96 Hours in, 94 hours playtime..

Obligatory disclaimer, feel free to jump down if you’ve read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It’s fantastic. I’m also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I’m on media blackout while I play this, so I’m only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking ‘have you bozos played any DA game, like, ever?’ My guess is nope.

Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard (and other Dragon Age stuff, I’m a Lore fiend.)

Section 11 is here.

(Note that these reviews aren’t edited. They’re just my off the cuff writing. I don’t have the time, energy or heart to edit them properly.)

So, the whole Mourn watch section with the half Lich was very well written and put together. Had an interesting (if not difficult) puzzle and a poignant ending. Loved it. (I will point out it was mostly the characters that made me love it. Aaaaand… ooops. Liches don’t exist in Thedas. They’re called era’harel/demon mages in DA. Liches? Yeah. That’s D&D stuff. (Edit: I do love the writing in Em’s Romance (romanced him on my never expected second run.) The rest of his arc could’ve used a little more work.

Did the Treviso sequence where Illario gets his comeuppance. Even though it’s a very stale plot idea, it was well written and executed (har har) and it’s a shame they fired Lucanis’s writer. (Mary Kirby wrote Lucanis.)

They probably should’ve kept her and let her write a lot more than that. The game would’ve been so much better. It might’ve actually approached good.

Instead of something that when my partner saw me loading it up he said ‘wow, you look like you’re about to be tortured’.

Rueful face. So much of this game has felt like torture that having two sections on the same day that were legitimately good to reasonable writing wise is odd.

The ones with Taash in Rivain were fun or sad, depending. But still well written and put together. (Edit: We won’t mention Shathan’s fridging or the fact that if you don’t do Taash’s story quests and they survive? They’d be way better off if you’d never done them. Nor will we mention… here… the WTAF of ‘pick one of two cultures’ thing. Because that ROYALLY pissed my mixed-race ass off. That. Is. Not. How. Being. Mixed. Works. Mixed applies not just to race but also to culture and heritage. What. A. Fuck. Up.)

Still seem to have more to do. Gonna play for a few more hours. It’s rare and nice that it’s actually curiosity I’m feeling while logging in tonight, vs. any of the gamut of yucky emotions this game has treated me to.

Oh! Before I forget and in the name of attempting to provide a fair review, I do really love the light puzzles and ancient elven tech stuff. That’s been a great deal of fun. (They don’t remotely fit Dragon age but… if you completely remove them from the game they’re supposed to be in they’re fun.)

There are good parts to this game, but they just don’t make up for the shit.

…

A. Single. Meaningful. Glance. As an intimate scene? Fucking DAO had better than that! Are they serious? Is there more in the final sequence? Dear gods, if I’d paid for this game I’d be bloody furious. Incandescently, explosively furious.

Let’s talk about consumer expectation. It’s something anyone hoping to sell things has to be aware of.

In its, what, 14 year Dragon Age history? Bioware has set certain expectations with their market share. As I mentioned, DAO, while dated and with poor graphics, actually had something extremely suggestive for the intimate scenes. You had no doubt what the characters were doing. Same went for DA2. Not much actual nudity, but again, no bloody question about what was going on. In DAI, some was sweet, some was saucy, but it was even more clear what was happening.

So the expectation for a behind door scene that you got to see has been set. If there had always been fade to black meaningful stares for the intimate scenes, fine, whatever. But that has not been Bioware’s history. And it certainly isn’t their gaming market’s expectation.

Expectation isn’t as important in a standalone game. There’s no weight of expectation like there is in series work. Unfortunately for everyone who bought this game, the expectation of so many years and so much material has been firmly set. And a long, searching, intense look doesn’t cut it. Are all the Romances like that? I don’t have the stomach to replay it that many times to find out.

I still have to finish the final sequence. So it’s possible my utter disappointment will be fixed, but given the way Bioware has structured its games in the past, the Romance parts were finished before the final sequence.

My level of disappointment with this game has been high all along, but this is indeed the shit cherry on top of the shit sundae of this game.

Hah! And to think I’d actually hoped for an intimate scene between Solas and Inky! (Hysterical, breathless, cackling. OMFG.)

The problem with market expectation? And not meeting it? Is that you utterly lose the confidence and trust of the people who buy your stuff. And that means they’re less likely to buy your stuff again. I certainly won’t ever buy anything Bioware makes again. I’m out. I’ll enjoy the previous games, but if I’m right about my predictions? Veilguard doesn’t exist as part of my universe. I’ll pretend it wasn’t ever made. Unless I decide to write a long fix-it fic. Because OMFG.

If, as an author, I shifted from rather explicit, panties-melting intimate scenes to closed door fade to black… I would be betraying my reader’s expectations and losing their trust.

If this is it for the intimate scenes? Oh man. Bioware, you fucked up.

Edit: Shockingly did end up playing it twice. We do get the intimate scene. It’s both mostly clothed and at the worst possible fucking time in Rook’s life but at least we got it?? And Emmrich’s Romance is AAA+++.

Pre-play pithy commentary

If you want to skip the snarky paragraph ^?

13th review here.