In Defense of Dragon Age: The Veilguard

I have some criticisms of Veilguard I'd like to talk about. Important note, these are only criticisms I have problems with, there are other criticisms I understand and somewhat agree with.

I’ve seen people criticize Minrathus because of the floating Castle being too Sci-Fi. Because apparently Floating Castles can’t be floating with Magic.

As I played Veilguard to review it back in November I was also consistently diving into the community on the subreddit for Dragon Age and reading others articles about it in order to see what others were saying about this game that I love. I was often thrown off when I would see people complain about parts of the game that I had felt like they completely missed the point of or moments of bigotry, of course, and just moments of wishing Veilguard was either Origins or Baldur's Gate 3. This has been bothering me for a while now, and I've been working on this article for 2 months, so I wanted to address some of these people's criticisms in a different kind of article today. So let's get going.

**SPOILERS FOR ALL OF DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD AHEAD**

I can't be evil or a jerk

This is something I see everywhere. Usually people will reminisce about prior Bioware games to make their point. Now, here in Veilguard you can be a jerk, but you definitely can't be evil (like most modern Bioware games). A lot of the jerky moments though will always come from your interactions with people outside your party, but there are still moments where you can be dismissive of people, like when Solas is asking something of you near the end of the game and you can say "Are you fucking kidding me?", or when you can punch the First Warden, or when you can essentially say that the conflict between Lucanis and Davrin is pointless because the party needs to all work together to defeat the Gods.

I see people say that they want, essentially, Mass Effect Renegade options. Which is an entirely different type of game. Dragon Age has never had those types of options, you're never supposed to be evil. Even with people saying you could be a jerk with Hawke or the Inquisitor, their examples are more simply being firm or dismissive. something you can still do with this game. Are there as many jerky options as there could have been? No. are there still moments where you can be a jerk? Fuck yes.

Punching this dude was so satisfying.

I also think that some of this comes from a genuine wish that this game was Baldur's Gate 3, where you could be absolute assholes to your companions, to the point they would abandon you and I think there are people who wish they could be completely dismissive and shitty to their companions in this game, particularly Taash because of their identity. Is it entirely because of that? No, there are definitely legitimate criticisms for not having some more firm or jerky options, but if anyone ever mentions that they wish they could be jerks to Taash, that means they wish they could dismiss Taash's identity or try to convince them to remain a woman. If anyone ever tells you or you read that they wish they could be dismissive of their companions identities or goals, this is likely what they mean, and they themselves should be dismissed.

Veilguard isn't Baldur's Gate 3. You can't be a fucking evil being who wants to rule the world. That's not how Dragon Age has ever worked. You've always been the hero. And that's a part of the fun.

Note: I definitely wish there were still more options of dialogue and varied responses and that the dialogue in the wheel matched the spoken dialogue more, but there are still pretty Dragon Age responses in the game and again, the game isn't Mass Effect and we were never gonna have renegade dialogue because that's not the game.

There's no conflict between the party characters

When I hear this criticism I feel like I've played a completely different game than these people. Multiple times there is conflict between characters including your Rook and some. For instance, there's conflict between Lucanis and Davrin, like I said above, when he misses his shot at killing Ghilan'nain. Davrin holds it against him and Lucanis holds it against himself. They are in conflict with each other but then you can go to each of them afterwards and convince them to reconcile and then later in the game they start to be drinking buddies.

Lucanis might have missed, but this was still an amazing moment.

There's also the fact that Emmerich and Tassh have conflict constantly because Taash hates that Emmerich is a necromancer. This will come up many times in exploration dialogue where Taash will be dismissive and simplistic about the magic Emmerich uses and Emmerich will obviously be very frustrated about it. There is also a conversation they have at the Lighthouse about this and you're able to convince them that even though they have significant differences that cause conflict, they also have similarities and they should try to lean into those instead. A reasonable piece of advice, and you get to decide whether you back up Emmerich or Taash in this piece of conflict and it's a really nice thing for your character to do and shows that despite the immense differences between everyone they can still work together to save the world.

There's also the fact that if you don't save Minrathus then Neve leaves the team for a bit to help the Shadow Dragons recover. When she comes back she is obviously frustrated with you for not saving Minrathus and you have to talk to her multiple times for your relationship to get past that. Its another moment of conflict that is right there in front of your eyes. There are constant moments where your companions are distrusting of each other from the start but you get to see them grow and become friends.

Most of these conflicts aren't world shattering or like the kind of conflict that can happen in Baldur's Gate 3, but that's also just how conflict has existed in Dragon Age games since the second one. Even in Origins there wasn't as much conflict as in Baldur's Gate 3. I think this is something that I've seen time and time again, people just want another Baldur's Gate 3. They just want it to have a Dragon Age skin on it, but we can't have BG3 be the new RPG standard because that is significantly more work that would go into the writing and general game and add years upon years of more development time in an industry filled with already bloated dev timelines. BG3 is how it is because of all of that significant work, they literally had it in early access for 3 years. It's insane to say that we should expect all RPG games to be like it when literally no game can be like it. Dragon Age couldn't be for a multitude of reasons and people have simply been spoiled by BG3 and if it isn't exactly as complex as that game then it's an utter failure.

The companions are always happy

You can literally see her tears. She’s not crying because she’s happy, she’s crying because she just simultaneously watched her brother return to her and then die right in front of her, again.

This one is just confusing. Each companion has their own story and those stories are them dealing with complicated emotions and trauma from their past. Bellara is dealing with her brother having died and then finding out he hadn't died but he is under the thrall of a demon and then having to deal with him dying again for real in front of her. She is visibly sad and distraught multiple times throughout her story. Emmerich has to deal with the reality that his, essentially, best friend betrayed him, became a half-lich, and has decided to try and kill him and tear apart the Necropolis, his Home. He is multiple times sad and despondent over this and obviously still cares for his former friend despite all she's done. Davrin is dealing with the fact that he feels like he failed the Wardens and particularly the Griffons because they got kidnapped by the Gloom howler. He struggles with that throughout the game and when he eventually has to face the fact that the Gloom howler used to be a warden you can tell how difficult the decision to kill her is to him. Lucanis has to deal with his anger over his time in the underwater prison, his lust for vengeance, his cousins betrayal, and the fact that he still feels trapped in the trauma from his time in the prison. Harding has to deal with the confusing new powers she has and how she begins to understand that the Elves literally tore her Titan ancestors apart by ripping apart their connection to the fade and then she has to face her anger over it and you get to help her decide to fight or embrace that anger. Neve has to deal with how her, essentially, nemesis Venatori leader has been doing cult rituals by sacrificing Minrathus citizens and she has to face her anger towards that leader and how she wants to be the one protecting Minrathus now, that she can save it and help people. Taash has to face that their whole identity is confusing and difficult and even when they come out they have to deal with the depressing reality that their mother doesn't necessarily accept them and then that their mother literally hid parts of their identity from them when it comes to their dragon breath and you have to face the Dragon King who kidnapped their mother and then Taash gets fucking furious when he kills their mother in front of them just after they use their pronouns for the first time. They deal with their sadness and anger over how difficult it was to go through all of it, often lashing out at those around them.

I just don't understand this criticism. It makes me wonder if these people even played the companions stories or even really absorbed them. Or if they simply skipped through everything. I just don't get it. Your companions experience such varied emotions throughout their stories its an amazing experience to see them grow which hasn't really been done so well in a Bioware game. The closest is Dragon Age 2 and tons of people still hate on that game simply because of the amount of repetition that exists in it.

The game is too preachy/cringey and inclusive because of Taash

This one pisses me off. I've seen multiple people say that they think Taash being Non-binary is immersion breaking and that they should simply have been something else even if it was still essentially Non-binary but with a fancy name. But that is just BS. The people saying that are obviously people who haven't even played the parts of the game they are complaining about or did and completely missed the lines that address their complaints. Or are Cis folk who don't understand what it's like being trans.

For instance, in my review I mentioned the scene where Taash comes out to their mother. I've seen people complain that this isn't realistic and that it's bad writing and why can't Taash just be Aqun-athlok and why did no one mention that word when referencing Taash, but Taash's mother literally mentions it. She literally says what it is and suggests it as what Taash should use instead of Non-binary but Taash likes the Non-binary term so responds with just "why can't you just be happy for me?" This is good writing because it's fucking accurate. So many trans people come out to their parents and instead of their parents just being happy for them they try to suggest something else they could be, some other label. They try to force their knowledge and experience onto the child that is coming out and it fucking sucks. Taash is experiencing that in this scene and it fucking hits hard if you are at all knowledgeable of what it's like to come out as trans to your parents. It feels like some people expected their mother to instantly be accepting and that if that happened it would have been good writing, but that doesn't make sense because most parents aren't instantly supportive. Some are, but most have questions and concerns. Every trans person I know has that moment when they come out and their parents either blames themselves for them being trans or tries to be supportive by being dismissive or even try to express caution with making the "decision to be trans" at all because it'll "make your life so hard" as if that can just make us not be trans.

She literally uses the word that so many people think the writers completely ignored. If someone tells you that “Aqun-athlok” wasn’t even mentioned, they’re lying.

They also like to call it immersion breaking because Non-binary is a "modern word" not a "fantasy world word" or some other BS about it, but here's the thing, in the game it's a, mostly, human word that some Shadow Dragons in Minrathus use. Neve connects Taash with those people and they have discussions and that's how Taash gets the word. They dont use a Qunari word because it's only something they learn about existing from the Shadow Dragons in Minrathus. Taash also has a complicated experience with the Qun as they're mainly Rivaini and their mother has specifically raised them outside the Qun so it would make sense for them to not necessarily use a Qun word. This has also lead to Taash sometimes sticking by things from the Qun and other times not, their relationship with the Qun is complicated and they get to decide when they adhere to those traditions and when they don't because it is their identity.

Plus, the words Man and Woman exist in this world, the binary exists. Why can't Non-binary exist? If the binary exists in the world shouldn't Non-binary exist as a necessity? This usually is simply because people don't like having trans representation in their games. They'll say "oh I'm fine with representation, it just needs to be done well" which actually means "I'm fine with representation, it just needs to be completely ignorable and never be directly called out and addressed". Its bigotry plain and simple. Claiming writing is the reason you don't like some representation is fucking laughable considering how bad some other games have with writing just a simple white dude, but is representing a simple white dude with bad writing a problem with representation? No, because that's "the norm".

I've also seen many people say that it would have simply been more "elegant" to be able to be a bigot to Taash but take a hit later on in the game because of it. That that would have made the supposed "you should be nice to trans people" message better written. Which, again, is BS, because being a Bigot shouldn't be something people want to be in games. Its not funny to be dicks about peoples race or existence in games, it's cheap "jerk" options. Its bigots wanting to be able to role-play as themselves in the world they're playing, which shouldn't be acceptable because being a Bigot shouldn't be acceptable.

This has been one of my biggest frustrations with the community and as my partner could attest to, I've talked about it a whole lot since the game came out and I reviewed it. There are some trans people in the community who have defended the representation, but it's often drowned out by the tourists being shitty.

The game isn't dark/is like a Disney movie/is PG

This is another one I just don't fucking get and wonder if people even played the same game I did. Early on you have to go to D'Metas Crossing which has been overrun by the blight and people have been brainwashed and had the blight literally grow through them. You have to face one of Bellara's friends who is being actively strangled by tentacles and has blood leaking out of them and black sludge all over their face and coming out of their eyes. That's not a Disney movie. That's not lighthearted. Later on, if you choose to save Treviso from the dragon instead of Minrathus, the Shadow Dragons hideout has been absolutely ravaged, blood everywhere and you can no longer level up that faction because they're almost all dead. There's then a bunch of blood all over the streets, and people are constantly talking about how some people are disappearing or how they're afraid of the Venatori. In every square there are Gallows with people hanging from them. More cages are put up with some people in them since they're being sold into slavery. People that you knew are dealing with those ramifications, including getting infected with the blight. This is not Disney shit. This is not PG. This is dark environmental storytelling. This is also far more environmental storytelling than you will see in other similar games. Something like this didn't happen in Baldur's Gate 3 (even in the first act the Grove or Goblin camp aren't filled with blood or bodies after they're cleared out based on your choices, they're just empty), or in Origins, or in KoTOR, or in Mass Effect, or even in Inquisition. This is Bioware exploring what they can do to change the world as you play the game and I loved it.

Note: I wanted to use a different image here, one of the gallows in every square in Minrathus. But when I was trying to capture the screenshot, the game decided to stop working. Now I can’t even load into the menu.

Some say as well why don't you experience racism as an elf and that you not experiencing that is evidence of the game being "Disney-ified" which is hilarious since multiple times throughout the game your fellow elf companions mention how you have to deal with the racism of the world and that telling people the elven gods are ruining the world is rather risky. I do understand somewhat that it's not nearly as present as it has been in the past, but I think that's largely because of who we are interacting with in the game. If we were interacting with the upper echelon of the world then yeah there would be more racism, but we don't. Most of the time we are simply dealing with the lower class parts of the cities and world, the hidden areas. The factions we encounter are all filled with multiple races because they aren't high class, they're simply groups that will accept everyone as a necessity in order to continue to exist. Racism not being as prevalent is largely a factor of how the game is structured and it's not like it doesn't still exist. And despite that there are frequent moments where you have to keep Venatori from capturing people (some of them elves) to enslave them and once Minrathus is destroyed more cages are up showing more people captured to be slaves including elves, so, again, it's not like it's not still there.

And there's more darkness in the game. You can't even save all your companions in the game, the best thing you can do is have only one die. And they die because the gods kill them, because they sacrificed themselves for the cause, and while that's not super dark, it's still dark. There's also moments of complexity that couldn't happen in a PG or Disney film like when you are reliving the memories of Solas and there's one where you play a spirit who is directed by Solas to assault a fort as a distraction so some elves can sneak in. It turns out that you were always going to die so when you seem to have won something big happens and you seem to die. Except that you don't, you wake up and walk over to see Solas talking with his comrade about how he did sacrifice the spirits. Then you realize that the calcified husk before you was actually you. That you kinda did die but because it was a memory it wasn't real even if you see yourself before you. This was fucked up, morally gray, and pretty damn cool. There's also complex discussions about religion when you listen to Solas's wolf statue memories and find out that everything you thought you knew about the world is wrong, that these gods that you're fighting weren't always evil and that they often had good intentions, that Solas only made the decisions he did because he thought he had no other choice and then you also find out that the main religion of Thedas where the Maker created the world never actually happened and that that is actually all BS. Harding, as the only real believer of that religion in the group, has difficulties handling that and you get to talk to her about it.

These are all complex moments that would never ever exist in a Disney or Marvel movie and to say otherwise shows you don't understand the complexities in this game and that you also may have not even paid attention even if you did play it. There's a lot of moral gray areas in this game and I really appreciated seeing those not only in some of your decisions but also mainly, in the world around you. I think the people making these critiques are usually just not absorbing the dark parts of the game, maybe they're missing these conversations, or simply skipping them. Regardless, to call the game Disney-like, or PG, is to completely not understand the game and Disney films.

Note: I do think there were moments where I wished it was MORE dark, like I wish Lucanis had fucking murdered his double crossing cousin or that we could have, or that we had more context to some of the dark parts of the factions as opposed to them being mostly portrayed in a positive light, but those issues existing doesn't mean the game isn't dark or has been Marvel-ified.

Something Something Baldur's Gate 3

I've obviously touched on this multiple times in this very long post but I still think it's incredibly important to reiterate. Baldur's Gate 3 had so much line up for it to be so well made. After at least 2 years of internal development, it then had 3 years of early access development which gave Larian 3 years of consistent and often productive constructive feedback to the game that allowed them to make the best BG3 they possibly could. It had an amazing team behind it that had a vision it didn't deviate at all from during development. Larian had learned how to do such a complex game with multiple complex concepts in it with their prior games, particularly Divinity Original Sin 2. Larian had become experts in their engine that they had been using for over a decade and had developed all the tools they needed to be able to quickly develop the game. The 3 years of Early Access allowed them to develop a pipeline that made consistent development feasible, hence all the updates post launch. The game wasn't an easy task, it was incredibly difficult and only exists in it current form because of persistence. Larian also didn’t make a perfect game, it still has issues like how the third act has a lot of issues landing the ship.

Look at how different Karlach was in Early Access (right). A lot can change in a game with EA, including character model changes. So if Veilguard had been in EA, a lot would have been different, but that never would have happened because of how most of the industry works, especially their publisher.

Veilguard, meanwhile, didn't have any of those boons. The development had multiple massive changes in the games structure that impeded it's development. It had a strict budget it had to adhere to so some things they might have wanted to do were cut, like incorporating more choices from the prior games. The game, in its current state, was developed in a bit over 3 years (the entire length of the Early Access dev time that Baldur’s Gate 3 got) and it had to spend part of that time adapting the Live Service story and content that was already created into a single player game. The team had to deal with EA breathing down its neck while BG3 got significant funding from Early Access. Even though Bioware has been using the Frostbyte engine since Inquisition, they've had to develop new tools for each of their games in order to develop in the engine. Only Veilguard had finally allowed them to use an engine that had most of the tools they needed so they didn't have to constantly develop a bunch of new ones. The team also had turnover during the long development before it was the game it was today, constantly having people coming and going and having a large amount of devs peeled off to work on Andromeda and then Anthem. Bioware didn't have the 3 years of Early Access feedback to build the game off of and only had internal play-testers.

Basically, no game will ever be Baldur's Gate 3 again. I mean, they're still updating that game with pieces of content. That just wont happen with Veilguard. Developers need to move on to new games, they shouldn't have to keep updating the same game because some in the community demand it due to the prevalence of "Live Service" games getting constant updates. Single player games are allowed to be complete experiences. Dragon Age The Veilguard is it's own game and it shouldn't be judged in comparison to Baldur's Gate 3 because no game should be judged in comparison to Baldur's Gate 3. It simply isn't possible for every game to reach that level of content and complexity. Especially with the bloated development times in the industry nowadays.

Conclusion

I think at the end of the day, Veilguard was always going to disappoint some people. It did take 10 years to come out and it had a lot to live up to for a lot of people plus it's incredibly turbulent development has lead to some sad omissions like no world state import. To be honest, I'm amazed how good the game is considering they had to adapt the game from being a "Live Service" game back to a Single player RPG, although there are definitely remnants of that former version of the game (largely just the leveling up the faction vendors, I didn't care for that but It went pretty quick so it wasn't a big annoyance). Don't get me wrong, the game definitely has flaws. I detailed most of my problems with it in my review, (needs more big decisions, has several moments of dialogue that ignore things that your rook should already know and can be repetitive, and a few small issues with gameplay) but to say any of the criticisms I detailed in this post is to kinda disregard large sections of the game (Or to just be a bigot). I think it's often people who wanted one specific game in a very specific way and since its not that specific game then they hate it. They don't judge the game based on what it is, but judge it based on what they wanted it to be. This is very flawed reasoning but is something the videogame community has experienced for as long as I've been a part of it.

At the end here I just want to say, you should still play Veilguard. You should go into it with an open mind and not be obsessed with what you want it to be. It will never be Origins or Baldur's Gate 3 and that's okay. Veilguard is still an amazing Dragon Age game that doesn't just provide interesting story and depth of characters and the world around you but also has significantly better combat than any of the prior games. Play it, experience it, and don't forget to actually read/listen to the dialogue. Oh, and go back to the lighthouse after every mission, there's often conversations that you can have with your party members that, if you miss, make some of their story arcs feel incomplete.

Meow,

Cat