Mark Kern reports on an interview with a tester that appears to spell doom for Dragon Age Veilguard, and possibly, Bioware itself:
@nuhre_ gets the scoop in her interview with a game tester who reveals all. Alleged rumors from testing in 2023 build highlights:
- Game is super woke. Pronouns in your face.
- Qunari companion literally introduces themselves with immersion breaking modern language “I identify myself as non-binary.”
- Romances were, and still may be gender locked UNLESS you choose a pronoun other than he/him, you MUST be pansexual or you were/are restricted to TWO romance options (Neve and Harding) while other choices may romance anyone. (this might have changed due to BG3 success and influence).
- Solas is SIDELINED HARD. Made into a minor character with little importance or development until suddenly important at end of game, and that ending is “Baffling” and not in a good way, (but no spoilers revealed.)
- The story is “disappointment after disappointment.”
- Facial animation is “Andromeda all over again” and “plastic” which I assume is a lot of “my face is tired” quality.
- Inquisitor and Inquisition is corrupt and may not be of any help even if you didn’t disband it. Choices don’t matter “It’s Mass Effect 3 again.”
- Rook SIDELINED, backstory wasted. Just a guy in a bar, very much diminished.
- Tester feedback IGNORED. Boss said “It’s very good feedback, but I can’t send it to them (the devs). It’s very good but …” Basically you can’t talk about how the woke stuff is making the game worse. It’s not something you can talk about, even if it is ruining the game.
- Grey Warden Davrin, a newcomer who never finished his training, gets to influence and make important decisions for the Grey Wardens solely because he is a PoC. “Gets to decide everything.”
- The segment of gameplay in The Fade is a boring “walking simulator” with just some fetch quests. Completely wasted opportunity.
- Other major characters like Varric, turned into mere “advisors” and pushed to the back of the story.
- “It’s so far removed from Origins, that it’s crazy that it’s in the same universe.”
“THIS IS THE END OF BIOWARE” the interview concludes. Final nail in the coffin of a once great studio and franchise.
I liked Baldur’s Gate, and the investment company for which I worked helped fund Neverwinter Nights, but I generally considered their games to be overrated and more than a little derivative. The fact that they went full SJW and embraced the Diversity Initiative didn’t surprise me in the slightest. If the failure of DAV causes the studio to go down, I wouldn’t care at all. It’s not like losing Origin Systems to the graveyard of developers.