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Dragon Age: The Veilguard released on Oct. 31 and after a weekend and some change with the game, players are beginning to level heavy criticism on the writing and narrative elements of the game. While posts have permeated social media, perhaps the loudest voice comes from an article in Forbes , entitled “Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Clumsy, Preachy Political Messaging Does More Harm Than Good.” Erik Kain’s great piece points out a lot of the issues with the game, and the harm its tone does. These sentiments were in-turn echoed on a thread about the article the PC Gaming subreddit, where players cosigned the feeling that poor writing and a preachy attitude was harming the game. Their criticism pointed to a notorious “push-up” scene, Marvel-movie quality dialogue, and accusations that the game infantilizes players. A lot of the criticism also circles around calling out more ‘woke’ elements of the game. I don’t think it’s valid to level any critique on a game due to content that supports LGBTQ+ people, especially when fantasy as a genre usually exists to tackle social and political ills in a more manageable way. But the core issues appear to be centered on the quality of the portrayals, rather than the portrayal itself. But unfortunately, narrative quality overall feels like a bizarre angle to critique, as while the Bioware games (Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc.) are celebrated, I never saw them more than just decent cover shooters and RPGs with a dating simulator tacked on (and at least Dragon Age: The Veilguard continues that with its romance options ). Expecting excellence from them is like picking up random fantasy novels from the book store and expecting something on par with The Lord of The Rings trilogy. They’re some of the best RPGs out there… but narratively they’re still nothing to write home about. Especially when a more valid criticism would be the dubious scores the game is getting from outlets. One thing that doesn’t sit right is the Creative Director, John Epler saying in a notable tweet that “I want to see the phrase ‘a […]
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This week’s story, “ Between the Shadow and the Soul ,” is about a fifty-year-old woman named Eliza who has
The British realist director Mike Leigh loves the term “character actor,” which he uses often and with zeal. To him,
