And that game kinda sucked compared to 1 and 2, especially 1 imo. Bioware has been on a long and steady decline. Mass effect and the two first DA games have kept them going but it has just been miss after miss for a long time now.
Lol, no Veilguard is the worst DA game, for me Inquisition is not as good as DA2 but at least that is debatable between the two. Veilguard stands alone as the worst thing to ever happen to DA.
I genuinely dont get why people consider DA2 to be better than DAI. That game feels so cheap, has such little scope, and the story is ultimately just weird and has little consequence. It is somewhat self-contained, but it has very little meaningful interactions, is laughably formulaic, and it is very corridor-like. Hawke just feels like a doofus the whole time.
DAI is better in virtually every possible aspect of an RPG game. Grandiose scope, much better graphics, lasting consequences, fun class design, meaningful romance, many possible interactions, you are building Skyhold which changes in front of your eyes. It is filled with quests, fun-ish sidequests, expands upon the lore CONSIDERABLY, every zone progresses differently, the Inquisitor is also at least competent and you can play him in different ways (yes, not on the level of DA:O), brings back a lot of characters from DA:O...
Sure, the tone in DA:I there shifted somewhat from the dark fantasy to a more neutral tone, but that alone shouldnt be enough to automatically dismiss it.
I get what you are saying and I agree with some of your points, but I do think tone is a larger aspect than you might initially think.
Just look at Avowed, everyone was hyped about that with that first trailer, but when it finally got closer to release and what they were showing had a notably different tone to that initial trailer interest dipped dramatically. That is for an, at the time, unreleased game with no comparable games in the same universe (yes POE and POE 2 but they are a different style of game), so imagine how much that is amplified when you do that to an existing franchise with comparable games. Yeah I think it does make quite a large difference.
The next thing for me is that personally it felt like I was playing a single player MMO half the time, which is a massive turn off for me.
Having said all of this, I'm not here saying DA2 was a great game like DA1, but I personally think it was a reasonably good game, and that was enough. DAI, again from me personally, while not a bad game like veilguard, stripped away a lot of what I liked about DA so I think 2 is better, but that is obviously debatable since a lot of people do like it.
I get what you are saying and I agree with some of your points, but I do think tone is a larger aspect that you might initially think.
I dont disagree with you on that, but many of the comments I am seeing are not placing much emphasis on the tone change in my opinion, so that's why I am not considering it as much of a genuine point if I were to accept 'tone change' being the main argument for the hate of DAI. But sure.
I also didnt particularly like it not being as dark as DA:O, but I accepted it, because that is what you ultimately have to end up doing, if you scope out this much into focus on different zones, races, and ultimately different story. Darkspawn are no longer the big main threat after all.
I just don't feel like the tone change can warrant this much dislike. That's all.
Oh for sure and I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying that it is a factor, which is then compounded by other things. But people often try to minimise the effect of changes like that, when it really does make a big difference.
Anecdotal example, but I have played multiple games in genres I don't usually like simply based on the premise and overall tone.
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And that game kinda sucked compared to 1 and 2, especially 1 imo. Bioware has been on a long and steady decline. Mass effect and the two first DA games have kept them going but it has just been miss after miss for a long time now.