Maybe the real Dragon Age 4 was the Baldur's Gate 3 we met along the way.

As a long-time Dragon Age fan, I waited for this game's release for years and preordered it once it was available. After sinking over 50 hours into Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I cannot bring myself to finish it. I wanted to like this game, and despite several attempts to give it a fair chance, I decided that my time was better spent elsewhere. While the game has a few positives, its flaws, such as the abysmal writing, have made it unenjoyable for me.

The writing is the game's biggest downfall. I can't get past how painfully generic and lifeless the dialogue feels. The conversations often feel AI-generated or like HR presentations that strip away any sense of personality or immersion. This lack of depth and character is disappointing for a series that was once the pinnacle of meaningful dialogue.

Another major issue is the lack of player agency. Unlike the original Dragon Age games, which offered many choices that influenced the world and the story, The Veilguard takes a more linear, safe approach. You play as Rook, a perpetually friendly and supportive character with no room for variation or moral complexity. The absence of any truly "renegade" options or morally gray choices leaves the dialogue feeling lifeless. The few choices you're presented with are ultimately meaningless.

The game also wholly abandons the dark, gritty tone that defined the previous titles, especially Origins. Instead, The Veilguard has a jarring and out-of-place Disney visual style. The vibrant graphics are impressive, but they feel at odds with the series' themes and only undermine the tension and seriousness that once made the world of Thedas interesting.

Combat feels flashy and fun initially. However, its simplistic mechanics and repetitive nature become apparent after several hours. The increased difficulty settings turn enemies into health sponges rather than offering more nuanced challenges. Combat quickly becomes a tedious grind, lacking any tactical depth.

On a positive note, the game has impressive graphics and runs well. During my playthrough, I experienced no crashes or bugs, a rare achievement nowadays. The character creator was also great and had various customization options. The attention to detail, especially in the hair designs, is fantastic.

However, these positives aren't enough to make up for the game's many flaws. If you're a fan of the original Dragon Age games, you'll likely be as disappointed as I am. The Veilguard is Dragon Age in name only. It feels hollow and scared to take risks.

Ultimately, I regret giving EA my money, and I can't recommend this game to anyone who values deep stories, role-playing, and the legacy of Dragon Age. Bioware is dead and gone; whatever corpse EA is animating isn't the Bioware we knew and loved.

First, I'll get the plain stuff out of the way. Gameplay-wise, this game isn't the worst thing I've played. I'm not a fan of how they went the ARPG route, straying the furthest from Origins in terms of combat. I'm a turn-based combat gal, so the farther the games get from how combat was played in Origins (and 2), the less I like it. That's just a preference thing though. The combat was still enjoyable for a little while, but it started to bore me the more I played, and the screen got so busy during combats that it was frankly hard to look at and track my own gameplay. Visually, the environments look great, they also obviously spent a lot of time on the character creation, which is by far the best of the series. I will say they butchered the Qunari though. The game also had an annoying lag problem for me that only lasted during the first 5 or so minutes of gameplay, which was annoying. Otherwise, the game played pretty decently.

And now onto the real ♥♥♥♥. Look, this is a bad game. And not because it's "too woke", that's just dogwhistle ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. We get it, you're a xenophobe.

This game is bad because it's written like Baby's First Dragon Age; a sanitised, safe, and awkwardly apologetic take on a game world I love dearly. In this game, the Evil factions are Evil and they follow the Evil Gods because they're Evil, and everyone you can meet is plainly a good guy, because they're not in the Evil faction. It's like Disney for Gamers! Dragon Age: The Veilguard tries as hard as it can to be "unproblematic" and in the process becomes a 90 hour slog of meaningless drivel that's fed to you on a spoon, with somebody holding a little soft towel under your chin in case a bit dribbles and they can wipe it up softly while whispering "I'm here for you".

Want to play a game with a protagonist you can relate to? Too bad, in DAV your Rook will act like a clown for half the game and your companions' therapist for the other half. Want to meet and interact with compelling characters who have meaningful side quests? Too bad, your companions are about as developed as a blank sheet of paper, and if you thought their side quests would have any bearing on the story as a whole then joke's on you!! Have fun re-iterating the same things with each of your companions every time you talk to them because nothing you do or say matters in this game. Think you're going to have the typical Bioware dialogue wheel to pick the responses *your* Rook would say in every situation? Well actually you don't even need to worry about making those tough choices because every dialogue option gets you the same outcome anyway! They did the tough decision-making for you! Aren't you GRATEFUL?!

This is a game that the studio will say is full of nuance, all while the game hits you over the head with factual statements that actively take away any semblance of interpretation from quest endings or in-game decisions. And don't worry, just in case your nuance receptors are broken and you're incapable of independent thought, they put annoying pop-ups in the game to tell you the nuance! DO YOU GET IT? DID YOU SEE? LOOK AT HOW MUCH INFLUENCE YOUR DECISIONS HAVE!!

In this game, you will meet a companion who is going through a gender identity crisis. I think this is a cool thing to put in a game. I love conversation about gender identity, and exploration of self-identity, and I love non-binary characters. What I don't love is when the game treats me like a 7 year old who has never heard of gender identity before, smashing me over the head with clumsy scenes of the companion having their crisis of identity with Rook standing by, ready to Therapize. And while my personal decisions would always be to support a friend who is figuring out their identity, this game pretty much forces you into that path, not even letting *you* question what gender identity might mean. Bioware decided that one for you. Again. Not to mention the push-ups scene...

I would talk about how unbearable the dialogue writing is, but that would take too long. I would talk about how badly written most of the quests are, but that would also take too long. I would talk about the post-credit scene, but I think that would send me spiralling, as it would for anybody who played the first three games. I could even talk about how honestly insulting the post-release communication with the fandom has been from the devs, but that would make me too angry, and I haven't got the energy for that. What I do want to mention is how heartbreaking this game is for fans of the series. It's truly devastating to see a world full of incredible lore, fantastic characters, heavy themes, and morally grey areas, shaved down into a sliver of what it used to be in order to try to be the most politically correct and inoffensive game possible.

This game doesn't have consequences. This game doesn't let you question. This game shies away from leaving anything open to interpretation, or allowing the player to affect the world in any meaningful way other than the single way the devs decided was right for it. This game doesn't want to make anyone angry. In fact, this game won't really let your character get angry in it either. But it achieved the opposite effect for me, and it has left me furious, resentful, and hopeless for the future of the game series that started my love for RPGs. I don't know if Dragon Age as a series can come back from DAV. I truly hope it can claw it's way back up somehow, but it's going to have to fight hard to climb out of this deep, miserable pit.