Guarded About Veilguard

There was an Xbox Game Showcase 2024 recently that revealed a lot of trailers for upcoming games. One of those trailers was for Dragon Age: Veilguard, formally known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. You can go ahead and watch it yourself first:

Now, the trailer is getting mercilessly shit on by Reddit. There are a lot of Dragon Age: Origin uberfans still kicking apparently (of which I am one, technically) that are appalled at “what the series has become.” Which is funny, considering Origins came out in 2009 and the series has spent more time being something else than it ever has as Origins. All the complaints about EA destroying Bioware is similarly asinine considering A) by all accounts Bioware does this to itself, routinely, and B) who is still even at Bioware 15 years later? That is a topic for another day, though.

Most of the criticisms seem to be leveled at the trailer’s Marvel and/or Fortnite crossover energy. It reminded me more of the D&D: Honor Among Thieves trailer, honestly, but I get it. Dragon Age started out as a sort of gritty, grimdark fantasy RPG and that has… mellowed over time. But it did get me curious about trailers for the prior games.

I don’t actually expect you to watch all those, but the summary is: most are pretty damn similar, minus the Borderlands-style name introduction. Yes, there is less blood and more… rizz. The thing about trailers though is that they don’t really matter. It sucks when they suck, for sure, and can definitely dampen the enthusiasm and hype. And, yeah, they can also be indicative of a truly terrible game. But it also goes the other way, right? There are plenty of trailers better than the game they represent, or misleading at best. Just think about the best parts of any of the Dragon Age games to you, and then point me towards where that is represented in its trailer.

I’ll start:

You can [innuendo] me, any time.

That’s right, Scout Harding. The worst part about Dragon Age: Inquisition was that you couldn’t romance Harding, and now? A decade later you (presumably) can. Game on.

Posted on June 10, 2024, in Commentary and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Comments Off on Guarded About Veilguard.

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