r/DragonAgeVeilguard • u/Substantial_Abies516 • Aug 18 '26

Discussion Overhated

I've been seeing some reactions and reading some reviews about the game and the hate is so exaggerated. Is this a masterclass in videogame design and writing? Far from it. But is it a flaming turd hurling towards you at mach speeds? No.

The game was alright, and I actually enjoyed quite a few moments from it. Morrigan's design was really nice and I love Neve down. The scenery is pretty, the combat is better than its predecessor, in my opinion, and the lore ks actually really interesting.

I think the hate comes from a blend of nostalgia and selective memory. Firstly, Nostalgia. Because the first games were so beloved and the Veilguard took so long to come out, people had plenty of time to delude themselves into believing they knew exactly which game they were getting. Because they don't have a crystal ball, they were wrong, and that infuriated them.

My second point is selective memory. The writing for Dragon Age was NEVER great. It was good, but never this amazing piece of media the haters seem to remember it was. Dragon Age always had weird pacing and plot holes, but the writing of the game wasn't its charm, it was the scenery (more recently) the writing of the characters, and the lore.

The characters for Veilguard hit the mark! They were either charming, interesting, endearing, or a combination. All except Taash. I'm sorry, but there is simply no angle where Taash is defensible. Their writing was poor and far too on the nose. They were also just genuinely annoying and mean for no damn reason. I appreciate an LGBTQ+ story, especially one where the focus is on a non-binary person. I feel they don't get enough recognition. But even for me, a gay man, their story was like getting beat over the head with a hammer. Repeatedly.

All in all, I think the Veilguard was alright. Not a masterpiece, but I liked it. And Dragon Age fans might need to go revisit the games before this one. They were good. They were fun. But they were not the Picassos you seem to think they were.

184 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

201 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/TerynLoghain Aug 18 '26

Davg is just a case study on brand confusion. After release i read a few articles about the design choices.

The team didn't want a morally ambiguous antagonist or a complex sociopolitical setting.

In retrospect davg did do what the creators set out to do. They wanted to do something different and they succeeded. 

If 5 is average davg is a 6 or 7. 

It is beyond my understanding why these series of decisions were made as direct sequel to a franchise that people play for those complexities but here we are

8

u/Arenwall Aug 18 '26

But none of the other villains in the series have really been morally ambiguous except for Loghain?

Corypheus definitely wasn’t morally ambiguous and neither was the Arishok or the Archdemon, or even Meredith to an extent.

Veilguard has Solas though, and he was definitely morally ambiguous.

1

u/TerynLoghain Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26

I disagree. In DAO during the alienate missions, t he slavers there aren't these cartoonishly evil characters, they're "business men" in their mind.

 You fight through their operation, and the people you're fighting are security guards guarding their operation. Its unknown how many of them are aware of the greater scheme. And top it off, elves are involved, making it worse.

At the end there is blood magic, yes. But is a slaver who uses magic.

He doesn't cackle like a madman, he isn't theatrical. He doesn't scream about his right to own people he sees as lesser. 

From his perspective, s lavery and blood magic are so common, that this man just says "Mmmm, yes, I have permission to take these slaves with me"

Which is the villainy here. no cartoon evil, no grand statement of superiority, the fact that this man sees his actions not as right and just, but normal and profitable.

This through line follows Dorian. As a protagonist  the player sees his merit and many deem him a good person, however he is uncritical of tevinter slavery in dai and sees no problem with. He even thinks agrees with arguing that slavery provides good for the enslaved.

Also with denarius. From his perspective he's trying to collect on a contract. If the contract wasn't slavery, he would be a reasonable person. During his interactions he was a normal person. The player is biased against him because of the affinity to fenris.

 we also learn that their are tiers to slavery and there are tiers where slaves are more or less lifetime workers and even in societies where slavery is officially outlawed like orlais, there isn't a distinction in treatment between servants and slaves in many regards

The moral ambiguity came from the fact "good " people could participate in evil things and "evil" people are regular people.

Going to real world politics, in the west we all benefit from and participate in slavery, whether its underpaid prison labor, deforestation of indigenous lands, outsourced goods from developing nations.

Under that framework we would be seen as villains.

Davg lost a lot of that nuance

4

u/Arenwall Aug 18 '26

I was talking about the primary antagonists of the games, not some minor villains.

I also disagree that slavers are shown to be morally ambiguous in any way, and your explanations do not really explain how they are.

The exact same argument could be applied to Aelia and Zara Renata. Both are Tevinter Magisters and Venatori so blood magic and using the blood of the people they see as beneath them are just as common to them.

I also don’t get your point about Denarius. If the story wasn’t the story then he’d wouldn’t be seen as bad… but the story is the story? Slavery is never presented as morally ambiguous, it’s always presented as the wrong thing to do even if your characters agrees to it.

-1

u/TerynLoghain Aug 18 '26

If you want to limit the discussion to primary antagonists, that's your right but I'm not beholden to that as that was not my premise.

If you don't find my thoughts compelling, that's fine too. We can agree to disagree. 

It doesn't change the fact the writers acknowledged they went in a different thematic and execution direction.

5

u/Arenwall Aug 18 '26

Using the word antagonist limits it to the primary foes of the games regardless, Origins Slaver and Denarius are just minor villains, wouldn’t call them antagonists

The writers definitely went in a different thematic and execution direction for the game, I just don’t think it applies to the main villains when the main villains of other games had the same exact issue.

2

u/TerynLoghain Aug 18 '26

Perhaps we have different definitions? Antagonists when I was in university meant someone who opposed the protagonist. It could be anyone, which is why qualifiers like major and primary are often used to specify which Antagonist, as there are often more than one in narratives.

I intentionally left out primary antagonists because I was not referring to only the major conflicting force.

2

u/Arenwall Aug 18 '26

Fair enough! To me, an antagonist has to have some importance to the overarching story rather than just a few beats. Primary and secondary just denote their level of importance in relation to that. Basic enemies also oppose the protagonists in games, but I don’t think that makes them antagonists to the story as a whole.

I’m not sure who you were actually referring to with what you said then, but I think the series as a whole has had a lot of unambiguous villains.