Dragon Age: The Veilguard - A woke disaster? Yep!

[The Doom Slayer]

PC Gamer is now backpeddling over BioWare. And The Veilguard was the nail in the coffin.
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This happens a lot. The "this is good and only MAGA chuds don't like it" to "this was actually a flaming trainwreck" pipeline. I've seen it with Acolyte, Rangz of Power, etc. It's like journos slowly recovering after coming out of a self-struggle session.

Someone put into far more words than I would have bothered with, why the "pulling a Bharve" pushup scene was so shitty. (imo it's even worse since it involves Bellara who kind of apologizes for existing all through the game)
https://baejax-the-great.tumblr.com/post/769182850761277440/the-pulling-a-bharv-scene-honestly-demonstrates https://archive.ph/8ilID

The more insidious thing about this scene is that, beyond its hilarious/stupid nature, it implies that it's not enough to simply apologize to the genderblob. You must prostrate and humiliate yourself before it. I doubt it's a coincidence they had an actual woman do it either.

 

[Mola Ram]

The more insidious thing about this scene is that, beyond its hilarious/stupid nature, it implies that it's not enough to simply apologize to the genderblob. You must prostrate and humiliate yourself before it. I doubt it's a coincidence they had an actual woman do it either.

On the other hand, death of the author and all, you could argue that the scene unintentionally demonstrates how nonsensical deference to gender identity really is: apologizing for using the wrong pronouns is about as worthwhile as apologizing for eating the last cheese stick; i.e., not at all because both offenses are equally trivial.

 

[God of Nothing]

On the other hand, death of the author and all, you could argue that the scene unintentionally demonstrates how nonsensical deference to gender identity really is: apologizing for using the wrong pronouns is about as worthwhile as eating the last cheese stick; i.e., not at all because both offenses are equally trivial.

that's some major ass death of the author considering the rest of the game

 

[Mola Ram]

that's some major ass death of the author considering the rest of the game

"Death of the author" interpretations often rise from incompetent writing. Isabela refers to Taash as "she" after the hideous qunari sex weirdo dies, apparently. Intentional misgendering; or did Isabela really not give a shit; or was it just sloppy writing? We may safely assume the Veilguard writers were not the greatest.

 

[Tanner Glass]

they would have been better of just scrapping it, sure they made back a little bit of money from the sales but the money lost in consumer trust is way higher, now even normies are worried about mass effect, most won't touch it until long after launch if at all unless it comes out as a 10/10 masterpiece at launch.

In a perfect world, sure.

But the reality is that this isn't the "consumer trusted" Bioware of 20 years ago. This is Mass Effect : Andromeda (2017), then Anthem (2019), and Veilguard (2024) Bioware. The consumer trust was in a studio that no longer exists and hasn't existed for a long time. If you thought Dragon Age : Inquisition was good, that was ten years ago.

If you're a savvy consumer - the trust is gone and is never coming back. You aren't getting the old team ever back together and the new team hasn't made anything good ever. If you aren't savvy (like non-gamers) then it's basically just "new game from franchise I recognize" and that's it.

They're going to milk the IPs all the way down.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

Bellara's design bothers me.
She has a tiny neck and HUGE hair.
Hair is heavy!
How is she not in pain all the damn time?
Is her hair poof full of helium?

And fat cat ladies squeal and moo about when female character is busty. Hypocritical and disgusting

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

That ending was so weird. The finale was fantastic but the postcredit scene is so half assed. Not sure what they were thinking.

Not really a fan of the linear areas although it is an improvement over the Hinterlands. It definitely needed a 4 person party.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

People are saying propaganda but that doesn't make sense either because no one played it.

Because it's bad propaganda made by mentally ill freaks. But it is propaganda.

 

[Oliver Onions]

It's like journos slowly recovering after coming out of a self-struggle session.

I think it's more contemptible than that: it's journos being honest now nobody cares any more.

They had to gas up Veilguard on release to appease the woke mob and piss off the chuds, but now it's flopped and everyone's moved on they can say how they really feel safe in the knowledge no one is going to read their article any way, just like no one is going to think about Veilguard ever again.

 

[Miller]

Veilguard is terrible because the old "soul" of Bioware left - it's a new game director, a new story writer, a new lead dev, a new <yadda yadda> - all the way down. Talented people leave and because game dev is so niche, there's no real way of really sourcing a good replacement - much less finding the core 20 or 30 people you need to make a game truly great.

That's not entirely true. They have changed game directors a couple of times but most of the writers have worked at Bioware for quite some time, see Weekes for example.

 

[p1138]

That's not entirely true. They have changed game directors a couple of times but most of the writers have worked at Bioware for quite some time, see Weekes for example.

It wasn't just a couple game directors. It was the creative director for bioware, an executive producer, another creative director, a production director, and eventually a bunch of people including some of the original origins writers were laid off in either 2022 or 23. When you keep losing the top leadership at the studio, of course it's going to be a fucking mess. And it won't matter if a couple of the more senior bioware writers were left, if they're told they need to write garbage by the new leadership.

There is no one left at Bioware in a position capable of doing anything to get the studio to produce a competent game at this point, and that's been the case for years.

 

[Ishtar]

Even the sub Reddit isn’t really substantially discussing the game-just talking about graphics and other minutia really.

The first few months-a lot of effort was made to defend the game to own and piss off the chuds. But now no one is really bothering to do that.

 

[Adolf Von Merkel]

Even Dreadwolve trailer looked better than Veilguard,vwhich say a lot about bioware

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

I don't like being told what to feel, which is everything western writing as of late. It's as if women and diversity-baiting writers rather tell you that this character is a sweet angel to be tributed with liters of cum rather than simply write them to BE sweet angels worthy of a load or two. The notion of a fantasy setting and someone straight up going "i'm non-binary" is so fucking dumb. They could've made a long quest about it or used any other term. "Two-soul". Shit, don't they already use that? 2 spirits? ANYTHING but literal twitter lingo.

I remember when a new homestuck game dropped a bunch of character reveals on this "alternate reality troll twitter" platform. Yet, they used the term "HORNY ON MAIN" etc. At this point writing has gone from "the curtains were blue" to "the curtains were blue as to imply a cult-like devotion to the american police corp that actively kill minorities for fun. Anyway, in this harry potter novel-"

 

["Controlled Demolition"]

This happens a lot. The "this is good and only MAGA chuds don't like it" to "this was actually a flaming trainwreck" pipeline. I've seen it with Acolyte, Rangz of Power, etc. It's like journos slowly recovering after coming out of a self-struggle session.

Because they're shills, yet also companies full of different people. There are plenty who have no scruples about blatantly shilling some overpriced, underdeveloped turd as long as it gets them clicks/paid, and there are also those who know it's wrong and have actual original opinions that haven't been fed to them by the advertising brochure. It's the duality of journalism and advertising, and they want to be both. So, they're trying to fuck their cake and eat it too.

 

[Miller]

The more insidious thing about this scene is that, beyond its hilarious/stupid nature, it implies that it's not enough to simply apologize to the genderblob. You must prostrate and humiliate yourself before it. I doubt it's a coincidence they had an actual woman do it either.

And apologizing is not enough because they fear that the person who committed the wrong-think might not be honest in his apology.

 

[Prophetic Spirit]

And apologizing is not enough because they fear that the person who committed the wrong-think might not be honest in his apology.

The wrong part of that entire scene is Isabella herself.
She could never surrender so easily and in a childish manner.

She's more a cutthroat & a traitor by her own means & interests.
Even in DA2 shows that, but she breaks her manners only when she cares for Hawke (either high friendship/rivarly or had sex before with him).
In this case is only a insult. It's like if she got the Taint or something.



My own headcannon is Solas spreading the blight in a nice subtle manner: everybody got their IQ's lowered at their lowests. Basically wasting air.

 

[Tanner Glass]

That's not entirely true. They have changed game directors a couple of times but most of the writers have worked at Bioware for quite some time, see Weekes for example.

David Gaiter (head writer for every other Dragon Age game and author of the Dragon Age books) left.

This is Weekes' first showing as "head writer" and it pretty clearly shows they need someone like Gaiter back badly.

They lost their General Manager 3 times (with Hudson leaving twice), Laidlaw (Creative Director for Dragon Age) left, Darrah (Exec Producer for Dragon Age), Ohlen (lead designer of so many games), on top of 50 un-named employees and cuts from various "legacy" studios.

I can't tell you exactly who the "heart and soul" of Dragon Age was, but if Veilguard is any indication - they don't work there anymore.

 

[>tfw no Asian gf]

So with the Vailguard being at best a financial disappointment and at worst a complete flop, what's next for Bioware? Mass Effect 4? People still remember the RBG endings from 3 and Andromeda is still seen as a bad joke and seeing how shit Veilguard ended up being I can't imagine that many people are optimistic about the next Mass Effect, I know I'm not.

 

[p1138]

So with the Vailguard being at best a financial disappointment and at worst a complete flop, what's next for Bioware? Mass Effect 4? People still remember the RBG endings from 3 and Andromeda is still seen as a bad joke and seeing how shit Veilguard ended up being I can't imagine that many people are optimistic about the next Mass Effect, I know I'm not.

Don't forget Anthem, the other flop they produced. Their past 3 games have all been garbage, for a decade of shit.