Artstyle 100% matters in capturing player interest, and I genuinely think that game’s atrocious artstyle and character designs killed a lot of interest from long time Dragon Age fans along with many potential newcomers
I genuinely tried to care about it despite the negative press. I made it about 13 hours before I was too put-off to continue. I wasn't a fan of the graphics, and while that's not a make or break for me, combined with the milquetoast characters and boring writing I couldn't do it.
Gameplay was fine, I wouldn't complain about it in any other game, but with the weakness in other areas it really needed to carry, and it didn't.
Gameplay was alright apart from the weird companion combo stuff which very much limited how you picked companions for each mission. That was just shitty design but the actual gameplay was pretty good.
Hard disagree on the gameplay being good - they got rid of tactician mode, which severely dumbed down the RPG mechanics.... in their flagship RPG series.
The game tapped out its skills like half way through. I remember basically hitting the same three buttons for basically the entire second half. This was on the hardest difficulty.
That being said it wasn’t the worst game I’ve ever played or anything. Considering the development problems they had the game was playable
This questline was something else man 😂 dragon lady beefing her mom over being trans, was hilariously poorly done too. By far the biggest highlight of the game.
That really was handled poorly and I don’t mind the subject matter in general. But to pretend the whole game was like this and didn’t have any qualities is also kind of misleading.
They shouldn’t have made it a dragon age game, I think it would have been received somewhat better.
A shame the studio is gone, I am a huge mass effect fan.
Honestly, the culture war against the game that coincided with the 2024 election was one of the saddest things. The devs got so much abuse and even death threats. It reviewed well, was extremely polished, and had an excellent gameplay loop. Some of the same writers from the first game helped write this one, including Trick Weekes. But it was caught up in a toxic anti-DEI culture war that absolutely killed its sales and ultimately led to the studio's closure. I hope gamers are happy with themselves.
Exactly this. 60% of the problem was the game's poor writing, the other 40% was the chud gamers and their endless culture war crap. Media sensationalism and right-wing whackadoodles did so much to damage this game before it was even released.
I played the game it wasn't very good, like the writing was atrocious, the levels were disconnected which was weird and disjointed.
The gameplay was pretty good, and the actual levels for the most part were interesting enough. Just gotta skip all the dialogue. The games writing felt like it was scared to upset anyone, it was just bad. It definitely got too much hate though because literally nothing deserves the hate it got.
The writing wasn't perfect, but there were plenty of games in 2024 with far worse writing. The reason Veilguard became such a target was as much a product of the culture war as anything else.
I'm fully convinced that if the non-binary storyline had been scrapped before release, the game wouldn't have generated nearly as much controversy. There are plenty of people in gaming fandom who don't want these themes in games, no matter how well they're written.
Actually, instead of yapping online I actually voted with my wallet and I'm happy it brought results. As evident, I am not the only one. They all deserved it for ruining such a lore-rich franchise.
I'm not saying the game was perfect. I'm saying it was a solid game, and the hatred and vitriol directed towards its writers were completely out of proportion. It was a sad indictment of gaming culture as a whole. EA didn't help by pushing for game as a live service model, but the Devs managed to turn it around into a good single player RPG. The studio deserved better than this.
Like I said, many of the same writers from the first Dragon Age and Mass Effect games, including Trick Weekes, were involved in this. They help write the lore in the first place. But they dared to include non-binary themes and storylines, the sort of thing that has been normal in literature for over a century and in film for over 50 years. Yet a certain subset of gamers will try to destroy the careers of writers who dare to include this stuff in games.
I love gaming as an art form. It's just as important as literature and film. But damn, some of its fans really need to grow up. Killing BioWare and single-player RPG developers will just mean more live-service and gacha games that make money but have zero artistic merit.
An absolutely minuscule -- and 100% optional -- section of an 80+ hour game and you make it out to be the game's entire theme. Sad little people with sad little hates.
After 2 hours i couldn't be bothered to return. Im sad to see them go, but the Bioware i grew up with was been gone since Andromeda. Inquisition gave me hope. The remaster of Mass Effect told me it was the beginning of the end.
Yes actually.
3ish years into development EA ordered Bioware to shift the entire game to multiplayer live service and scrap what they had been working on. Then another 2-3 years later they said "nvm go back to what you were originally doing but do it in 1 year because youve been working on it all this time"
Not to mention EA Fired the original writer, David Gaider, and had someone completely different, tekes, write Veilguard on a tight deadline schedule. Extremely tight. EA gave the team 18 months to transition it BACK into the original project after the already scrapped it for the Multiplayer live service microtransaction game.
Imagine trying to write a sprawling fantasy novel, being told halfway through to turn it into an online multiplayer adventure, then being told to turn it back into a novel without starting over.
So again. Yes EA gave orders that made the game have dogshit writing.
This explains some things, but who pushed towards making it the most cringe Californian game in existence? How does Corinne Bushes self insert fit in here? Nah, sounds like excuses.
Don’t get me wrong. The game was overall bad IMO. But I wouldn’t call the insane amount of pressure and toxicity from EA as an “Excuse”. Especially if you’ve never worked in the industry lol. EA is the king of micromanagement. They also moved most of the senior devs and producers to anthem in the middle of development so the production got lost in translation.
Okay, we can agree on that. The normal devs weren't making bad games because they wanted them to be bad. Look what Ubi devs can do without a delusional c suite.
When you make a live service multiplayer game, you design it to where it appeals to the broadest demographic possible to get the most people playing. Any edgy or possibly controversial design choice is thrown out for being too risky and what is left is a game that feels like HR is in the room breathing down your neck.
EA told them to appeal to everyone and not ruffle any feathers to get the most amount of people playing, changed their mind when it was too late, and now Veilguard and the death of Bioware is the result.
Story was alright. But it was so pale in comparison with games with waaay less budget like the original DA: Origins. If it was any other IP maybe it would've been interesting, but as it stands it was mid at best for a dragon age game.
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u/Imemberyou 5h ago
They had their chance with the last Dragon Age, which was technically excellent but dogshit story-wise.