After ten years, a new one Dragon Age has arrived on the shelves. In the fourth chapter of the beloved dark fantasy saga, The Veilguardplayers are challenged to take on the role of Rook, the hero tasked with saving the world from the return of ancient corrupt gods. At his side, a cast of seven companions defined as “unique”, ready to move in “lively and varied environments” and to become increasingly powerful through a “deep RPG progression”. Well, how did the great return of BioWare’s historic IP go? According to Steam numbers, very bad.
On October 31st, the day of the release, the 70 thousand playerswith a peak of 89 thousand the following weekend. For a triple-A production, in the works for ten years, with a budget of several million and with a big name like Dragon Age, not being able to break through the barrier of 100 thousand users is quite serious. Let’s make a comparison, necessarily merciless, with Baldur’s Gate 3. At launch, Larian’s masterpiece recorded 470 thousand contemporary players. An abysmal difference. It is obviously still early to say with certainty that The Veilguard was a flop, but these data are certainly not encouraging. And this despite user reviews on Valve’s platform, 74% of which are positive.
The reasons for this hesitant release are multiple and linked to numerous aspects, both of the game and of the advertising that was given to it. First of all, his completely prostrating himself to the woke propaganda. On the game’s Steam page, the first tag with which The Veilguard is classified is not “Fantsy”, “RPG” or others that one might expect from a production of this kind, but rather “LGBTQ+”. This decision raises some alarm bells, which become real sirens once users have immersed themselves in BioWare’s latest effort for a few hours.
Many dialogue options are locked behind the player’s decision to have their character adopt them.”transgender identity”, in customizing your avatar you can choose to have scars on your chest due to an operation to remove your breasts, there are dialogues that seem to come straight from Californian colleges now drowned in the world of DEI and, the icing on the cake, a scene has become the symbol of the forced introduction of these ideas within the game: one of the characters in the group “misgenders” another and, to make amends, has to do 10 push-ups and make a very detailed apology, after being told It has been explained what the best way to do this is. Let’s remember that the saga has always been progressive and inclusive, since the first chapter came out in 2009. It was therefore not necessary to push so much on these issues, unless there was a deliberate political choice or a desire to fill a game with rainbow propaganda. container which, otherwise, would have been empty.
And here we come to a second problem, also reported by those who left positive votes. According to many users, the writing In this respect, Dragon Age is at the level of Marvel films, which from this point of view have never shone. Useless and repetitive dialogues, uncharismatic adventure companions who explain how to solve the already simple puzzles present in the various maps as soon as the protagonist approaches them, a general tone that seems aimed at children who are not even particularly smart and relationships between the characters that are completely missing Of conflict or voltage. An aspect reported many times, in fact, is the immediately cordial and friendly behavior between all of Rook’s companions and the player character himself, eliminating one of the aspects that made past BioWare productions great.
Closely connected to the problem of writing is that of weight of choices. Longtime fans of the series were infuriated when it was revealed that only three of the decisions made in past games would be imported into The Veilguard. A farewell to the interconnection between the decisions made by the players in all the chapters of the saga, which were reflected more or less clearly between one and the other. Other than that, it appears that in the new Dragon Age it is not really possible to distance oneself from the path ofpositive heroeffectively preventing the roleplay of gray or downright evil characters, one of the flagships of the old masterpieces of the Edmonton house. Furthermore, at least in the first hours of the game, none of the “either, either” options placed in front of the player have any real consequences. consequences.
As for the graphics, the landscapes are undoubtedly good looking, but for the characters one was chosen “cartoonish” style and very colorful, very different from the dirty, bloody, cold and muddy one of the previous chapters, especially of Origin and closer to the sphere of dark fantasy. The combat system is more action-oriented, with only three activated abilities and two companions in tow, who cannot be controlled directly. For many users and old fans, both are steps backwards compared to previous titles in the saga.
So, what is this The Veilguard? According to a portion of users, it is neither the fourth chapter of Dragon Agenor Dragon Age own. For others it is a soft reboot of the saga which, most likely, will not have other releases. According to still others it is just a mediocre title that should have been released ten years ago. It completely satisfied no one and disappointed many others, even those who had very low expectations.
It should have been the title capable of save BioWare, but it could become its final death sentence. And we write it with a hint of sadness, because the house in Edmonton has created some real ones milestones of video game art. Those days, however, now seem distant and lost.