Yesterday, on June 9, 2024, a new trailer for Dragon Age: The Veilguard was released, focusing on the new companions of the role-playing game. MyMMO author has been waiting a long time for new information, but what she got was disillusioning.
EA and Bioware delivered a new trailer for Dragon Age: Veilguard and introduced the new companions. Just as the official name was quickly changed from “Dreadwolf” to “Veilguard” recently, I became even more skeptical than I already was.
Unfortunately, the trailer did not restore much hope for me. Although at least two characters made me very happy:
My love for Dragon Age and its characters developed several years ago. Even if my journey with the franchise is probably a bit unconventional. I started with Dragon Age: Inquisition after a friend had talked a lot about it. Afterwards, I played the third part of the series multiple times and love it to this day.
I eventually got around to playing the second part and find it just as awesome as Inquisition. So it’s clear that I was very excited when the news came that Dragon Age 4 was in the works. However, since then, Bioware has often managed to bring me down from that excitement in a rather bumpy way.
What I like about the trailer: I don’t want to just complain about the new trailer, which is why I start with what at least initially made me happy. The return of two favorite characters. Varric Tethras and Scout Harding make their appearance right at the beginning of the trailer.
Varric has actually aged quite a bit with his gray hair, and I wondered how much time might have passed. I hope Varric hasn’t lost his amazing personality with age. In the trailer, I haven’t seen much of it, but it’s just a trailer, so let’s wait and see.
My only thought when I saw Harding was: “Finally!” Because I was really hoping that the tough dwarf would play a bigger role. Seeing her in the trailer initially heightened my enthusiasm, but unfortunately, it didn’t last long.
Atmosphere reminiscent of Fortnite or Overwatch
New companions were gradually introduced while Varric and Harding discussed which members they would need for their mission. Among them were an elemental mage, a necromancer, a Qunari, a mage-hunter, and a Veil-jumper.
Leaving aside the fact that so far no character has really appealed to me and I thought, that one looks interesting or particularly cool, at some point, the graphic style especially caught my eye.
And here comes the point that bothers me the most. Because there is still not enough information about the story, the characters, or the humor of the game for me to form a judgment. I’m being honest and I don’t have much hope here either, but I want to keep a little bit of it.
Just a CGI trailer! – a small hope still remains
However, if the graphic style of this cinematic trailer is what we will also get in the game, then it simply doesn’t match Dragon Age for me and actually takes away a large part of my anticipation for the game. The characters look more like they’ve stumbled over from Overwatch or Fortnite and been put into Dragon Age’s clothing.
Since this is “only” a pre-rendered trailer, it does not represent the entire game. A hope that fans might still have.
In general, I think this cartoon style from the trailer does not fit at all with the world of Dragon Age. A look at the comments (via YouTube) showed me that I’m not alone in this opinion. “My old friend, what have they done to you…”, expresses a user his sorrow. And many are wondering why they chose this “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Suicide Squad” style now.
“Solas was right, it is too painful to live in a world like this,” writes another user in his comment and receives a lot of agreement for it. A fan replies in his comment, stating he remembers all trailers since Origins and has always been excited like a little child, but now he must cry like a little child.
Among the comments, you can find tons of such reactions, and I can’t blame them. At the moment, it simply doesn’t look like the franchise that many fans love so much. Tomorrow, on June 11, 2024, the first gameplay is supposed to be shown. Let’s wait and see what that brings us. A former developer from Bioware has a special opinion on the gaming industry: The mind behind some of the best role-playing games says: “Maybe the gaming industry deserves to die”
