Recent reviews by Patrick Star

I'm really disappointed by the developer of this - apparently - awesome game. I have even purchased the 70 Euro-priced Deluxe Edition and got a game which crashes with Epic's Crash Reporter even straight before the title screen - it simply crashes with a general "Unhandled Exception: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x0000000000000000" error.

Any hardware issue has been ruled out. I raised support ticket (nr. 9534) on
28 Jun 2025 with a comprehensive list of things I already tested. Initially I was impressed with a reply in just within 12 hours or so.

After identifying the reproducible root-cause myself a few days later, I updated the developers - in same ticket - about the same. Since then, I have been ignored for almost 1.5 weeks.

Even others are experiencing crashes with same root cause:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/2993780/discussions/0/596278429494561933/
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/2993780/discussions/0/800065387638054074/
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/2993780/discussions/0/596275507988865212/
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/2993780/discussions/0/596278844401472234/

But hey - they announce a Photo Mode coming soon instead of helping existing customers to be able to fully start their game.

I have been friendly asking for updates from time to time and been ignored ever since. I would have no issue in waiting for a fix and offered my help for testing whatever needed.

But simply ignoring and ghosting is NOT a acceptable behavior towards paying customers.

As the game is crashing and is not useable, I am refunding this game. Just so disappointing...

+ Story experience feels solid and well done (good characters, good animations)
+ Very great artwork and overall setting. Looks like much thoughts went into this.

- Bad performance overall (Around 50-58 FPS with 14900K and RTX 5080 OC, with DLSS and without Frame-Generation!)
- Much pop-in throughout the game
- Many glitches and bugs present; would have needed more time in the oven
- AI is bad and unresponsive with smartness of my toaster
- City and environment feels lifeless and static
- Boring missions: Game loop mostly involves driving long distances, flying drones, and shooting (You can't exit the car during missions?!)
- Missions sometimes fail without clear reasons or feedback (some hidden timers?)

~ Very much cutscenes, sometimes excessive
~ Portals for side content feels heavily displaced and out of place in the game world
~ Driving has no consequences – no police, no chasing, no response
~ Too many explosions – visually they look displaced and unconvincing (like from an purchased asset)
~ Driving physics are off – cars jump way too much
~ There is gear-shifting on electric cars. And motor sound.

Summary: A ton of potential, feels heavily undercooked. Not worth full price – only consider buying on deep sale.
(Also bad taste: Poor treatment of employees were reported. CFO and CLO left shortly before release. Not good sign.)

Good reminder: There is a 2 hour refund window. Watch reviews, watch gameplay, test it yourself a bit (<2h). Then take use of it.

Haven't played the game myself and only seen a extensive gameplay, but it was an unforgettable, positive experience. Awesome.

Finally, a game that lets you live out your entrepreneurial dreams and disappoint your virtual parents at the same time. From naming your totally-legit medicine to managing a dealer named Greg who keeps getting arrested. 10/10 would dodge the feds again.

I'm actually enjoying the time in ACS so far. Biggest plus: They finally realized releasing on Steam is a good thing.

A brief list:

+ I enjoyed it way more than Valhalla and the first hour. Where in Valhalla you would run to the next mission, you would have completed 1-hour long, story-oriented missions in AC Shadows...
+ I think it's a cool new idea to have two different protagonists. Great to have them trying out new things. I however prefer Naoe as it brings the real assassin-vibe. But the certain story missions with Yasuke are cool too.
+ Awesome graphics, atmosphere and visual style
+ I like the Japan setting
+ The map feels reasonable size, not too overwhelming and not too small. Good size.
+ The areas feel well-thought and allow for a good assassin-like gameplay: Many buildings, many natural hiding spots.
+ I find the new mission-finding-style great: to elaborate... You get a vague description where next mission is and you need to either send out spies or get your own butt there and look for the next mission NPC/startpoint. Feels more immersive.
+ While I'm personally not a "decoration-type of guy", I still enjoy the idea of the hideout and be able to customize your gear there. To build something up yourself throughout the campaign.
+ I like the many cutscenes in the game, feels very story-oriented.
+ Many great settings to customize experience, ranging from graphics, and gameplay settings like precise difficulty settings or if mission points should be marked, etc
+ The game feels very, very polished - I had two bugs: 1) One enemy got stuck, 2) Sound glitches out after some playtime, but there's a workaround for it
+ Provides support for newer tech features like DLSS, FSR, Frame Generation, etc (not all Ubisoft titles do)

~ The facial animations are a bit outdated... they don't feel right.
~ Some hideout things feel odd. You can place animals at certain spots, which is great. But they are fixed at their respective spots. They don't wander and run around the buildings. So much missed potential...
~ I don't like the kiji-kiri. It's cool at first, but it rather gets slightly annoying over time.

- Microtransactions. Absolute crap.
- Repetitive missions (non-story) like collecting resource for hideouts, gear crafting/upgrades. I find them enjoyable at first, but they wear out pretty quickly. Some might like it and find it good to "turn their brain off and enjoy", but I don't.
- I personally don't like the level scaling. All enemies scale with your level, so they are always somewhat a challenge. I feel like it would be more realistic to have them at their respective level in the starter areas (which you probably won't visit anymore anyway)
- I don't like that on every fast-travel point the environment gets reset. Once you clear an entire area, loot everything and be proud; it's just all reset on your next visit. Feels very disappointing and almost time was wasted.

Overall enjoyable IMHO.

------
To make more people mad: I bought the Deluxe Edition. And I pre-ordered it.

+ It's fun
- You need friends to have most fun

Once I'm past the game intro videos, I will provide a more detailed review.

Delta Force prohibits having USB drives attached: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2507950?emclan=103582791474572018&emgid=4476110736154691091

So I guess I don't risk account/Steam VAC bans for having a USB stick attached...

Quoting above page:

Prohibited While Running the Game:
Hardware
DMA, DMA bridges, KMBox, Fusers, Screen splitters, Synchronizers, USB drives, Hardware macros, Development boards like Arduino, etc.

Analysis Software
Modifiers like Cheat Engine Ark. tools like YDARK, PCHunter, Huorong Sword; debugging tools like OllyDbg, WinDbg, x32dbg/x64dbg; Analysis tools like API Monitor, Process Hacker, Process Monitor.

Speed-Hack Software
Speed Wizard, Speed Gear, etc.

Emulation Scripts
Automated scripts capable of simulating keystrokes, such as AutoHotkey, Python, etc.

Virtual Machines
Virtual environments like VMWare, KVM, VirtualBox ,etc.

Trying to be objective, I find this game very tough to rate...

On one side I'm 'enjoying' and having a okay-ish experience in my current 19 hours into the game. Trying to get through all quests there are, searching the maps for hidden treasures, etc. On the other side, some conversations/situations makes you cringe at times and also feels like much potential was missed.

Noted, I have not played any Dragon Age in the past. Seeing videos online, it is impossible to deny they heavily shifted the visual style of the game.

But anyway. I think most people already have some pre-defined opinion on the game which cannot be changed. For whoever even comes so far in being interested in opinions from other players, I'll make a list down below from different aspects with a final conclusion.

PRO
+ No 'heavy' privacy-concerning DRM like Denuvo.
+ There is crap like the EA App/Origin, and no forced login into EA services.
+ It has state-of-the-art tech like NVIDIA's DLSS and Reflex, and also Raytracing. Positive here, it has 'selective' raytracing which uses raytracing tech at certain places to get the most out of the environment and not for 'everything' on the entire world. Which I find cool using where it makes the most out of it, while not compromising performance too much.
+ The game is incredibly polished. The 'worst' and only bug I faced was that the frame limiter setting has reset after a game restart. That was it. It just runs well. (In today's age, it's unfortunately something outstanding and noteworthy...)
+ Leaving the art-style out of the equation, the game does indeed look quite good graphically. The bloom is way too intense for my liking, but can be disabled via config file change in the settings file as a workaround. The art-style is okay-ish for me. I do however like the colorful approach to the game, to be honest. It has some very amazing breathtaking views and places I've seen since quite a while.
+ I like the locations visually. The ways/paths you run a sometimes confusing though. When you re-visit the locations and they do regularly re-cycle them, they do change (also the lighthouse). And depending on quests it unlocks completely new areas of the same map. Which I find okay, to be honest.
+ It has TONS of gameplay and accessibility. You can granularly define your custom difficulty settings: Standard health, but increased incoming damage, aim assist to high, disable quest marker (and only have them blink briefly) for more immersion, etc.
+ I do also like the combat and puzzles around in the world. I know this is a completely 180-degree flip compared to earlier titles, but I do enjoy the casual, action-oriented approach. It's honestly something I've been looking for to play, after a hard workday. (I understand this is a hot topic, but that's how I feel)
+ I do also like the more linear approach. I don't want huge open-worlds like Assassin's Creed. Games with a more linear approach, with some specific quests to follow, is precisely I have been looking for.
+ I find the voice acting usually quite good. (The voice/recording, for whoever wants to start ranting now)
+ The start of the game and first cutscenes feel very engaging and 'big'. Impressive, cool start.

NEUTRAL
~ Not a fair point really... but it doesn't run that well on Steam Deck even though it is Steam-Deck-Verified and you will need to manually change settings to get stable FPS. I'd have expected more when being verified.
~ There is a second point when it comes to combat... I feel like dodging and rolling like 50% of the fights and it doesn't really change much in terms of combat variety (or however you want to call it). It's fine, that's why I'd call it neutral point.
~ There are 'only' 7 companions. A larger selection would have been cool.
~ The face animations are not state of the art. It sometimes feels odd (especially when you're starring into the faces during cutscenes...). I can be somewhat fine with it, but have expected more.

CONTRA
- The writing. It all feels so shallow, not very emotionally captivating and not engaging at best. And some cutscenes just make you cringe so hard... but... just search on YouTube or so. Wasn't this Bioware's biggest skill?
- During some conversations the 'vocal emphasis' (right word?) completely makes a 180-degree turn - dropping from flirting-like to a standard, cold 'Can we go now?' voiceline in a second. This is so much immersion breaking and feels just so off.
- It is also subjective, but I also don't find any companion very appealing. Neither visually nor story-wise (where we come back to the shallow writing mentioned above).
- I am disappointed about the overall story which has developed so far. It is just a bit engaging, but not as much as I would have hoped and expected from a studio like Bioware and a game it wanted to be. So much potential was left on the table... which is sad to see.
- Bloom. Why the hell can't you disable that intense, unpleasant bloom effect?!

FINAL CONCLUSION
So... final conclusion nobody has been waiting for. If you're triggered with above, then I don't give a crap and you should not have read this review in the first place.

It has been a tough decision to give a positive or negative rating. While I have more positive points (I'm a optimist) than negative ones, it doesn't mean the game is 'good' or perfect. It is actually far from being perfect. The points just have overall different weights in my mind.

I have decided to still go with positive, as I have been so far enjoying my time with the game - especially when your brain runs on low-power mode after a exhausting day at work and you boot up the game from the bed. This was just exactly I was looking for. It just was subjectively entertaining, and that's all I want from a game.

As I really haven't played any previous Dragon Age, I can't compare it really and my view might be different because of this. After seeing other people's reviews and opinions, I do also get the point of their frustration and disappointment of this game being just so different compared to its predecessor.

If you would ask me about more precise rating, it would be a 6/10 for me. Probably a candidate for sale without the Deluxe DLC-skins.

Just my two cents.

By the way, I also purchased the 20 Euro Deluxe DLC. (Actually wondering how many people this just got triggered to the moon...)

This game is literally mind-blowing.