What the actual fuck.




This is....sickening. Like my expectations were already in the grave, but this is descended into hell level bullshit.

 

I wouldn't be so dramatic but... the trailer has a cartoony vibe that doesn't click with the Dragon Age universe for me. Before, DA took itself seriously even when it was goofy. This trailer leans too much into humor and fun. I think BioWare understand the audience they're trying to reel in and are choosing to market this for the Fortnite tweens rather than the players who gave DAO a shot because it came from the studio that made Baldur's Gate. It might turn out to be a fantastic game, just not for me. You and I are not the intended audience @Arthellion.

 

I'm hoping that it's just the trailer art style, and that the game models skew toward realism. The DAI game models also looked starkly different from the characters showcased in the cinematic trailers.

But yeah, the "okay gang, let's fucking goooooo" attitude of this trailer took away a big chunk of my hype.

Just... completely missed the mark of Dragon Age's established themes.

Edit: Thankfully, the characters do seem to be a lot more detailed and realistic than the trailer is portraying.

 

The recent gameplay video looked better. Still a bit nervous about the tone and themes, but better than whatever the travesty linked above was.

 

Yeah I was really worried for a hot minute, but this was reassuring. Graphics are solidly realistic, tactical pause and ability wheels are back, Solas is still a little bitch.

Some other very positive tidbits I saw on socials:
- all companions are romanceable for whatever gender (Harding/Liara supremacy)
- super in depth char creation
- factions and faction buffs are back
- 9 subclasses
- no war table
- your Inquisitor will be back

 

No war table? Hell, that alone already nets this game several extra points from me. What an absolutely abysmal, awful, irredeemable, braindead shitstain of a feature.

Haven't had time to watch the gameplay preview myself yet, but now you've made me curious @KHAAAAAAAN!!.

 

(I'm gonna miss the war table with mod exploits)

 

I have a problem with shit features that have to be modded into not being shit.

 

Other good news:

No vast empty open world (because bioware is shit at them). This one will be mission based like ME3.

 

More news like this and I'll dare being cautiously optimistic about this game. The maps in DAI were pretty, but a terrible waste of space. Having one or two huge areas like that, with some appropriately epic events scripted for them, is nice. Having ten fuckhuge maps where nothing happens is a waste of development resources and the players' time. The Mass Effect trilogy are basically corridor shooters and BioWare came up with some incredible setpieces in those games. I never heard anyone complain that maps in ME2 weren't open enough.

 

That is great news, Christ I disliked Inquisition’s open world. Such a waste of my time.

For this game it’ll come down to the writing to me, it always does.

Inquisition was… weird. It had some absolutely stellar scenes/characters in terms of the writing… And some were incredibly boring and dull. At least it was better than Andromeda, which was consistently plain bad the whole way through.

So I have 0 expectations (positive or negative) for this game, which is probably a good thing for Bioware. Because any sort of comparison to the Bioware of yore is probably pretty unfavorable to the company of today. The lack of an open world means I’ll at least give this a shot.

 

I expect this game to be absolutely awful; ME3 was the last unambiguously good game Bioware has produced. Inquisition was good where it was good, but mediocre at best everywhere else, with some baffling design choices. Andromeda had fantastic combat but shit everything else. And Anthem was... Anthem was an absolutely fucking amazing core gameplay loop they surrounded with some fuck-awful live service systems and, outside of the setting, a complete absence of everything Bioware built their brand on (most egregiously, character writing and compelling, if simple, narratives). And DA4 has been in development hell for most of the last decade.

I have zero faith the game will be even remotely playable, let alone good.

I'm too much of a simp for Varric to ignore it entirely though. Hopefully the reviews will be promising and I can justify giving Bioware a chance to disappoint me yet again.

 

God I loved Inquisition. Stupid maps and all

Almost too many hours.

Also have to say, I really don't care about reviews anymore. I'll watch a couple gameplay videos, and if it looks good I'll fork out the cash. As long as it gives me at least 69.99 hours of fun it'll be worth it

 

LEGO is a terrible company, but I fear I might have to give them some money for this:



And if we get a Thunderjaw or Slaughterspine set, I will be sorely tempted (at the latest as soon as it‘s clears the minimum 20% discount mark at which it becomes acceptable to purchase a LEGO set).

EDIT: And a Sunwing, because Sunwings rule.

 

Call me a fool, call me a fanboy, whatever.

I can't fucking wait for Veilguard

 

Frostpunk 2 releasing in two days. The release snuck up on me as I forgot completely about it, but 1 was pretty cool (heh) so I'm looking forward to what they cooked up.

With this, and Stalker 2 and Factorio Space Age in the near future I'm ready to be completely unproductive for the rest of the year. Quite convenient that it's just after summer ended and the endless misery of fall/winter is here.