The worst thing about Veilguard

[Shard of Manus]

The absolute worst thing about this game...

It feels like it's made by people that don't care.

It's shallow. Really shallow. Not just the writing and the dialogue, but how pathetic and insignificant everything is. It's all trivial. No depth at all.

Going through ancient elven ruins and encountering magical artefacts etc. -- there's no lore. It's just "this funny artefact causes fire to rain from the sky every 30 minutes". All the actual Codex entries are brief and meaningless.

The game is utterly vague. There's no detail, no nuance, no real exploration of any of it. The writers didn't bother to tie things together, or create in-depth lore and build upon an already rich world. So much seems forgotten, changed or ignored. There are glaring retcons and other lore aspects that go ignored. What's worse is that already existing lore that easily provides a fantastic foundation for the world has been trivialised.

There's no mystique. Eluvians are a dime a dozen, secret history is common knowledge, ancient magic is popular and mundane, nobody bats an eye at the history of the world being re-written utterly just by discovering that Elmo and Gooseberry have 'escaped the Fade'.

It's just sad. Everywhere you go, everything you do, all of it feels puddle-deep. None of the characters have anything relevant to say or do, it's all just transient objectives here and there to keep things rolling along and fill in the gaps with action.

Nothing feels like Dragon Age. It doesn't even feel like you're in a world, you're just in a paper-thin game. And the general attitude in everything makes it all feel so insignificant.

====

This to me is the worst thing. Beyond all the tripe about DEI and wokeness, beyond the bad artstyle, beyond the contentious combat, beyond even the lack of any RPG choices - beyond all other flaws; the greatest failure of Veilguard is that it feels like the devs couldn't give a damn about their game or Dragon Age.

There is no passion here.

[TheZinc]

Yeah smokescreens, which few YouTube reviewers mentioned. I think Hogwarts legacy also received similar criticism. It’s a world, it functions but it’s bare and lifeless.

[Swans]

Yes, the game is superficial. It looks nice and runs well, combat can be fun, but scratch away that veneer and there is nothing there. Paint by numbers RPG.

[Mentally Unstable]

You are doing it wrong, you are supposed to be focusing on the flashy graphics and gorgeous hair. Don't you like cool explosions? They gave us so many to fill up the entire screen. Pew pew pew!!!

On a note, well said. It mirrors what I feel about it thus far. Very shiny exterior but vapid and soulless interior.

How this is a "return to form" is a mystery.

[Mentally Unstable]

Speaking about the point on lore. It rustles me jimmies that they spent an entire DLC (trespasser) in inquisition setting up Solas as a major plot for the future......yet reduced him to nothing more than a cameo in veilguard. It's like they didn't even want to bring him in but had to for the sake of continuity.

[Earl of Wessex]

Originally posted by Yellowdragon:

Game feels like a children fairy tale interactive book.

Considering the type of content it pushes, that's mildly concerning.

[Zodarious]

Originally posted by Shard of Manus:

The absolute worst thing about this game...

It feels like it's made by people that don't care.

It's shallow. Really shallow. Not just the writing and the dialogue, but how pathetic and insignificant everything is. It's all trivial. No depth at all.

Going through ancient elven ruins and encountering magical artefacts etc. -- there's no lore. It's just "this funny artefact causes fire to rain from the sky every 30 minutes". All the actual Codex entries are brief and meaningless.

The game is utterly vague. There's no detail, no nuance, no real exploration of any of it. The writers didn't bother to tie things together, or create in-depth lore and build upon an already rich world. So much seems forgotten, changed or ignored. There are glaring retcons and other lore aspects that go ignored. What's worse is that already existing lore that easily provides a fantastic foundation for the world has been trivialised.

There's no mystique. Eluvians are a dime a dozen, secret history is common knowledge, ancient magic is popular and mundane, nobody bats an eye at the history of the world being re-written utterly just by discovering that Elmo and Gooseberry have 'escaped the Fade'.

It's just sad. Everywhere you go, everything you do, all of it feels puddle-deep. None of the characters have anything relevant to say or do, it's all just transient objectives here and there to keep things rolling along and fill in the gaps with action.

Nothing feels like Dragon Age. It doesn't even feel like you're in a world, you're just in a paper-thin game. And the general attitude in everything makes it all feel so insignificant.

====

This to me is the worst thing. Beyond all the tripe about DEI and wokeness, beyond the bad artstyle, beyond the contentious combat, beyond even the lack of any RPG choices - beyond all other flaws; the greatest failure of Veilguard is that it feels like the devs couldn't give a damn about their game or Dragon Age.

There is no passion here.

Video games today are not meant to entertain or allow you to escape into a fantasy world, this game was designed to educate you on the right and wrong ways of mis-gendering people.

I am ok with people being LGBTQ+ or any other format that makes them happy but I am tired of some of them forcing their ideals into all walks of life and demand we acknowledge them.

God forbid if you have another opinion that they do not agree with they call you transphobic, bigot, racist etc. That is the sad reality we live in today and it is exhausting.

[Shard of Manus]

Originally posted by Mentally Unstable:

Speaking about the point on lore. It rustles me jimmies that they spent an entire DLC (trespasser) in inquisition setting up Solas as a major plot for the future......yet reduced him to nothing more than a cameo in veilguard. It's like they didn't even want to bring him in but had to for the sake of continuity.

Each game has done this.

DA2 kind of got away with it, because it was contained within Kirkwall, but even so.

DA2 ignored the setup from DA:O regarding the Fereldan and Orlais brewing conflict. It also completely side-stepped the DA: Awakening revelations with the Darkspawn and made the Darkspawn near irrelevant.

DA:I completely brushed over the Mage/Templar conflict, stuffed the DA2 plot with Leliana and Cassandra looking for the Grey Warden under the carpet, rode the coattails of Legacy and yet again ignored the Fereldan/Orlais conflict. Really sad to see the events of Asunder, which were absolutely significant, just get ignored.

DA:Veilguard ignores basically everything ever.

Each iteration has quite significantly gone off on a tangent from the previous title, but certainly Veilguard is the worst for it.