Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the renamed Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, finally made its long-awaited appearance at yesterday’s Xbox Games Showcase. The game has been stuck in nearly a decade of development hell, and with the last Dragon Age coming out in 2014, fans of the series have been waiting a long time to for a new entry in their beloved series.
Well, now they’ve gotten a look! And it’s not going well.
Developer BioWare tossed out a CGI trailer (gameplay will be shown in the next few days) that featured a much more colourful, upbeat tone than people were expecting of the dark fantasy series. As one top comment on the video says, “How did we go from dark fantasy to saturday morning cartoons?”
The trailer sets up the story as a classic case of getting the squad together, introducing each new character with a Borderlands-esque giant wall of text, all while a badly done cover of David Bowie’s Heroes plays in the background.
Youtube is where we can really see the distaste being shown for Veilguard’s more flamboyant style. As I’m writing this the trailer has 31k likes and a whopping 149k dislikes. The comment section is a bloodbath.
“I might have no marketing education or experience,” writes commenter Veloziraptor111 “but something tells me that making a trailer in a style that will appeal to LITERALLY NO ONE who played either of the previous games, is not a great marketing strategy for a sequel to a well-loved series. This looks more like it was made exclusively for people who were born after the last game released in 2014.”
In fairness, this is not the first time the Dragon Age games have used trailers that are tonally a little at odds with the game itself. The Warden’s Calling trailer for Dragon Age: Origins, for example, leaned heavily into the heavy metal vibe, closing out with Warden going absolutely ham on a bunch of bad guys in front of a bright white background while This is the New Sh*t by Marilyn Manson plays. But even then, it does still feel connected to what the series is, unlike the Veilguard trailer which is a radical shift in tone.
Hilariously, when I went back to check out the trailers for the older games to see if the franchise did this tonal trick prior, the comments were full of people who had jumped back to the old trailers because of how bad they thought Veilguard looked.
Here’s the thing though: I’m here for it. Seriously, I am. Yes, the trailer does seem disconnected from the typical Dragon Age theme, but its early days and there’s nothing wrong with trying out a different art style. It maybe wasn’t the best trailer to reveal the game with, but I’m going to wait and see how the game shows in a few days until I form a full opinion. The Internet can be quick to judge harshly, and while its sometimes right, it’s often wrong, too.