#flamsparks

I had decided long before the game release to play, given the chance, a city elf from Tevinter. I had specifically decided not to go for a Dalish origin to role-play a different kind of relation with the game's villain(s?).

But of course, the game didn't care that I was no Dalish. I could choose to wear vallaslins, because! Dorian said that the Dalish always kept well away from Tevinter, but apparently I had found a way to get a vallaslin nonetheless.

So, the character creator allows me to choose my looks, regardless of my background. But I had chosen my species before. That will limit the choice some, right?

I chose to be an elf? What's stopping me from wearing a vitaar? Or the mark of a casteless? Or that of an important family from Orzammar? Not the game, that's for sure. Because apparently vallaslins and dwarven tattoos are given away these days. And then they have the Lords of Fortune make cheap statements about "cultural appropriation = bad".

But you know what? I’d take it. I’d take the appropriation this possibility clearly is, if it came with consequences.

I wear dwarven tattoos as an elf? Let the dwarves of Kal-Sharok despise me for this. Did I know the tattoos on my face have a meaning? Did I know at all they are dwarven tattoos? Give me reactions and make me understand I fucked up and see what I can do fix it. If I want to.

And what about the vallaslins? The symbol of slavery to the Evanuris? Made with blood? The wasted potential of using ancient elven symbols made with blood, linked to specific Evanuris! Think if they were used for blood magic to control the elves who had unknowingly bound themselves to a powerful and ruthless mage who can and will take control of anyone wearing the blood pattern they had carefully devised to turn their then slaves into puppets!

To get Dorian to bring you along to meet his father, you need to have a relatively high approval. And this makes sense. In that moment, Dorian is making himself vulnerable, and you find yourself in a situation where you can hurt him. Truly. You can be awful to him. And the fact that you can makes the whole situation much more real, and makes you understand why Dorian is so worried about what you’re gonna do. You can be evil then. And that’s why choosing not to be makes the whole scene so real. Because I had a choice, and I chose to be decent.

In DAO, you could choose to be literally anything and everything: racist, sexist, blasphemous, EVERYTHING! And you can choose not to be any of them.

The value of being good lies in the freedom of choice only an evil option provides. And the worth of loving is only given by the possibility to hate. One exists only as long as the other is an option.

There's a character in the franchise whose personality really gets on my nerves. I really don't stand them. And yet, can you believe that I love that character? Because they feel real. And that's exactly why I don't stand them: because they feel like a real person, a person I wouldn't get along with irl. And that's why I love their character, and it's one of those I hold dearest in the entire franchise.

You know you've succeeded in writing a character who feels real when there are people who love it and people who hate it. Because that's how people work irl. You can't like everyone you encounter, you can't dislike everyone.

There's ofc nothing wrong with having one or few characters who are just genuinely likeable. Varric was written the way he was to compensate for a group of companions who were otherwise perceived as too antagonistic, at least in the beginning of DA2. And even then, he was still no knight in shining armour. But there's a difference between having a few overall agreeable characters to smoothen out your experience some and outright avoiding any crease in every personality to minimise chances of disliking any characters.

When you write characters trying to make them palatable to everyone, you're inevitably simplifying them to give them only traits people will like and reduce their "flaws" to minor inconveniences at best. But a person's flaws are as much a part of them as their qualities. Again, remove one or the other, and what you have is an empty, painted-over husk.

And this is what I hate most of companions in Veilguard. They are bland, superficial, struggling for tridimensionality. And they feel so incomplete that not only I can't get myself to care for them. I can't even get myself to hate them. You can't hate a sheet of paper for being bidimensional.

I demand my right to hate.

To hate a character, an idea, a plan, an institution. I demand my right to tell people to fuck off, to tell someone they are an idiot, that their plan is bullshit, that I detest what they stand and fight for. I demand a chance to disagree and fight with characters over ideas and ideologies. Not because I would, but because this is what allows for a deep worldbuilding that feels real under every aspect, and gives you characters who feel like real people you can love or hate.

People had questioned in BG3 what was the point of forcing devs to implement evil choices when the vast majority of players wouldn't make them.

Good things first. Because despite what the shitload I’m about to drop onto the game might suggest, there are a few changes they made that I genuinely appreciate.

First of all, the playability has greatly improved. When it comes to DA, one of the main issues I always had with every. single. game. was that the first few hours I was lost in the dynamics I needed to figure out before I got the hang of it. Maybe I’m just an idiot. But still, there are mechanics in all three previous games that need to be understood before you get down to actually playing (and enjoying) the game. Veilguard is not like that. It’s very intuitive, everything is pretty neatly marked… it’s something I sincerely appreciated.

I also don’t dislike the new combat mode. I was worried sick that a party of only 3 wouldn’t be remotely enough to cover everything that needs covering, but I’m glad this was not the case. I’m also a pretty non-strategic player when it comes to combat - the kind who’s content with swinging an axe around and decapitate whatever comes close enough to hit. It’s again a very intuitive format the one in Veilguard, and though 3 attacks may be few, they suffice imo. Same goes for steering your companions’ fight. Only downside is just how much you need to dodge. I was hoping to play an archer, but quickly realised that playing solely at range is basically impossible since enemies target you constantly. But melee combat has also become far more manageable than before, so not all that bad. But again, I’m a player who doesn’t really know what strategy is.

And another thing I really appreciated is the pacing. To have more minor main quests scattered all along the way rather than fewer, bigger main quests, interspersed with countless side quests, helps keep better track of the plot and the big events that just occurred (which are supposedly pretty urgent stuff, stop wasting your days picking elfroot!). And in a game as story-led as DA is, keeping the plot together is not a bad thing after all.

Good.

Now that we got this out of the way,

Let’s begin from something that alarmed me already ahead of release: the impossibility of importing your world state.

I’m generally not one to jump to conclusions before having thoroughly looked into the thing. But this could not not be an issue. DA games after Origins have always lived and breathed the lore they’re set in. Choices you made affect the world afterwards. And though in the major scheme of things, they all pretty much came together to the same core points, it’s always been nice to see how previous choices reflected into the new games. You could overhear people mentioning a certain event while passing by, you could ask how your companions from the previous game were doing… and cameos of characters from previous games were doubtlessly the best part of it. Some were just fleeting appearances, but some were so relevant to the game that you ended up doing entire quest-lines with characters you knew from before and cared for. What’s more devastating than having to choose between leaving Alistair or Hawke behind? (Don’t answer please, I know the list of tough choices is long, please, don’t make me suffer further).

In Veilguard, because you cannot bring up the previous state of the world, not only you don’t have any access to news from other parts of Thedas (like, c’mon, you can’t tell me that echoes of whatever is going on in the circles southwards is not reaching maybe not Tevinter, but at least Antiva or the Anderfells), but every cameo is so frustratingly underwhelming! Characters just make an appearance, you don’t really get to talk to them, and even when you do, you can’t ask them how they’d been doing since you last saw them in DA[X]. If I left Isabela to the Qunari, I wanna ask her how she escaped! If Dorian is in a relationship with Bull, I wanna be updated! If Kieran was born, I wanna know how he is! Morrigan is the only character from previous games you have decent conversations with, and you still don’t know shit! These are small details, often irrelevant to the plot, which make the lore of DA rich and alive, and help the player connect to the worlds before the current one!

But the sad truth is that Veilguard was made for new players. Not for old ones. And yes, I understand that after 10 years since the last game, it’s plausible to think that many old players will have forgotten the franchise… but how many people had been eagerly waiting to see this world further develop for a literal decade? I can’t believe they’re not worth enough.

And being unable to choose your own world state means that the rich lore is largely avoided. A big part of discovering new countries of Thedas in previous games was being immersed into the local culture, its traditions and customs, its politics, even its language, and they had an influence in the events. After Veilguard, what do I know about Rivain? Beeches. And they have food of some kind. That’s it. That’s the lore.

Oh no, wait. We know Rivain is a non-binary culture... or do we?

Please, help me out on this. Because I played this part twice, and twice I found a plot hole so massive I sincerely think I must have missed a very easy bridge crossing over it somewhere. Please, if I did, tell me. Because otherwise, this is what I saw. And it’s driving me insane.

When Taash needs to make their choice, it is spelled as “choose between the Qunari and Rivaini culture”. And beside the irony that was noted about Taash’s cultural identity to be forced into a rigidly binary choice, Taash embracing the Rivaini culture additionally translates into them embracing their non-binary identity… except… how does choosing that culture equate to choosing that identity? When is it ever stated that the Qunari culture is a binary one [it is made explicit later on, during that infamous conversation], while the Rivaini culture is not, before that moment? And that’s not even the whole problem! To do some “talks about gender”, Taash needs literally to go to Tevinter ([SPOILER] and since I had Minrathous taken over by the Venatori, the Shadow Dragons are literally missing atm, so how on Thedas did Neve manage to arrange not one but SEVERAL cozy talks between them and Taash?). How is that supposed to be “Rivaini culture” if Taash had literally never heard of it from them and needed to go to a whole other country to find out about it?

This is just how afraid Veilguard is of its own lore. Companions may be the soul of Dragon Age games, but their lore is their spine. Without it, they’re just a shapeless mushy blob. I literally went through every single game just to live and help build this world. That’s just how powerful it is. And Veilguard is so scared of it (and Maker save us from any mentions of slavery in Tevinter or THE CROWS), it won’t let you get any close to it, at the cost of not even giving you the information you need to make your own choices.

But even though the game won’t give you the elements to understand what you’re doing, it will always clearly mark in bright neon colours what’s the choice it wants you to make. And after all, you don’t need to be informed to make informed choices… if the choices are already made for you.

“You’re not very good at being evil” (Bellara, 9:52 Dragon) That’s right… why am I no? Oh yeah, because BioWare decided so for me.

In BG3 you can literally choose to go for a mystery background that forces you to kick a squirrel dead, and you can choose either to fight it or go down the horror lane of the Dark Urge. And regardless of the background, at the end of the game you can literally fuck off the entire mission and just decide to become god and enslave the whole literal world. You can fucking turn your companions into fucking brainless squids! That’s the amount of liberty you have!

Now, a disclaimer. This amount of liberty does come with a cost. The choices you can make are many, but Larian has its own standardised plot, and that’s the one you get. Jaheira can die in BG2, she will still show up in BG3. And if when Larian releases BG4, they will have chosen one path of events. And whatever you might have wished to see reprised in this new game, you can only accept what is chosen for you. This is the trade-off when have this much freedom of choice. And all in all, it’s nice to have a game like BG3, but my heart lies with my choices, and I want to see them reflected in my worldbuilding.

Veilguard instead has a course set for you and all your companions, and you have no power over it. And that’s frustrating not because I would make the evil choice, given the chance. I am literally the kind of player who manually saves before starting a conversation with any PG, so I can go back and try not to hurt their feelings the second time. And yet, having an evil option is important, even for me. Because that’s when I choose not to use it.

I elaborated further on the importance of the evil option here.

In DAO, your character literally doesn’t speak with its own voice, and needs you to select every single dialogue line it’s gonna use with NPCs. From there, PCs have grown more and more independent… until here in Veilguard, they basically do everything on their own! Entire conversations are carried out without you being able to intervene, if not to give a small input every once in a while. You don’t really need to read the options you have, because you know that anything you choose will inevitably be just nuances of the same answer. And even the “blunt” option is not necessarily blunt. Only mildly more determined, but even your personality is not your choice. And the one you get, well…

credit: @9lunarseas6 via @timo-0126 (link)

Like… really? Rook is a far, faaaar cry from the wit Hawke spoiled us with.

For the unlucky souls who’re not acquainted with Hawke, this in the video is one of the personalities they can have. And all these personalities are very starkly defined, and depending on which you’d been selecting most often, they end up colouring many of your interactions, even without your active control.

What’s Rook’s personality? If I had to describe them as a nuance in an array of colours, Rook would be a bleached rag. And it’s not like you can do much about it, because of course, there’s the matter of agency. Rook role plays on its own, and you’re just a companion, giving them your input and hoping that will affect their decisions.

And speaking of companions… let’s discuss them. Because for months, years on end, BioWare wouldn’t. shut. up. about how important companions are to them, how central they are to their stories, so let’s talk about the companions.

Companions have always been the soul of BioWare games, because they have a stark and faceted personality they’re not afraid to show in all its vivid colours. And then there’s Veilguard. I won’t say they’re soulless or without a personality, but they are... bland. They have personal challenges and peculiarities that give them colour, but they are still faint hues of the usual rainbow we’re used to.

To give an example, let’s discuss the irony of Bellara asking why the hero of the story she’s writing would save the world... and this is the exact question the whole game never asks to any of its characters once. None of them has any sort of ulterior motive to join the Veilguard other than the answer Rook gives Bellara: “because we’re heroes, that’s what we do.” (Seriously? That’s how you get away with it?)

In DAI, the world was ending too, and yet there was always another, more personal reason pushing your companions to join the Inquisition. Thom was desperate to give his life a purpose and to make amends. Bull needed to keep an eye on the Inquisition on behalf of Par Vollen. Dorian got sucked in at first because he was trying to save his mentor and his friend, and then remained because he literally didn’t have anywhere else to go. Cole... he didn’t even care about the world ending! He was there because helping others was literally his nature. And all these personal reasons helped shape these characters and build the depth of their personality.

What are the personal reasons pushing these individuals specifically to join the Veilguard? Taash might be tagging along to free the blighted dragons from their misery (or just because their mother told them). But even that is hardly exploited along their arc. And the same can be told of every companion. They struggle to have any depth to them, which is completely foreign to Dragon Age characters, even when too hasty writing made for poor plot and character development (looking at you, DA2). Even Varric! VARRIC! A character who’s had two whole games to build and solidify his personality! Who’s hands down one of the most loved character of the whole franchise! How do you even manage such a feat?? Oh yeah, by relegating him to a corner of your palace that you never visit, without ever giving him any relevance to the game. [non-explicit SPOILER] No, the explanation given at the end is not enough. Varric is repeatedly narrated to be a great man, but all you see him do is making a few motivational speeches and conclude with “I’m going to take a nap”. How can you do so much dirty to such a character so thoughtlessly? New players will never know that Varric is indeed a great character, because they are told so all the time, but never shown.

But this ton of telling and not showing and general flatness is not exclusive to the companions. It touches everything. The lore, the relations between factions and characters, everything is oversimplified, and often reduced to a few key features that characterises pretty much every aspect of them. Most are reduced to their species or faction or such, which doesn’t allow for overly faceted motives and which in turn impacts your freedom of personalising your own beliefs and purposes.

Davrin: “So, you met a god” Bellara: “Well, technically, OUR god”

No, technically, freedom of religion applies regardless of your species, and both Davrin and I made it repeatedly clear that we want nothing to do with these self-proclaimed “gods”. So WHY can’t I just tell Bellara to stop forcing her beliefs on us, just on the grounds that we’re elves? “Remember the nursery rhymes?” No, Bellara. I was raised in Tevinter by human parents. Why would I know elven nursery rhymes?

I chose to play as an elf raised in Tevinter – from where Dorian says the Dalish literally stay away – exactly because I wanted to see what consequences would bring to play as an atheist elf raised far from elven customs who has to take down two gods from the elven pantheon. And guess what I saw? Nothing. It changes nothing. Not in my interactions with others and not in the knowledge I have access to. Bellara will still talk to me and speak of “our” gods, and I will keep on knowing Dalish lore and speak (native?) Elven, because apparently I got that for free, no explanation given to justify such competences. Zevran, Fenris and Sera were all elves raised far from Dalish or any elven influence, and they went about it in three radically different ways. Zevran struggled for every bit of memory he could gather of his mother and her Dalish customs, Sera rejected them all together, while his elven heritage was not even on Fenris’ radar. Me, I just know. Because. And don’t even get me started on tattoos…

credit: @0alix0 (link)

But I can’t conclude this odyssey of an essay before I’ve touched one last subject.

Bellara: “I think we’re getting close” Rook: “How sure are you?” Bellara: “As sure as I can be?”

The script. Oh, the bloody script.

I sincerely hope someone organises a poll to vote for the cringiest scene in Veilguard. I’m sure a fan favourite will be that already infamous scene of Taash’s coming out with their mother. My vote would go to the final dialogue with Isseya though.

Beside the cringe though, most of the problems with the whole script of the game is that it’s just… empty. Dull. Generally uninteresting.

In DAI, I would literally stop whatever I was doing just to pay extra attention to whatever banter had just kicked in. And it was always amazing banter! The wit, the jokes, the stories, the developing relationships! In Veilguard, I appreciated a lot the fact that banters interrupted by STUFF start again from where they left. And I often went back to the Lighthouse to take a tour of all companions and eavesdrop their conversations. But soon I realised… that too was often not worth the trouble.

It’s just all cheap script, that most of the time fails to be interesting or even relevant. What’s the point of the conversation between Bellara and Rook I transcribed above? What does it give me? Nothing. It only feels like a need to fill empty bits. And this applies to every single conversation in the game, from banter to plot dialogues.

Oh, and beside the poll! Can we also have a drinking game with Bellara’s lines? A shot for every time she says “he was/is my brother” (double if she adds another “my brother” afterwards) and “my/our people/gods”. I swear 60% of her lines are just copy-pasted.

Dragon Age had been away for a decade, and I understand the need to call to new players to rebuild a base after so many years. I get it. But while Veilguard is not a bad game, it’s not a Dragon Age game. Because it’s devoid of everything that makes Dragon Age what it is.

So what's next?

First of all, stop your plans on completely wiping off every bit of previous lore by just saying “the south was blighted and destroyed everything”. I see what you’re trying to do there. Don’t. Destroying all previous worldbuilding to start off with no strings attached is not the way to go. Instead, find a way to call back all the writers you chased away over the years, starting from Gaider. You need people who live and love this franchise, who know it and know what made it the grand experience it is. You need them. And you need to listen to them.

Then.

Veilguard introduced us to a shit ton of never-before-seen locations. Now let us get to know them.

No Dragon Age had ever had this many places in one go. Previous games are set in one, two locations at best. And all of them allow you to dive deep into the lore by playing it. You get to choose who rules these countries, to decide on whose side you’d rather stand in a war... so pick one location, two at most, of the many you introduced in Veilguard, and let us go deep into it. Let us fight slavery by Fenris’ and Dorian’s side (in Joplin, maybe? *winkwink*), let us see the consequences of the mage-templar war, let us know whatever the Divine decided to do with the circles. And let us get INVOLVED. All Dragon Age games have always been about being involved in a vast lore, so let us do it! Let us experience and live this rich lore! And let us write a bit of it too.

As I explained here, I am chiefly a player who, given the chance, goes for the good option. So ofc I'll never unlock a part of the achievements in BG3 quite simply because I will never have the heart to play an evil character, and I'm OK with that.

And yet, even playing two generally good characters, I still had a wide enough margin of choice that allowed me to unlock new achievements in my second play-though. And yet. With 244 hours played, I've only managed to unlock little more than half of the achievements in BG3.

In Veilguard - where there are almost as many achievements as in BG3, despite the game being sensibly smaller - I played less than half the time, and yet I collected nearly all available achievements.

No matter what you do, the game will always force you to follow a set track, from which it's almost impossible to stray. That's how you manage to collect 48 achievements out of 52 in just one play-through. And that's why this game is not worth playing not even that one first time.

This is a painfully clear meter to measure just how little choice the player has in Veilguard.