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seeker-ophelia · 1 month ago

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Ophelia Rants: Veilguard is Weird

I had another post (Review, Pt 4) composed about how much I love dragons, but the AMA kinda knocked me on my ass.

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[INTRO]

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I’m going to share the image I made collected from the results of my survey:

And while everyone only contributed one word for this, it IS possible for Veilguard to be ALL OF THESE THINGS AT ONCE.

Now. We need to take this with a grain of salt and remember that most of these responses came from tumblr, and often ones Social Media Frens are an echo chamber of ones own thoughts.

The words that repeat over and over are all similar; sanitized, shallow, underwhelming, trimmed, incomplete… Fun But Not Dragon Age.

And I could not agree with this more.

Caitie (YT: Ghil Dirthalen BS: Ghil Dirthalen), (Mythal’enaste her and her data-mining efforts) has released so much information from Datamining Veilguard. So much dialogue not used, paths ignored or forgotten, Keep choices abandoned, Lore identified.

Flipping through the Art Book shows how much time and effort and ideas have been put into DA4; all of its iterations. All the creativity, the different worlds, the different possible paths. YEARS of work, abandoned.

Which feels soooo… opposite. I’m not a writer. What’s the word for a complete opposite dichotomy in all things? Contradictory? Inconsistent? Irreconsilable? Antithesis?

How can Dragon Age be Sanitized and Shallow… but so much work be put into it?

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[OPINION]

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After I removed my emotional connection from Dragon Age, IMO, it really does feel like something is missing from this game. Even if one tries to lay down their preconceptions of what the game might have been in their dream world, this game, to me, could not decide what it wanted to be. Narratively, it’s a sequel to Inquisition. Solas’s story matters from Inquisition, the Inquisitor matters from Inquisition… and yet it spends so much time onboarding new players. The story feels simple, the world is straightforward, like its dumbed down for players new to the series.

Inquisition, even though in a gameplay sense it is different from Origins and 2, still feels like its building off of a complex world that the player might not understand. And when I played Inquisition, I hardly understood any of it. That’s part of the joy of Dragon Age. People who read LotR or Malazan or WoT or ASOIAF, don’t expect the author to hold their hand. They’re dumped, unceremoniously, into a world, and they have to figure it out themselves (figure it out through strategically placed tidbits from the author). Dragon Age (O through I), was a masterclass in this, I think. Somehow, no matter how deep you want to dive into the game, whether just playing superficially one-and-done, or playing it over and over to capture as much lore and depth as you can, Origins through Inquisition does that. It gives you just enough crumbs to keep you going, keep you questioning, and to point you enough in the right direction, that when you DID get a lore reveal right, you felt GOOD. Yes, plot-twists and subverting expectations are important, but so is letting your audience figure things out, giving them concrete answers. Veilguard drops you, sure, literally in Minratheous into a Gods Magic Ritual. But then it takes your hand, and skips with you through beautiful landscapes, phenomenal level design, and whirlwind combat, to place you right in front of the information you need. And then gives you a cutscene explaining, just in case you didn’t get it 😉).

We, as fans, need to realize that while the Personality of Veilguard is Toothless, the Lore, The Skeleton, is not.

Yeah, Epler said some things that hurt my feels during the AMA. (I’m ignoring the Solas stuff, because I really do believe Epler is speaking from a personal bias and not from a cannon-perspective. [edit: he just talked bout this on BlueSky]) But do you know why? Because they broke my personal headcannons. They proved MY theory crafting wrong. The real problem with Veilguard is that it came out too late. 10 years is too long to have people care so much about a game and theorize and craft worlds for themselves.

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[LORE]

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Superficially, VG dropped a lot of lore. But Deeply? To the DA Lore-Core? I don’t think they dropped ENOUGH.

[Image Credit: Helena Hansen on ArtStation]

HOW did Soals cleanse the dagger? HOW can Elgy & Ghill control the blight? HOW do they control their archdemons? HOW does the veil work? (How can it be weak with Elgy & Ghilly holding it up but 100%-strong-no-holes-perfectly-good with only Solas providing power for it?) HOW do spirits work? HOW do souls work? WHATS the difference? HOW does a Dragon-thrall-bond work? WHY isn’t Lusacan a Great Dragon? HOW does the rite of tranquility work? WHAT happens to Solavellan in the Fade? Is it different from what happens to a tricked Solas in the fade? WHAT happens now to Hawke/Stroud in the fade? WHAT is an orb? WHAT is a cube? WHATS the difference? WHERE is The Black City? WHAT is the ‘real blight’? (Because according to VG Solas, it’s still in the prison and its still super dangerous and way more dangerous than the blight that’s out in Thedas.) HOW did Solas burn his Vallaslin off? WHAT is the Calling? WHAT is the NEW song in the calling? WHY did ‘Mythal speak the calling’? WHY does lyrium sing? How is lyrium mined? WHY can tranquil work lyrium safely? HOW did Dirth & Falon split? WHY did Dirth & Falon split? WHERE are the rest of the Evanuris? WHERE is the Abyss? WHAT is the Abyss? WHAT do you MEAN there was more than 8 Evanuris?? HOW did you make your lyrium bodies? HOW can Elgar’nan destroy a FEELING?

WHERES MY ELVHEN DICTIONARY.

Obviously not ALL. But SOME of these NEEDED to be answered, or at least strongly alluded to, IN GAME. NOT in an AMA.

“We're leaving that ambiguous on purpose…”

“We haven't been SUPER specific about this…”

“I'm so glad these stories have their hooks in you! We have to leave some threads to tug on for future stories.”

What DID get answered in game?

Some of the Evanuris hats. Archdemons/Old Gods = Evanuris. Solas (w/ Mythal?) tranquil’d the Titans. Solas (accidentally) created the Blight. Solas used a Blood Magic Ritual to create the veil. Solas regrets a lot of things & has mommy issues. Worm-Solas (which, do not get me wrong, a million thank you’s and blessings for werm-Solas… But…) That’s it. That’s IT?

Oh, and there’s a shadow organization that’s been pulling all the strings from behind the scenes but I am NOT getting into how much I hate that idea in this post we don’t have time. Do we? No, we don’t. You know what, fuck it. This is my blog. Once you introduce that idea there is no way anyone NOT the author can know how much sway the puppeteer has over the marionette. ‘Oh it’s just a nUdGe, just a *whisper,* ‘they still have their free will’. Bitch get fucked what does that MEAN. That doesn’t MEAN anything its just a lazy retcon-y way to tie in a new villain to old material. Completely erasing the autonomy of they characters your fanbase has come to love (and love to hate). Do not corporate-speak at me with synergy and circle-back and deliverables. WHAT is a WHISPER? WHAT is a NUDGE? Because unless you lay it all out in an ELI5, NO ONE CAN KNOW- EXCEPT FOR YOU.

Ok obviously I have feelings about that we need to move on.

You can argue Veilguard was about the Evanuris, you can argue that Veilguard was about Solas. You can argue that Veilguard was about Regret and Pride and letting it all go. You can argue that Veilguard was about the ~*Power of Friendship*~ But for me, who has been obsessed with whatever the ever-loving-fuck has been going on in Thedas since 9.30 Dragon, Veilguard is about the Blight.

Corrine from the AMA: What really captures my imagination now that we've resolved some of the mysteries pertaining to the blight and the Elven gods, is exploring the aftermath of this crisis in a deeply destabilized Thedas.

Sorry… What did you answer? We actually know nothing about the Blight except that Solas created it, and with Antonie and Evka claiming the song has changed… what does that mean? Is a Titan consciously controlling the blight now? Is it soothed because Harding Soothed it? Is all the blight from the Kal-Sharok Titan? Are all their orbs/cubes in the Black City? Do the Executors control the blight? What is a calling, then? Will the Wardens never be called to the deep roads again? The Blight is different in a Warden than it is in a darkspawn, or an Archdemon? How? WHY? The wardens are just going to fade from existence because… all the darkspawn are just going to disappear now? Where in game is this stated as truth? Actually, in fact, ZERO questions were answered.

But Wait…

I feel like the news of the AMA COMPLETELY overshadowed the two IGN articles that came out; 1 & 2. Because… holy shit you guys. There was A LOT of lore dropped here.

Unfortunately for Epler & Corrine, and this is a hill I will die on, ALL OF THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN ANSWERED IN GAME. The fact that it was NOT? Is inexcusable. You cannot drop giant lore reveals like this outside of the game and hope it smooths everything over. The lore dropped in these interviews could have been a DLC, a side quest in game, or at the very least a novel or WoT Vol 3.

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[What IS Dragon Age?]

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I've used this photo before and I'll use it again I fucking love it so much

I wish Veilguard came out a year later, I would have waited longer, paid more for it, if it was a more a whole, inclusive game.

The problem with dumbing down a pre-existing franchise is that you’re alienating the fans that are carrying you on their shoulders. They carried you through a game-less 10 years, and through Andromeda. And you can bet your ass when they drop you, the new fans you roped in with VG are not going to be picking you up.

Dragon Age feels like it cannot find its identity. That Veilguard, inexplicably, does not feel like Dragon Age.

“But how can you explain what Dragon Age feels like when every Dragon Age that came before it was so different?”

New Protagonists, new companions, new locations, everything is different. On top of more meta things; new gameplay, new combat, new art styles, its all different.

So what makes Dragon Age, Dragon Age?

Well, when I was nervous about the game back in September, I asked Kala, when she got pre-access to the game, if she FELT anything.

“I’d love for you to touch on how the game made you FEEL… Did anything you played in Veilguard make you Feel™?”

She sent me a private message with 1 word: Yes.

We can go into the design decision to have the companions react with each other instead of Rook and how that can be alienating to the PC. We can talk about how shafted the romances were. We can go into how gentrified Minrathous and the Crows were. We can go into how child-locked the lore was. We can discuss the toothless-ness of Veilguard.

But Veilguard still made me Feel.

And, even if that emotion is anger, if Veilguard made you Feel, it did it’s job.

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