Tee

I feel like I am reliving my Mass Effect: Andromeda experience all over again. Like Mass Effect, Dragon Age is a series that I've played since it's inception and I was hyped to hear that a new game was coming out. And like ME:A, Veilguard has left me sad, disappointed, and wondering what the heck Bioware was thinking when they removed the most beloved aspects of the series and instead served us generic slop. Choices don't matter, every dialog option is basically the same, the companions are bland and forgettable, and the writing is just plain BAD. I couldn't believe that there were people actually rating this 5 stars but when I read over some of those reviews I saw that many of them were from people who may not have even played the game, and they were only rating it so high because they wanted to counteract the "bigots" who were telling the truth about what a steaming pile of junk Veilguard is. Newsflash- it's not bigotry to dislike a video game that is hands down the worst in the series. This is not a Dragon Age game and it obviously was not made for Dragon Age fans. It feels more like a Disney kid's game, and the Pixar-esque character models are definitely not helping. There's no grit, no conflict, none of the dark themes that were present in the series' previous entries. Whereas the other games tackled adult subjects like slavery, racism and terrorism, Veilguard is careful not to offend anyone, anywhere, for any reason- like I said, it's a kid's game. To address the whole "woke" controversy (which I didn't even know about when I was gifted this game and first began playing), yes it's obnoxious, out-of-place, and lacking all subtlety. If you want to see a well-written trans character, look at Nocturne in Baldurs Gate 3. We hear from a companion about a boy they were friends with in childhood, then we later meet a woman who basically tells us "Yup that boy was me but I changed and now I go by Nocturne. Anyway I have some stuff to trade if you're interested" (that's not verbatim obviously). If the DA:V writers had written Baldurs Gate 3, I imagine the conversation would have went like this: "Yup I was once that cisgender male but then I realized that I was not living my truth, so I transitioned to a woman. In other words I am transgender. That means I was not born as the gender that I identify as. Trans women are women, and as you clearly see I am a woman now. My pronouns are she/her, please refer to me as such. Misgendering is harmful. Anyway I have some hormones to trade if you're interested in becoming trans too." This game treats you like an idiot, who needs everything explained to you. And that goes for the entire game (or at least what I've played so far), not just the gender stuff. Needless to say, I'm not going to bother finishing this game and I'm going back to Baldurs Gate.