a “Faction Mission” or a “Companion Quest” I would’ve gotten it out of the way before getting more characters (This completely could have been labeled a companion quest). I didn’t miss it on my second playthrough and I can say it is a game changer on understanding some things.

On the subject of all characters being pansexual, I wrote an entire article on this topic that you can find here, https://www.mediamagpies.com/the-more-realistic-sex-game/ , so I don’t want to go too deep now. I was impressed with how the companions paired off with each other. I was a little broken hearted when Bellara and Lace’s romance turned into a friendship with sexy puns, but Harding’s pairing off with Taash was exactly what Taash needed. I couldn’t see any other companion I had being what Taash needed as they discovered their identity. Davrin had a great scene with Taash after they realized they were non-binary in my playthrough where Davrin worked really hard to get their pronouns right. I’ve only done one full playthrough but I have to say the romance scene I got was G rated, and a bit sad for me. I’m hoping different characters might get me something I’m more use to seeing in the Dragon Age Saga. Am I the only one who liked after you started a romance in Dragon Age Origins you could just ask your intended for a kiss? They weren’t super sexy kisses but it helped it feel like more of a relationship.

This game is a 4 out of 5 stars for me. I feel the game play was amazing, especially when you think about it evolving from Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda. There are some technical issues in fighting that kind of irked me, we’ve taken over 10 years to build this game we can’t make different people’s powers look different? I mean we had it in Mass Effect 2 for sure, why did we lose it? Also, if I destroy something little bits of it shouldn’t be hanging in midair coders. Not a broken crate, and definitely not darkspawn tentacles. I’m cool with them being on the ground, just not in midair. Makes me feel like I’m in the fade. Speaking of darkspawn, I do enjoy how we’ve added to the origins. We didn’t negate anything, just added more details. That being said a few more details would’ve been cool. I was in Ghilan’nain’s lab. Lab notes, diagrams, science talk could’ve been fun? I do believe this game was ultimately a success, and I look forward to what BioWare does moving forward.