With the recent reveal of 'Dragon Age: The Veilguard', (I feel like people are ignoring how abrasive a 'the' can be in your product's title) I am saddened to report that my misgivings regarding the direction of modern Bioware have not been abated. In fact, if anything they've been lionized into a depressing colation of the reality that the famous studio we once loved is looking paranoid and now is spiralling. I once loved Bioware, and some part of me still wants to believe in them- I want them to win me over but it seems the world has left them behind when it comes to RPGs, and now they've left RPGs behind in kind- leaving me wondering what it is this Studio even endeavours to be anymore. If they're not an RPG studio, what even are they? Just developers? The Bioware I knew would have never been content with such a position! But they're not here anymore... are they?
Obviously the worst aspect of the reveal was that initial trailer which, quite rightly, set alarm bells ringing across the reaction world. I wasn't aware of Dragon Age being 'Dark Fantasy' as people apparently say, I took Origins as grim but not excessively, intentionally disturbing or frightening- but I do agree that Dragon Age has a tendency to treat it's world with a general mature passion which heightens the stakes at their most dire. The Veilguard's descent into hero shooter peppiness with Suicide Squad intro cards, soft rock backing tracks, one-line epithets describing surface deep quirkiness and, most importantly, terrible sound mixing so Varrick's voice is drowned out by the music- kind of felt like the people in charge had absolutely no idea what made the franchise work. They seem to have fallen for the memes which claim that the only reason we come to Dragon Age, or any Bioware game, is to meet and romance their collective cast. But to be honest, Bioware romances haven't exactly gotten any more interesting since Mass Effect 2- (Andromeda tried something unique, but people didn't respond to that game very well.) and after Baldur's Gate 3: this cast has quite the uphill struggle to enter the poppy zeitgeist.
In particular I think it's the designs that are throwing off the general public. Dragon Age has never quite gone for the 'true to life' character meta which ages so poorly as game fidelity doubles every other generation, and I find that to be a strength of their art direction- even as they do objectively improve in the visual department. But something about Veilgaurd's character designs appear to veer towards overtly exaggerated features that flow out into Overwatch levels of cartoony. All the new monster designs we've seen thus far, such as those new 'Darkspawn' we glimpsed, looked out-of-proportion and goofy. I shouldn't be seeing a bone monster and think 'Goofy'! And don't get me started on that Alfred Pennyworth in Doctor Strange cosplay-lookin' fella! That man looks like a Fortnite character- his facial proportions look like they've been mangled by the Mandibular Rearranger from The Outer Worlds! He looks terrible!
Of course, as everyone who took the time to actually go and watch the recently revealed gameplay will tell you- the actual in-play action seems to be a lot better than what was teased. It's all very slick and cinematic action set-piece with flashy and exciting combat and glittering particles and the Frostbite engine weeping sadly in the background. The face to face dynamic camera actions also look vastly improved, which may be due to handcrafted angles explicit to the main dialogues or maybe intensive work on the AI to teach it more coherent camera-man philosophies- either way it's working and this game is coveting the same sort of cinematic flair that sang for Baldur's Gate 3. Unfortunately that is the only positive comparison to that game I could make.
One of my favourite aspects about watching the Dragon Age Franchise grow was measuring how cinematic the game became whilst wrestling with keeping the tactical RPG elements alive- and until the this very game that seemed to be a balance they took very seriously. This time around what we have is an action slasher with abilities, no character switching and totally eradicated tactical planning whatsoever. Even in the most ludicrous moments of Inquisition, there were the bigger dragon fights where you would plant members of your team in the right places, place the built tank to draw attention whilst your damage dealers weaved around the legs and the healer tried to keep everyone standing. Team composition was essential. This game has already gutted the total party size from 4 to 3. They took the 'RPG' out of my RPG franchise.
In many ways it reminds me of what happened with the Final Fantasy VII Remake as retold by someone with literally no ability to comprehend what they're playing. FF7R got rid of the ATB based combat of FF7 original in favour of action combat- however the spirit of what that combat imparted- real-time combat with abilities, was imbued into the spirit of the game so that even if a different genre was being tickled, the RPG heart of the original lived on. Veilgaurd doesn't even appear to feature healthbars for your party members! And enemies, at least in what we've seen, don't aggro on companions at all. And health potions are not rationed out carefully at campfires, or brought in town- they pop out of cartoon green barrels. This doesn't feel like a mainline Dragon Age, it feels like an action-themed spin-off.
By and large, Dragon Age: The Veilgaurd hasn't really shown off anything to show lessons learned from Inquisition thus far. The biggest issues of the last game were based around the design of their world and story progression, which Veilgaurd's intro completely avoids by setting itself purely in the intro act- and the combat looks utterly guttered and simplified to the level of a toddler. They turned Dragon Age into Mass Effect- but then again, even Mass Effect gave you companions that can draw aggro and pass out! So whilst some out there are clapping their hands and declaring that Bioware have pulled optics back in their favour- for me I'm actually more worried that the team have killed the last piece of RPG magic that studio still had.
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