Everything Dragon Age: The Veilguard Got Wrong

[@Tommyd1013]

The concept of an all powerful creator god that has never once revealed itself is easier to believe than a being who is proven to be part of the history and lore of dragon age. You make several assumptions about the lore or have misunderstood some of it. My advice is if you don’t like it then don’t play it. Enjoy the games that you do and ignore the rest.

[@strawberryshower1175]

You should top it down a notch with liquor...

[@bennygerow]

Well that's vague af

[@mrmerfeo4320]

"You're wrong but I won't explain why"

[@mikeity2009]

No.

[@stevenl7264]

The Veilguard was supposed to finalize a story that was started in the games we loved, games where our decisions mattered and carried on through generations. Bioware destroyed our choices and destroyed the world we have grown to love. On top of that they gave us weak, sloppy writing and terrible character & world development, aspects that defined previous Dragon Age games.

[@Scream_Lord]

I remember someone describing the game as "Artistic Vandalism" and I'm inclined to agree.

[@VenusFeuerFalle]

it definately vandalized the intellectual property of the original creators.

[@asarishepard8171]

@@Scream_Lord accurate description

[@FrancisFjordCupola]

I think the word artistic in "artistic vandalism" is giving too much praise. But that can be an intentional dig as well if properly and sarcastically intoned.

[@sub-jec-tiv]

I’ll bet the original writers of the lore have been shaking their heads so hard they need a chiropractor.

[@therantingcat7891]

I honestly blame the editors for letting this through.

[@HyakuSh1ki]

It's like that "look at how they massacred my boy" scene, but for 40 minutes.

[@tljscrewjob6397]

‘I don’t want his mother to see him like this…’

[@Trainer-uh1zf]

Haven't seen that movie in so many years.

[@ironmaiden93ofangmar]

Shows how much they got wrong and massacred my boy

[@theyawner2170]

I was holding on in the hope that it would be a good game for 10 years.

[@b7otato]

Accurate af

[@Flosceo]

cant wait for them to reveal qunari were just elves who sailed north,dwarves were Also once elves,Humans are elves who cut off their ears,Dragons are just insane ancient elven mages,and thedas is actually just an ancient elven spell

[@rzr0015]

Wait, it's all elven? Bio was/ware: (putting shotgun barrel into it's own mouth) Always has been.

[@sirjacques2691]

Bro, that's elder scrolls

[@Dan-zc3ou]

​@@sirjacques2691Holy shit, that IS the Elder Scroll

[@MaxPowerCaulfield]

As far as I can remember, the Qunari WERE elves, but were also fused with dragon blood. Ghilan'nain was up to some weird experiments. Also, haaaaate how they butcher the pronunciation. It isn't nain like "nayne", Solas himself says it in Inquisition. It's like nah-in, which ends up sounding like nahn. He was there and knew her, say it like he does, damn it!

[@weareharbinger914]

As dumb and exaggerated as it is, I cannot dismiss it because they decided to make everything else elves.

[@zachb8012]

"Who doesn't like dragons?" Uh. I don't know Taash, the entire world? What story do you think you're in?

[@onyxrose4349]

"We call this time the Dragon Age because the dragons suddenly returned from being dead and started fucking shit up." Taash: "But dragons are nice :("

[@StrifeRixa]

@@onyxrose4349 I thought it was declared the age of the dragon because it was prophesized that it would be an age of chaos and change.

[@weareharbinger914]

@@StrifeRixa Both, the return of dragons is what prompted that prediction.

[@onyxrose4349]

@@StrifeRixa Nope. It was named because a High Dragon was sighted for the first time in centuries.

[@Alorand]

Totally inconsistent - her job description is 'Dragon Slayer', not 'Dragon Tamer'.

[@djjb2000]

Tldr, the entirety of dragon age lore and all it mysteries is summed up as "the elves did it." Whats worse is thats not even a joke.

[@BruderSenf]

which means tevinter did nothing wrong in enslaving the elves xD

[@dylanbell268]

which sucks because Inquisition was building towards alot of it being Elves, but purposely didn't try to explain the Maker. Alot of this new lore is taken from fan theories that have been around forever and that we've been saying is a stupid way to take it.

[@erikwilliams1562]

@@djjb2000 no, the unknown illuminati did it. Such suspense!!!

[@stephenwithaph1566]

@@erikwilliams1562 Old Ancient Lore Mystery? The elves did it. Treachery of Older Games? Illuminati did it. Hire me bioware.

[@Te3time]

we still got the qunari and humans at least

[@hombregris4618]

They have turned the darkspawn into simple zombies, and they've turned all the Dragon Age lore into the ancient elves they did.

[@andersfrieden567]

It's a metaphor to the whole franchise - a shallow husk of what it once was.

[@JohnnyFedora1]

Not zombies - husks, from Mass Effect. The effect of the blight is now essentially identical to the effect of Reaper Indoctrination. I'm pretty sure the base-level "darkspawn" "ghouls" in The Veilguard even use some of the same animations as husks from ME3.

[@andersfrieden567]

@@JohnnyFedora1 they even look like slightly retextured husks from ME.

[@KB8Killa]

@@andersfrieden567 man that's pathetic

[@mattmark94]

The Elves and the Illuminati did it, to be precise 😆

[@lubrato668]

You're more passionate about Dragon Age than the people getting paid to work on it.

[@circedesdemona1892]

How did Solas even know Mythal's apology was sincere since she didn't pull a barf - Veilguard doesn't even follow its own lore

[@SilentTheViewer]

If she had done that i would have laughed until i shat myself then turned the game off to recover

[@randomguy36j98]

LMAO 😂

[@seresmarkus5690]

Lol... but hey, maybe that's what really convinced him:he realized that pulling barfs wasn't a custom in ancient elven society but it is now... the thought of screwing around with the Veil and thereby condemning a world so much more progressive and woke is what broke him into submission...#headcanon

[@jaffarebellion292]

I'd have almost had more respect if they went full parody, having the story get increasingly weird and farcical until the final boss, and the ending was just a fade to black, followed by a blackout-drunk Varric saying "But enough bullshit. Here's how it REALLY happened..." and teasing the next game. I'd laugh so hard it may just kill me.

[@ihavecrabs56]

@@jaffarebellion292 LOL that would be SOOO FUNNY!! they are unfortunately too stupid to ever come up with something as clever as that lol

[@gregorywillett8584]

I don't know where the whole "cannon doesn't matter" came from. If you love a franchise, you want to learn more about it. To turn around and say that none of that was important will only piss off your hard core fans

[@cttommy73]

It came first from comic books, where they were butchering it. However, as comic books were no longer popular as they once were, the next time you heard it was when Hollywood was butchering THEIR IPs and franchises. The last place you heard it was early on in the video games industry, when they were tossing out all the lore of franchise's long established to make their own lore, because none of the new people involved had any talent or love for these IPs and franchises.

[@weareharbinger914]

From people who suck at writing so will never get their own stories made, but somehow get themselves hired onto writing teams for projects of legacy IPs. Usually because of politics and that when the executives tell them to do something, they will fold immediately.

[@oblivionfan345Tony]

​@@cttommy73the first place I heard it was when these people were infesting Warhammer 40k because much of the lore is EXPLICITLY opposed to their world view and much of their beliefs are literally impossible in the universe.

[@mattphoenix4702]

@@oblivionfan345Tony​​⁠​⁠Or maybe, I don’t know, corporations only care about money. Bad writers are cheaper than good ones. Not everything has to be a conspiracy. 🤦🏻‍♂️ The fact that’s the first thing you thought says more about you than the writers. Stop trying to push your politics where they’re not wanted or appropriate.

[@mattmark94]

People that say that are incompentent clowns. If there is no canon, there is NO STORY.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

9:28 this is standard practice in modern vandalization of old IP, they always have to make retroactive changes that establish THEIR lore "came first" in the timeline and therefore overrides or trivializes the original lore.

[@mauricesteel4995]

funny that if you observe areas taken over by darkspawn, the first thing they do its to vandalize every cultural artifact they come across. they depredate and twist so it becomes more like them.

[@EcardEcardian]

And making their games bad writen fanfiction insted of what is established lore.

[@danieldonnert3747]

This is exactly what I thought when I first heard the "really old darkspawn" line.

[@occorner2502]

What to expect then ip is lead by two manbabies confused about their gender...

[@rahmathadi855]

Just like star wars acolyte and LOTR rings of power, not only they ignore the established lore of their respective universe but also bastardize them and claim to be the superior version than the original because its more "diverse"

[@skyeranger]

But Nuhre, you can't show rampant slavery and the Crows being child abusers, that would trigger people 😂

[@M3cronom]

Yeah, better not get too morally grey. Because modern audience be stupid, we have to teach them what good and bad is.

[@MarwolfAeducan]

@@skyeranger and that's let me know they can't handle mass effect . If can't have messed up topics like slavery genophage , and imperialism , then it's not mass effect

[@leviticusprime4904]

@@M3cronomthe irony of people who claim to belive in media literacy are often the people who have the most shallow interpretations.

[@quintyss1290]

I'm guessing the writers found a certain joy in writing evilness ^_^'. It's what makes choosing to be good compelling. Or not.

[@Shinigami00Azael]

​@@leviticusprime4904 I wouldn't say it like that, pretty sure most people believe in media literacy, but people who use the term have actually the least of it. People who have media literacy don't need fancy terminology to feel smart, because they're actually smart...

[@barkingsheep5224]

THANK YOU! I am grieving hard after waiting 10 years for Veilguard as a continuation of my favorite media series ever. The only media I’ve ever fangirled over. People online basically refuse to hear me when I say some characters were written OOC or the writing has massive issues! Feel like I’m being gaslit about what I’m seeing right in from of me on the game screen. It’s maddening!!

[@atlanteean]

a lot of Dragon age fans feel betrayed by this game.

[@barkingsheep5224]

@@atlanteean sad that’s where we are but glad I’m not totally insane for my issues with VG.

[@xavdeman]

The dragonage subreddit is totally corrupted by mods with certain political leanings censoring all criticism and leaving only positive posts. This is the definition of gaslighting.

[@gamingforever9121]

@@barkingsheep5224your not insane the writers are.

[@Cleric1530]

I havent been on for a few weeks but the reddit felt completely off tone. Like people going like hey it's not that bad. I never played DA for the gameplay, it was for the epic story, vast world full of morally grey if not evil factions and kingdoms that clashed and I could be a light or darkness who played a massive role through a single age. It feels like the new staff was lazy and didn't research the series. Did we expect them to look into every potential choice and dialogue, no. But we expected them to read the lore and any notes left to them by any of the dragon age writers, as respect the story that's being consumed.

[@visitingforgefather5997]

I find it hilarious they try to portrait these 'new' Darkspawn as more dangerous by having them steamroll Ferelden offscreen, seriously f*ck you Bioware. Meanwhile DA Orgins SHOWS you the scope of the horde in Ostagar, later show you even more gathered in the Deep Roads, while also showing you their brutality both during and after battles. Also adding mystery through that brutality as it seem almost ritualistic at times, they clearly understand the significance of monuments since they actually take time to defile these in particular ways for some reason. But hey what do I know, I'm just a 'tourist', apparently.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

Hey at least for Ferelden they didn't do what they did for Weisshaupt. They didn't even bother to have grey warden NPCs show up to fight darkspawn in-game. That whole "level" is surreal, you run around this extremely weird platformer-like layout of an overrun castle for like 2 hours and wonder where the (dolphin noises) is everybody

[@visitingforgefather5997]

@@marcogenovesi8570 sigh...why am I not even surprised. Let me make a random question, did they forget that Grey Wardens can 'sense' Darkspawn?

[@АннаГубанова-ц1ш]

​@@visitingforgefather5997 Rooks with gray warden backstory doesn't. Rook with gray warden backstory doesn't know how his fraction works. Rook with gray warden backstory is constantly listening to literally every npc's lectures about gray warden 😅

[@АннаГубанова-ц1ш]

No backstory in veilguard matters.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

​@@visitingforgefather5997 they wrote around that, only a guy can really "sense them" with any real range/capacity in game. It's handwaved away by in-game dialog speculating that it's because these darkspawn are "new and improved" by one of the elven gods and there is no conventional archdemon in command like with a normal blight event. (each elven god has a dragon bodyguard that in-game is referred to as "archdemon" but it is just a mindless beast acting as muscle)

[@Bigotsandwich1995]

Ya know if Isabella doesn't have a high enough bond with Hawke she doesn't come back, she just leaves the city to burn.

[@MattR8605]

After seeing her in Veilguard, I'm cool with just handing her over to the Arishok

[@shlioskf2567]

The failhard is not canon. It's just a deranged fanfiction by talentless loser-cultists.

[@zema9401]

@@MattR8605 Handing her over to the Arishok out of mercy

[@Xenono54]

how many push ups do you think she did for that one..?

[@xLionsxxSmithyx]

​@@Xenono54 she didn't... she left a note saying... "Good luck I'm leaving"

[@therealone844]

I also don't like how the Grey wardens are treated as a problem child when in the first game you were respected and people looked at you as a hero.

[@andersfrieden567]

The writers have felt about the Wardens this way for quite some time. They hate them.

[@ignis2023]

@@therealone844 Blame Inquisition for this. This nonsense started there.

[@efxnews4776]

@@ignis2023 exactly, folks are forgetting that all this crap started in Inquisition, sure, it was put more effort in the writing at that time, but even then, the cracks were all there. Failguard is just the whole building crumble on its own weight.

[@vanyadolly]

And the plot original plot for the Wardens in this game was that they would find Elgar'nan's archdemon in the deep roads and we would help them kill him. How cool would that have been! And they'd actually be doing what they said they would in DAI.

[@mattphoenix4702]

Are you intentionally forgetting how nuanced and well… “grey” the Wardens are right from the start? Yes, even in origins. Forget that the wardens were outright banished from Ferelden because they started meddling in politics? Their reputation was so low that at the start of the fifth blight, Loghain and a number of Ferelden nobles actively opposed them coming back. Wardens can and will do anything to stop a blight, no matter what that cost might be. They are TOLERATED during periods without a blight, but they are not trusted or all that welcome. Even in Origins, the HoF is not liked or trusted either. They’re only treated like heroes AFTER they kill the archdemon. Nothing that happens in Inquisition is outside of the norm for Warden behaviour. Going too far seems to be an inherent Warden trait. I get it, Origins is one of my favorite games. The Wardens introduced us to Thedas and its dark fantasy goodness. I don’t want to view the wardens as flawed and potentially dangerous, but they ARE. They have been since day 1.

[@VvodeAn]

When I shat my pants last night, it was because the ancient elves did it.

[@Citizen_Nappa23]

The Inquisitor: They will blame the Elves eventually. Solas: I suspect you are right. IN DAI they predicted they would blame the Elves in Veilguard.

[@jekw23]

I missed the bowl last night (every night actually). Nobody believes me when I said the elves did it

[@Kross415]

T o put it as eloquently as Bioware's writers: ''Oof''

[@PsyCoil]

DAO leaned heavily into low fantasy elements. For example magic was presented as dangerous, rare, and was intertwined with societal structures. This was, after all, why mages got locked in a tower because people fear of it. But even though it is still 'magic', it felt grounded in human conflict, ethical and emotional dilemas. Even the Blight, while fantastical, was more of an existential threat that brought out the worst in the characters, not just a magical problem to be solved. Over time the series spiraled more and more into high fantasy and left behind the human-scale storytelling of Origins. Now, like many other high fantasy stories, 'magic did it all'.

[@tomorbataar5922]

Yeah, they even make sure anything magical has bright color coding because that's what magic is now I guess...

[@WillKazeOh]

Magic did it all... except transitionning

[@dendrien]

high fantasy isnt the problem, case and point Tolkien, JK rowling etc etc. problem is the injecting of politics and modernism in a world that isnt supposed to be modern. its called lazy writing and written by people who doesnt have imaginative creativity. what you see most of Veilguard is copy paste the cheapest way as possible and hoping it sticks.

[@AlexisSanchezIIVVV]

Yes but 3 chapter was good with this

[@peterk2735]

I think a big part of that feeling were the Origins themselves. No matter if you chose a privileged noble or an oppressed elf living in the slums, you got to experience what everyday life was for your character. And then even after Ostagar, you were two random Grey Warden survivors, accompanied by a shady witch and your plan hinged on people respecting a bunch of old documents signed centuries ago. You didn’t start out as the Hero of Ferelden. Hawke’s story also felt very personal, because you start out as just another refugee fleeing the Blight. You don’t become the Champion of Kirkwall until way later in the story. Then Inquisition and Veilguard just push you into the saviour role pretty much from the start. It’s a shame the Origins system was not expanded more in other RPG’s. Cyberpunk is the only other game I can think of that tried something like this

[@Jrockk999]

Ya know in Inquisition, Solas said with such confidence and assurance that there was no connection between his people and the Old Gods. Which I was something I always thought was very interesting due to Solas being an elven god.

[@barkingsheep5224]

Could this be one of those times Solas is misleading with a half truth? He says, IIRC, that he’s not aware of a connection in any lore. Specifically not in any lore. Whether or not that’s satisfying to a player is another thing entirely.

[@taddad2641]

@@barkingsheep5224its a retcon of his statement. the darkspawn have always been something unnatural, like a cancer. even demons and blood magic are less profane than them.

[@lucashonorato_]

​@@barkingsheep5224 He also tells Cassandra that the Old Gods are not pets like Corypheus's dragon, and yet here we have Veilguard reducing them to just pets. Reducing the Old Gods to mere High Dragons is simply sad-they're not even Great Dragons.

[@xLionsxxSmithyx]

​@@lucashonorato_ In VeilGuard the Dragons are lesser than Pets, They are Slaves in VeilGuard...

[@weareharbinger914]

Apparently Solas was just lying. Even when he wasn't lying.

[@Resef0486]

Thanks for this. I hate this game and new Bioware down to the very core of my being for what it's done to Dragon Age.

[@anon2752]

We can only hope they go out of business and a new studio of actual dragon age fans can retcon VG out of existence by giving the real Dreadwolf game we wanted. Or just ignore inquisition and only consider 1&2 canon, while giving us a game where we play as our Warden again.

[@nathanscarlett4772]

​@anon2752 The latter option would be better, in my opinion. I loved being a warrior blood mage in DAO

[@albadelgadosantos]

100%!!! You and I both!

[@eleven.eleven.]

Same. I feel cheated and robbed of time and money.

[@UltraFlea]

When we come across this Zombie Skeleton thing early in game and Bellara says its a Darkspawn i literally said aloud "That's not a Darkspawn....I've fought hundreds before, i know what a Darkspawn looks like!"

[@Xenono54]

yeeeah naaah! that's oRigINaL darkspawn. And the demons too, that's original demons.

[@JohnnyFedora1]

I did the same, but I said, "That's not a darkspawn, that's a husk", from Mass Effect. I'm pretty convinced they actually re-used husk animations from ME3, too. The blight is now just Reaper Indoctrination.

[@UltraFlea]

@@JohnnyFedora1 yeah they look remarkably similar and when i saw the Ogre.....i kinda giggled because of the glowing eyes lol.

[@Jelly-Ze-Fish]

Throughout the game they make comments about the darkspawn changing due to Ghilanains influence. It's one thing to not like the new redesign but there are lore reasons to it.

[@JohnnyFedora1]

​@@Jelly-Ze-Fish If by "lore" you mean "random bullsh** they pulled out of their ass", sure. You are absolutely right that if the design was awesome, no one would care that it was changed - but the design isn't awesome. The way darkspawn forgot they used to wear armour and use weapons, tools, and strategy isn't awesome. The way the AI and animations seems to be copied directly from the husks in ME3 isn't awesome. And the way that The Veilguard added darkspawn to the ever-growing list of "ancient elves did it" isn't awesome either. It's all just bad.

[@t2i3m4]

So Ferelden, the country that had just pushed back a blight, had all the alliances in place a fully staffed Warden outpost (which would have no problem getting massive recruitment after the stories of the hero of Ferelden get around) fell off screen? Bullshit.

[@TheEman11910]

Not even just an outpost, an entire goddamn Arling. Ferelden should have an entire fucking army of wardens

[@Bopperann]

DA: Best cakes in town. DA2: Good but little underbaking the goods. Needed more time. DAI: It’s okay but not as good as it used to be. The eggshells are detouring. DAV: Wtf has been done to this place?? Why would they serve toxic bile coated in glitter? The extreme vandalism of this once beautiful bakery wasn’t an act of ignorance or misguided intention. It was absolute malice.

[@ryhi5]

DAO: cooked perfectly DA2: undercooked! desperately needed more time in the oven DAI: tastes great, but it’s the wrong combination of flavors DAV: OH MY GOD!!! Somebody took a perfectly good cake and SHAT on it!

[@DunYappin]

gagged lol

[@StNerevar76]

DA2 is proto Veilguard. Many design choices that had nothing to do with dev time that didn't work for Dragon Age. We joked it tried to be Dragon Effect more than Dragón Age. And Veilguard 10 folds that approach.

[@SkyExplosion]

@@StNerevar76 DA2 is not proto Veilguard, Da2 took a diffrent team and were given a hard fast deadline. My ex was training to be a haisrstylist and she met one of the Dev's when he came in for a haircut and he mentioned Bioware and my girlfriend knew my obsessions with the original DA and Mass Effect and as they talked he mention how dissapointed they were with DA2 having to cut corner cut content to get it out for because Ea forced a deadline. DA2 still had alot of the original darkness and it could have been great with a changing city but again they were only given a fraction of time needed,. That started to fade away,

[@gamingforever9121]

@@SkyExplosionexactly thanks for reminding people. DA2 wasn’t perfect but the building blocks were their. Except for Andre’s he deserves better. Awaking was the perfect ending for him.

[@biropgrules]

so fun fact about the veilguard artbook, the artists got to read and depict a lot of events directly from "The Black Codex" Bioware's internal overall lore bible about exactly what did happen in the past and the future of Dragon Age as they had planned it back during origins. In this we learn that Solas did not sever the titans through a dagger, but instead imprisoned the power of their soul in a magical black box that contained all the power the elvhen leaders would siphon to make themselves gods. The box even had a glow that visually looked like the shockwave from the archdemon's death in origins. The reason why this power eventually became blighted, wasnt some random Titans "anger and feelings and stuff", it was because the Evanuris used blood magic on it directly to power it up even further, which ties in with some lore pieces that suggested the elvhen gods did have interactions with the blight before it supposedly existed. Which in turn explains why blood magic and places of power deep below was one of the few things that could counteract the blight. Man, that would have been fun to see, would have tied into the elvhen gods containing their powers in orbs, and explained a lot of smaller details. But nah, it was the titans being mentally castrated that created it, certainly no blood magic or anything. Veilguard has such a hateboner for showing blood magic the way it should have been.

[@ZawiszaTheBlack]

I'll be honest, I was reluctant to buy this artbook and had already forgotten about it after what a bad game The Veilguard turned out to be. But fuck... you convinced me to buy it. Thank you!

[@Melcolloien]

I am planning on buying the art book. I would love if it outsold the game... They had the story right there and then decided to just...ignore it. The blighted titan (in the way described in your comment) is right there in a mural in Trespasser!

[@mnopinion]

Imagine forcing players to go back to older games just to fact check the lore… only bioware.

[@Artemisarrowzz]

Maybe making everyone rebuy Origins was their plan all along

[@AN-yv8qi]

Sigh.....but honestly what else could we have expected from 'trick' weekes, who wrote trespasser in which Teagan be like who even needs the Grey Wardens anymore lol. Even if they hadn't recently had another Blight you would think just the one historic instance of a living nightmare like a 200 year Blight would have no self respecting leader ever say what do we need the Grey Wardens for everyone am I right. And to think we waited 10 years to find out if our lore theories were right only to get a few answers and they were bad retcons. So the Blight didn't come from the Void aka Abyss aka deep down where we found the Titan in the Descent?? Because I thought the Blight came from the corrupted titans there and that was where Andruil encountered it. What was all that about pure vs corrupted Titans then? Was the orb thing that Corypheus used in Inquisition the heart of a titan after all or not? What happens now with the corrupted Titans will the Blight be a problem forever? Why tf did they send the Warden on a quest to find a cure for the Taint if they never intended on doing anything with a cure for the taint? What was Mythal doing with old god soul???? Is she just gone forever now, why tf did she let Solas kill her in Inquisition???? 3 games with her being this icon just to let herself fold for Solas to gain the power he needed to be the most underwhelming villain in Veilguard? Who were the Forgotten Ones like Geldauran after all?? And of course they had to shit all over what we did in the South in 3 whole games!! And destroy Ferelden, Orlais and the Marches and of course make it super easy barely an inconvenience for themselves by wiping it all clean. The disrespect is off the charts.

[@andersfrieden567]

Teagan felt like a completely different character in the Trespasser, the only thing which I didn't like about the DLC. Where was a brave man, who wasn't afraid to openly call out Loghain on his bullshit and stood up against the horrors of the demon from Redcliffe Castle? I would have understood this character shift in a version, where the Hero of Ferelden abandoned the village, but if they stood with him side by side? I don't believe this BS. Trick Weekes never got The Wardens right.

[@mattmark94]

Weekes went completely nuts, no wonder he became awful at HIS job.

[@leoexgb3219]

THIS! All the most burning questions....just limp dicked into nothingness....

[@ignis2023]

I'm not even angry anymore. Just heartbroken.

[@MarikaValor]

I believe that we got to the last stage of grief: acceptance. And it's sad that we have to accept that we won't have DA as is used to be anymore

[@ignis2023]

@MarikaValor it's like that quote from redlettermedia. How does it feel to have grown old enough to see everything you loved turned to shit. Doesn't feel "Great!" Not at all.

[@momqabt]

The opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference and apathy.

[@TheRandomKady]

Felt

[@jellycreamus]

I know how you feel! Heartbroken

[@noctoi]

The more footage and Veilguard lore I see the more I think the current writers forgot the original plot throughout the games, conflated the Taint (blight) with the Red Lyrium infection, and treated them as ONE problem. That's NOT how DA:2 and Inquisition treated the Red Lyrium. The Taint *infected* the lyrium, turning it red and giving it the ability to infect living beings, they were NOT the same thing. Victims of Red Lyrium were NOT tainted with the Blight. Veilguard basically ignores Red Lyrium altogether, but the lore of Veilguard treats the Taint the same way DA:I treated Red Lyrium. It's fucking infuriating. And that's not even the worst of the retconning, it's just the most obvious.

[@mysticonthehill]

I was really wondering this and no one could give me an answer. Why even have red lyrium? Shouldn't it have been common since the most blighted place is the deep roads which is also where the lyrium. In DA2 I had always assumed red lyrium initial was the decaying corpse of a titan. And it itself didn't actually spread but was the source of the blight because lyrium sings and it was the song the guided dark spawn.

[@noctoi]

@@mysticonthehill I'm sure it was originally supposed to be the big problem to overcome in DA:D... It was ramped up as the next big problem at least. Bianca's quest basically showed the red lyrium was rapidly infecting all the lyrium sources in Thedas like a disease... They even hypothesised that Lyrium was "alive"! Suddenly it's all miraculously gone?! In Inquisition there were red lyrium infected Venatori! It's just bizarre to me that it's just been... deleted from lore. Even NORMAL lyrium was barely mentioned, no potions, no mana meter etc. Only the dagger and Lace's quest line from what I could see in the vids.

[@windwind3170]

>Mythal, an elven goddess of love and motherhood, uses Andrasde's body as a vessel >starts spewing out random crap about monotheistic god for lulz >leads a slave revolt against Tevinter Empire >gets reduced for ashes >humans launch a second massive crusade against the Elves and destroy Arlathan, again, because of Mythal spewing crap about the Maker >elves become practically slaves and homeless for a second time What did Mythal mean by this?

[@AlexisSanchezIIVVV]

Nothing Adnraste wasn't body for Mythal xDD Theory about Andraste listen Calling of Titans much better

[@DrLynch2009]

Pin this comment. Is meme material.

[@danielkatajapontikka4829]

Mythal be like: skill issue, knife-eared binches

[@Uzarran]

@@AlexisSanchezIIVVV Considering that the Chantry is a stand-in for Christianity with this series, it seems like someone(s) at Bioware really wanted to remove any influence it had on the world and storytelling.

[@The13thGhostBunny]

@@Uzarran For sure! Rather than leave it vague and inconclusive, they just couldn't help themselves by making it all about the elves and thus prove fantasy Christianity wrong.

[@onthaloose]

A couple of things I didn’t hear you mention: 1. There are no longer “city elves” that live in ghettos. They are no longer second class citizens or slaves. 2. Tevinter humans no longer look down or or remark about elves. Hell, the venetori (Tevinter human mages) FOLLOW elven “gods”. Like gtfo here. 3. You mention the qun and how they wouldn’t allow the antaam to just breakaway, and I agree, but even if they did, southern chantry would perform an exalted march full stop. So many things in this game are just immersion breaking, even if you’re able to look past the modern bullshit in the game.

[@robertagren9360]

Maybe they just murdered all the poor elves

[@Irhak69]

ad. 2) well.. technically they showed us how Venatori could work with elven gods... probably just to refute that statement in before (Elghanan bewitching people in that one gathering and calling himself Lucican one of Tevinter old gods)... but yeah... that fell a bit odd...

[@kazuhirosamadesu5650]

Nu uh! There's one sentence if you're an elf in which a Ventatori asks Neve if you're her "servant" so it super respects the lore! But seriously at that point I was like at least imply slavery. Those fucking cowards

[@Te3time]

its weird that the shadow dragons exist to free slaves but you never see any slaves wtf is the point of them being there. Well at least in my game (I protected antiva) the shadowdragons just seem like a random group of bandits or whatever that has squabbles with rival groups like the threads. And not a politically motivated group trying to change the entire social structure of their country.

[@MIATeddyBear]

What I distinctly remember most about Origins was just how detailed and plentiful those codex entries were! Each codex was written differently, depending on if they were Elven, from the Chantry, from Brother Genitivi, Dwarven, etc. They went so far as to meticulously detail the various schools of thought within the Circle of the Magi, only for it to never be brought up again in any other entry of the series. There was just SO MUCH lore and detail in Origins that you could get lost for hours just going through Codex entries alone!

[@wolfbane7497]

I remember a time when you couldn't enter the fade I remember a time when you physically couldn't enter the veil either I remember

[@Irhak69]

And then came DAI with it's walking through Fade.. in main story with anchor and then in Tresspasser for Crossroads and some other Eluvian jumps to the Fade (both Kieran and SolasxMythal scenes)

[@House_Kreinath]

@@Irhak69 In DAO Awakening, you do end up getting pulled physically into the fade when encountering the spirit of Justice. But that was meant to be a wild fluke. A one time thing tied to the curse of the land you were in. Now it's just "Oh, I went into the fade just yesterday! Met a cool spirit named Jorb. Wild."

[@Elden_Lean]

There is so much character assassination that happened in Veilguard. I was sincerely interested in a game about Solas, because he's a rogue god who isn't evil, he had his reasons for what he did, and I had a hard time ever faulting him for doing the things he did. But that's gone. It'll never be back. Also really hate how they treated the old gods and titans. things like that are my favorite in any lore, ancient, unknowable beings of incomprehensible power who are also crucial to how the world exists. There could have been some really interesting quests or conversations in game about them, if the writing had been better. It would be kinda cool to be able to get an "up close" look at one of the old gods. But, that and any chance of it ever happening, is now gone forever.

[@christopherjones5700]

Imagine you just woke up from a coma and actually Dragon Age 4 is called "Dragon Age Origins: 2" and it lets you play as the warden from origins, or hawke, or the inquisitor, or a custom origin character that has unique interesting backgrounds that don't break lore in any contrived ways. The art style and aesthetic is still amazing dark fantasy, the dialogue is mature and nuanced, and there's an awesome cast of companion characters that are a mixture of optional and mandatory recruitments. Imagine the amount of money that would be printed at Bioware if they had the IQ to realize BG3's success means Dragon Age: Origin's RPG like nature was actually commercially viable as long as the game was still amazing. Obviously that's just my grocery list of how the game could have been exceptional for me, but some of it is so basic... all I want is a medieval fantasy game that takes itself seriously and doesn't have the writers self inserting their 2024 political agendas and i might have bought it.

[@weareharbinger914]

There are a lot of things they could have done. Personally i would have made the previous protags your companions. Doesn't matter for me they'd be 3 mages, why not, mages for the win. Don't have Rook be some random either. Give us the origin story again. Import the decisions, don't make Morrigan look...weird and don't nerf Isabela's chest. Bring in everyone. If leliana is around, or Divine, bring her, if Cassandra rebuilt the seekers and/or id divine, bring her in. Bring every single person who is canonically alive for the final game in the quadrilogy. Even if they were only there briefly, it isn't that hard. That was the entire point of Dragon Age Keep. While initially I was a little upset how they changed how it worked. It made sense and should have streamlined development. Instead they just ignored it, effectively entirely. Also, at Inquisition's end, we were told that the elves basically were uniting under Solas, that just kind of doesn't happen. Which was very boring and lame.

[@jesustyronechrist2330]

Why do SO MANY modern writers and creators get the opportunity to work on an existing IP/Franchise and they COMPLETELY disrespect and disregard everything about it and insist doing their "own thing", their "own take"? The excuse always is "a modern take for modern audiences". It's this weird entitlement that they think they can do their stupid fanfiction with the characters and setting, while ignoring everything that made any of that special. We've seen this happen with The Witcher and Rings of Power TV-shows, now we are starting to see it in games.

[@lagtastic7511]

Ego, its that simple

[@peterk2735]

@@jesustyronechrist2330 None of the people hired to write these “modern takes” can ever come up with a setting like LOTR, Star Wars, Witcher, Dragon Age etc. World building is extremely hard and it takes someone with lots of knowledge, life experience, emotional intelligence and that one in a million creative spark to create a believable world. So what these so-called writers do is latch on to the work of true creators and shamelessly twist it to tell their own story. And it always fails spectacularly. Like, Rings of Power is a great example, I read one of the writers saying that Tolkien misunderstood conflict and good vs evil. Tolkien fought at Somme, one of the bloodiest battles in human history, where his two closest friends were killed, then had to send his son to fight in WW2. That’s a man who faced death and saw humanity at its worst. It’s so fucking disrespectful and honestly drives me nuts when I see these Hollywood hacks trying to judge such a man or think they can tell a better story 🤦‍♂️

[@mdd4296]

These guys are not raised on appreciation for the classics like previous generation of writers. They are raised on milquetoast, performative subversion (turn uniqueness into genericness) and corporate sales targets (design everything for the mentally undeveloped) with a healthy dose of social media induce narcissism. Reading the codex in origin vs veilguard for example. Origin codex portray the outlook of groups of people, formal and weighty, honed throgh generations (for better or worse). While veilguard codex are written by in game character with the sort of self indulgence you would expect from such writers. History and culture are lost to prop up the members of this small therapy group like their life and eveything they love arent threatened every moments. Well, saying they love something outside themselves and the mary sue player character would be a lie. Sadly, this modern narcisstic character worthship isnt limit to veilguard. It fits modern media business model, where you, the audience, are supposed to worthship an egoistic version of yourself. Who would obtain riches and power without any attached responsibility.

[@peterk2735]

@@mdd4296 So true, you could tell Origins drew a lot of inspiration from Song of Ice and Fire and Wheel of Time, as well as historical parallels like the two Divines, mirroring the split between Rome vs Constantinople. The Mass Effect trilogy also touched upon a lot of major sci-fi themes such as AI, genetic engineering, space travel, interaction with other species - the topics all-time greats like Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, etc have written about in their books. The people who wrote for BioWare back then were true fans of the fantay/sci-fi genres and super well-read.

[@kaidrazarc8000]

Devils advocate They see themselves as amazing writers who just need support to get there stories out there to enrich the world However the evil shot sighted investors won't support their original stories & will only support them if they write a story for some nerdy fake fantasy/sci fi IP So they agree to write for it even though it's beneath them but the story is all fake anyway so why limit their amazing creative writing when their story would be superior & lead to a better world? Only people who might not be happy about it are the neck beards with their "Actually....." Comments trying to correct a fake made up story which is whatever the writer makes up & I'm the the writer I think this is their logic

[@weareharbinger914]

I tend to disagree with your summary of DA2, since you only really described act 3. But how the taint/blight works annoys me the most, especially since how much it is used in Veilguard. There used to be no plants with the blight except deep mushrooms, it otherwise basically just killed everything, but sent animals crazy and corrupted sapient beings into ghouls or worse. They decided to just wrap up the old gods in a nice little bow too, they were evanuis' weapons, thats it. It was so flippantly revealed and boring it pissed me off. Doesn't make sense with what happens with Morrigan's son and Mythal, but they retconned him out of existence. Instead of an interesting reason for the blights, for the old gods, it was just 'elf gods did it', which is basically everything in the game. Titans? Elf gods messed with them. They also seemed to have done away with broodmothers altogether. You can just summon as many darkspawn as you need at any time, and even archdemons are dumb as a box of rocks. Also also retconned when Griffons went extinct, which was 300 years before origins, but we're told it was actually during the fourth blight, 400 years ago. The retuning of factions was insane. The Imperium, now that we're here, should be interesting, we saw only bits and pieces or heard from secondary accounts like Dorian and Iron Bull. Its boring and lame. Hell the Archon gets murdered in a coup and...nothing really happens? The magisterium should be out for blood but do not care. The complete disregard of the Qun, that the Antaam just up and decide 'fuck it' is insane. Hits even harder as I regard to Qunari plotline in DA2 to be a highlight of that game, I liked the Arishok. But the Grey Wardens were the most messed up of any faction. Compare Duncan to the First Warden. ITs completely insane that this dude would ever be in charge compared to say...The Hero of Ferelden? Or hell, I'd take Oghren. The First Warden is a complete idiot and the Grey Wardens become random cannon fodder who lose so many of their troops so quickly, its a wonder they exist at all anymore, seeming to just spawn in more Wardens as the plot demands. Theres definitely more wrong with this game than just in this 40 minute video, theres something wrong with nearly every mission, if only in how the pacing goes. I had no idea how long things take because sometimes you can finish a conversation with a character who says they'll get in touch with their contacts and in less than 5 minutes, they apparently have done so and you can progress their story. For all I know the entire plot of Veilguard takes place over a week. Edit: Also you say the forgotten ones don't make an appearance, but one does in Bellara's questline. But only one and he's just a generic bad guy.

[@yowaikemen]

Omg, I feel. We didn't even get to see the Archon. After all these years getting this description of a powerful counterpart to the Divine breathing down southern Thedas' neck, and not even a cameo. He got merk'd off screen by plot convenience, retold by scripted NPCs in the streets.

[@Ren_Davis0531]

The griffons going extinct was told in the Last Flight book ten years ago. Veilguard was building off of that.

[@leblancsind]

and what do they do about elves itself? Now there are no dalish and city ones, they are just elves. Everyone can have vallaslin now. They spent the entire Inquisition trying to explain the essence of vallaslin, and what happened in the end? It's just a tattoo now. For everyone! I`m absolutely in love with dalish history (my HoF is dalish) and what do they do to them it's just...ugh...disgusting. and when Bellara declared that "they won't love us now because our gods want to destroy the world." Screw you!!! You've never been loved before, you`re slaves in case you haven't noticed. Although there is nothing in this game to say how elves are treated there. Everyone is friends and rides unicorns. Dear god how bad is that :(

[@kajhall3581]

Thank you! When I posted this on reddit I was shat on by everyone and their mom for having an issue with this. I'm glad that someone else other there (and the 74 people who upvoted as well) has the decency to respect the lore behind the Vallaslin. I fell in love with my female elf that romanced Solas and was surprised to see it removed by him. That was such a huge moment for me, and then when I made my first female elf in DAV in my first play through (thinking I might be able to romance Solas again and "rescue" him from the villain arc) I was downright shocked to see it could be so easily removed. I was actually really excited at first because maybe my character would have some insane background with Solas and that is why the vallaslin was removed and I would have all the elves comment on it in shock... but then I meet the veiljumpers who have the vallaslin and they didn't even bat an eye-lash. My character felt so out of place because every other elf had a vallaslin and mine didn't... I deleted the character before I even cleared the forest because I couldn't stand the uncomfortable feeling of how out-of-place my character felt. I pity any person that makes an elf and doesn't have a vallaslin. They will never be able to connect with their character because at a fundamental level they will be completely out of place compared to every other NPC in the entire game. What a waste.

[@leblancsind]

@@kajhall3581 yep! That`s it! I was in shock when my character (I always create a dalish elf if i have opportunity :) say something like "I was not born in a clan, but I am very proud of my tattoo, which makes me who I am". Wtf did you say??!! How did you get vallaslin then, if you weren't born in clan??!! The developers didn't even bother to figure out these nuances, they just don't care. I am sooo disappointed :(

[@Te3time]

Im confused by the ending slide that said the elves rebuild arlathan????? Huh???? Are they saying that the post veilguard world has an elven country or city state??? As if the evanuris destroying all of Thedas wouldnt lead to elves being even more discriminated and most likely hunted. Who is granting them independence after all that

[@Gemini_Jack]

I'm here for this. I've been angsty all this time about how Veilguard fails as a video game. Now I get the proof for how Veilguard fails as a Dragon Age game.

[@comradekitty3759]

the only thing i think it got right was hair physics and even that seems a bit much to praise.

[@mysticwraith6667]

It really pissed me off that Ferelden somehow couldn't handle a blight even though they had the shortest one and are now stronger than ever. Like how? The gods aren't over there so theirs no reason they should struggle

[@nuhre]

Ferelden, canonically, would be the best at fighting off the Blight. In Awakening, regardless of whether you are the Hero of Ferelden or not, a Gray Warden will become Warden Commander and start to rebuild the Ferelden Gray Warden Order. Where were they?

[@mysticwraith6667]

​@@nuhreI kept asking things like that whilst playing and always came to the same conclusion.... it doesn't matter 🤷‍♂️peak writing indeed

[@occorner2502]

The stupidity then half of the options in DAO is to have either ACTUAL GREY WARDEN as king/consort or TWO GREY WARDENS as ruling couple of Ferelden and to go fully with stupid new lore that Blight can take Ferelden is just fucking stupid...

[@chaoticevil4038]

to be fair its stated even in the first game that recovering from blight takes years (hence they never rly occured that often), not to mention it never goes away in one swift move, darkspawn crawl around for a while

[@andersfrieden567]

​@@chaoticevil4038but Ferelden had the shortest Blight in history until the events of the Veilguard. Surely by that point they would have already recovered, wouldn't they?

[@fingchowder]

at this point you've officially put more thought into this than anyone who actually worked on veilguard, congratulations.

[@amharbinger]

OG Solas tricked the Gods. Veilguard Solas, can't see the second dagger in my character's hand in plain sight or tell a fake dagger despite having hundreds of years of experience dealing with magical objects.

[@RavenHaili]

It's a narcissist game, made by someone who doesn't respect the art nor opinions of others. They saw something they could use as a vessel for their worldview they want to push onto others, so they can feel like they control people. They don't respect the source material, the don't respect the original artists, and they don't respect you. We are just things to them, not people with dreams and opinions of our own. They see us as something to be owned, our minds are their's to twist, our bodies to be used for their benefit. Narcissists don't belong nor deserve to be amongst us, they need to be in mental hospitals for the criminally insane.

[@wingsclippedwolf]

The irony of David Gaider turning around an insulting fans of his original work isn't lost on me.

[@weareharbinger914]

Sounds about right, especially since they got a new writer four years in who is exactly what you'd expect with this game. Hyper progressive, activist and generally unpleasant.

[@bismarck5537]

They know that there are lots of people who are literally obsessed with the lore, the world building and the characters of this franchise but they don’t care. I think that some of the original creators (excluding David Gaider I guess) knew what was happening and probably wanted the story to thrive and grow. However, it is extremely likely that they were silenced or were too afraid to stand up to the tyrants in the office whose feelings are the most precious things on earth, even more precious than the company making profit. This leads to most of them leaving the company. Those who remain are reduced to yes-men or women to those above “who know better” than the ones who brought life to those characters. Veilguard is the final nail in the Dragon Age’s coffin. It’s probably the last entry in the series as the story doesn’t make sense to continue at all. Even if it does continue, nobody will be interested in it anymore. BioWare will still continue their destruction of beloved franchises however. Next step is Mass Effect.

[@CurtOntheRadio]

Crikey, listen to you! How exactly does crappy combat help them to own your body and mind? You're a bit hard on narcissists too, don't you think? lol

[@nachomanrandy]

What a pussy coment. You guys live in fear of rainbow hair colored weirdos. You are even weirder.

[@iwantobeliev9633]

Origins: The original sin has tainted the magisters and spreaded the blight, turning their corruption and desire to conquer on themselves. Don't know if it is in the DA2 dlc or in Inquisition, but Corypheus says that when the magisters reached the fade, the throne of the maker was empty and the golden city already blackened, it sounded so cool back then and we were left wandering what was to come. Now this is what we have: it was the elves, always have been, they invented tranquil, the fade/veil, slavery, civil war, old gods/archdemons and maybe other war crimes we are yet to discover. They could make the meme 'Sandal is the Maker' true but choose this instead... we were close to greatness.

[@gazertek3195]

Omg… I just realized sandal was not even in the game

[@1vandread]

It was the Legacy dlc for DA2. Not an exact quote from Corypheus, “We sought the Golden Light. But it was black, corrupt.” Inferring there was no Golden City but, was always the Black City.

[@iwantobeliev9633]

@@gazertek3195 *sad enchantment noises*

[@theesper7404]

​@@1vandread he also says inquisition that the golden city was already blackened when they entered. I think it was one of those recordings of his at his base or whatever.

[@Kross415]

Kind of impressive the 2 evil elven gods are not called Elgar'trump and Donald'nain 🤣

[@randomguy36j98]

It is explicitly stated in previous game that The Elves Arlathan Empire wasnt destroyed by Tevinter Imperium, but then contradicted with Veilguard when they goes on and on how Tevinter is responsible for the lost of the Empire during party brisk walk in that forest. One of the many things I dont like, its a bit contradict and inconsistent. And then Minrathous floating castle... The Archon Palace.... I was reeeeally looking forward to visit it but instead.. :(

[@Irhak69]

You mean Abelas quote? Well... like 99.9999999% of Thedas still believe that Imperium destroyed Arlathan... but only few Elvhenan characters sees it different and them not really into teaching the world true history...

[@SangAsura222]

@@Irhak69 LMAO "like 99.9999999% of Thedas still believe that Imperium destroyed Arlathan.." coming from your opinion , yes. the point is, when you have established earlier narrative like that people would expect further exploration on that in the following sequence. but then again Veilguard had the terrible time having activist as their writer.

[@TheZealo]

The only Veilguard achievement is making DA2 and Inquisition look much better than they were. Made me actually miss them and forget their flaws. Despite all their flaws, they had good stories and much better writing.

[@Xman42635]

Crazy how ever since Dragon Age 2 it seems like Bioware has had a serious corruptive influence slowly degrading overall quality and integrity. Ironic seeing as how this was when Red Lyrium was introduced, which is now an allegory for the future state of things at the studio.

[@Spr1ggan87]

Because the main people behind Origins got the heave ho by EA after it came out, Laidlaw was brought in, Gaider was elevated and Dragon Age went from CRPG to a poor mans Mass Effect to a poor mans Skyrim to a poor mans God of War 2018.

[@robertagren9360]

I love how you compare red lyrium to bioware. Made up BS.

[@Artemisarrowzz]

Many talented people had already left by DA2, sadly

[@Vyndrall]

Thanks for this video that highlights the incompetence of the people behind Veilguard. The theory that Andraste is an incarnation of Mythal/Flemeth with Shartan being Solas is quite old in the micro-community of Twitter fans who love to connect everything to elves. I see that Bioware has just lazily taken this theory without even trying to make sense of it in the historical timeline of Thedas. The developers of Bioware share a lot of similarities with this micro-community of activists: people who have only a partial (if not completely wrong) understanding of the Dragon Age universe that is used as a pretext for creepy queer fan fiction. By preempting the Dragon Age universe to selfishly convey their personal obsessions, these people have excluded 95% of the universe's enthusiasts and have definitively ruined all the work done by talented people since DAO.

[@Artemisarrowzz]

To be fair, the authors at AO3 have pulled better stories than this. That aside, why was Shartan a ghost/memory then in Origins if that was Solas? This is why I hated his character, he serves as the self-insert writer going "Nuh-uh! THIS is the true lore and you don't get to tell me otherwise" DA2 is where the problem began but Inquisition ruined the lore.

[@Vyndrall]

@@Artemisarrowzz I would say that in the same kind of writing collapse since DA2, we had Varric: the best friend you never asked to have, who literally has no personal goals other than to follow you, and who continually judges others by systematically placing himself on the right side of the fence. It has reached a point so caricatured that Varric's crossbow has more background than Varric himself. For Solas, it would have been interesting to discover that he is really faithful to the legends of the cunning manipulator described in DAO: the one who would have trapped elven gods less evil than he would have said, while making them pass for tyrants allowing him to rewrite the narrative while legitimizing his actions (power grab).

[@iro6758]

Just remember, every single time you ask, "Why would they change that?" The answer is: they couldn't handle the original IP _and_ they wanted to tell this story... I'm pretty sure that their failures are so great that the fault lies with *both* their parents and teachers.

[@spiderp-man1409]

On the point Isabela, I don't think I would've minded if the mentality shift was solely on her as a character, being a sign of Hawke rubbing off on her. But... that would mean the writers would be assuming you not only recruited her, but also she stuck by you due to having a high enough friendship or rivalry with her, which they seem to intent on avoiding. Also, in this case, they're using that mentality shift for the whole faction, not just Isabela. It's... odd to say the least.

[@АннаГубанова-ц1ш]

The concept itself is odd. If they give away culturally significant pieces (everything that has value) - what do they take? Air of old places? Dirt of old places? 😂

[@SidAlpha]

This is an exceptionally well done and well researched video. I will be recommending it to my viewers.

[@Maehedrose]

The problem with saying "Dragon Age ended with Origins" is that it ignores "Awakening" which is even darker than the base game. It also disrespects DA2 which greatly expanded upon Flemeth and basically defined the Qunari as a real threat in the world. DA2 was also quite dark - one of your friends potentially gives into blood magic and gets her clan killed, while your mother is murdered by a serial killer; not to mention what they did to poor Anders. The best part about DA2 was that it was mostly about 1 city and its dramas instead of making Hawke an overused 'chosen one' trope.

[@xavdeman]

Yeah, Dragon Age ended with Dragon Age 2 and its DLC or with Inquisition and its DLC (especially Trespasser).

[@zarddin]

People hated Dragon Age 2 at start because it was not like Dragon Age: Origins and Awakening but with time people started appreciating it more as it was only produced in a year but was still very grim and dark. Inquisition is where the Dragon Age universe starts to become boring for me.

[@leikeylosh]

I disagree, DA2 is still mediocre, was rushed into oblivion by the studio and that serial killer quest was terrible. The only good thing out of DA2 was the qunari design.

[@carolinedormant6798]

@@leikeylosh gameplay was mediocre but storytelling wise it was cohesive and engaging

[@dendrien]

anders can go F off! god i hated that mage so much and i still do. such a ' i can fix him ' narrative on top being fullblown crybaby 24/7 god im so glad he got killed off.

[@CachPWD]

I finished the game and I was only running on 10+years of memories of the original game and it was all so frustrating. Glad to see my instincts weren't wrong. I might do a video myself.

[@greschenglin-dz7wj]

Dragon Age Veilguard. The biggest ringing endorsement for AI I have ever seen.

[@mnopinion]

I bet you AI would’ve made a closer depiction to what we got in the failguard.

[@averagelok1959]

@@mnopinion a youtuber named sungrand studios who has a background in writing reviewed the dialogue and concluded that it failed at the basics of communication so badly that ai would have done better... so yes ai would have done better.

[@thatHARVguy]

@@averagelok1959 He used the "everyone chooses cake" scene for this.

[@thatHARVguy]

@@mnopinion Nuhre proved this to be true. She used AI prompts based on certain scenes and the results were way better. She should compile them as a video. DA: The AI-guard? 🤔

[@taddad2641]

and you don't think they didn't implement ai in its designing at all? people this incompetent?

[@evilcow666]

Doesnt dragon age 2 imply that the old gods are still alive. As corypheus prays to dumat and is granted power. Hawke can also do the same. So, how does that work with the new lore.

[@Ren_Davis0531]

Now it’s explained that the Evanuris still had a tether to their dragon thralls. So all the talk about the Old Gods speaking to their followers and priests were actually the Elven Gods speaking through them. Instead of Dumat leading Corypheus to the Fade, it was actually one of the Evanuris, presumably seeking a way out of the prison that Solas put them in alongside the Blight.

[@nananamamana3591]

I love how the Dragon Age lore, at its most expedient, can be summed up in accurate entirety both in universe, and in a meta contextual sense as; "The elves ruined everything."

[@krasmasov6852]

The Evanuris ruined everything. The elves were among their first victims.

[@MsSilentGaming]

You only need to see the concept art from a couple of years ago and compare it to the game that came out, someone deff said - i need this game to be my therapy session with cartoons and wiped the slate clean.

[@jeremypurdy1833]

I wonder how Nuhre is going to react when learning that the entirety of DAO, DA2 and Inquisition was written off as dead and blighted in Failguard in a few passing remarks. Also: Sten is likely dead as well. Therein bloodline is over with. And more. If she doesn't already know.

[@nuhre]

Oh, I know

[@jeremypurdy1833]

Oh, okay haha. I learned this the other day, and needless to say I'm kind of pissed. Not even just in the execution of this, learning in just a few short passing words, but in that the developers wrote off 3 entire games and tons of story. It now makes sense why those choices don't matter. They were never even considered or recognized. ​@@nuhre

[@jeremypurdy1833]

Also, i always assumed that the Blight came from the desecrated blood of the Titan that the Evanuris slew in pursuit of power, and that the Orb from Inquisition was what remains of that same Titan's heart. But that's my interpretation/ headcanon. As for the Void, i assumed this was something other than the Blight. Some primordial power that is in the extreme depths of the earth of Thedas. Perhaps something that the Titans are guardians or wardens of.

[@AN-yv8qi]

​@jeremypurdy1833 it's not just you, it was clearly more complex before they dumbed it down. I remember reading those long Nouvlesse theory posts on reddit and hoping we would get the answers finally and then....turd pie thrown in our faces for our patience and passion.

[@xavdeman]

​@@AN-yv8qiNouvlesse theory?

[@TubbyTank-54]

Veilguard also broke the Inquisition keep servers "mysteriously" after launch. You cant move world states anymore.

[@SeventhheavenDK]

Wtf?

[@SeventhheavenDK]

Is this true?

[@TubbyTank-54]

Yes. Since Nov.5, mostly on console people can't transfer world states and the golden nug doesn't work. Inqusition works and the keep works. However worlds state won't import in game and the golden nug if it shows says their are server problems.

[@SeventhheavenDK]

My god, yes, I have checked it. Wft? So, in PC is still working?

[@TubbyTank-54]

I can't check PC but from reports on forums, it seem PC has less issues.

[@macapaca951]

@4:40 This was explained in Inquisition's main story. High priests of the Old Gods breached the Fade and the Golden City, lured by whispers (hinted at being Old God's whispers, or members of the Evanuris speaking through them) and by doing so, released a fraction of the Taint into the waking world. By Veilguard's lore, this version of the Taint is weaker and less organized, needing the Archdemons influence and power to become a full Blight. The tainted lyrium in the Thaig is actually Solas' lyrium dagger, which is never explicitly said to have become corrupted for any particular reason, but I'd guess it was due to whatever ritual he did that created the Veil (and subsequently locked the Evanuris and blight away). The taint was technically already present in the time of the ancient elves. Solas and Mythal created it indirectly and it lingered in the depths of the Fade. There were already incursions of it happening, such as Andruil being corrupted by it, and then later on the Evanuris using it as a tool of war. The titans have become sundered from the Fade, and therefore have literally become tranquil. They have no thought of their own, the crazed and locked dreams of theres is what becomes the Blight. They have basically no power after Solas makes them tranquil, therefore they cannot control the Taint. The reason the Blight lingered in the depths of Fade (The Void) after the Titans sundering, was because that's where beings go to dream. In a world where there's no barrier between the Fade and the waking realm, it would make sense that the Fade is the place of the crazed Titan's dreams, the Taint, originated. We have never been given an idea of what the original Taint ACTUALLY looked like (like you said, was it physical? What did it look like before corrupting other creatures?) so I'm excited to see if they'll ever reveal any old concept art regarding it. The ritual that created the Veil was blood magic. Using the blood and life force of the Evanuris, he bound them to the Golden City. Solas is a damn liar when he says he abhors blood magic, just like when he talks about how making mages tranquil is horrendous. He's a major hypocrite lol. The Breach in Inquisition was an incomplete tear in the Fade. It breached the Fade, not the Golden/ Black City and therefore none of the Blight bled into the waking world. In Veilguard, Solas is literally tearing into the Black City to MOVE the Evanuris' prison. He's tearing into the Veil, yes, and plans to remove it entirely, but the main reason behind the ritual is to "safely" reconstruct a new prison for the Evanuris and the Blight. Rook and gang interrupting said ritual causes a sliver of the Evanuris' version of the Blight to leak out, as well as Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan who can control that version of the Blight. The reason Solas is so salty about Grey Wardens in Inquisition is because they kill Old God's; Archdemons. With each subsequent killing of an Archdemon and end of Blight, they are weakening the Veil. We never get told this explicitly, but you can read through the lines as to why Ghil and Elgar are the last two Evanuris (pst, there were five past Blights and five of the Evanuris are missing). This isn't bad lore, it's bad story telling on Veilguard's part. Fans have been theorising about this for over a decade, partly due to hints in the old games, but I will admit the execution in Veilguard is terrible and honestly, very disappointing. It's not a stretch to imagine that since it's been centuries since the Black City was breached, that the version of Darkspawn in Origins and Awakening are largely disconnected from the influence of the Evanuris and Old God's. It seems to me that the writing in Awakening was hinting at the Darkspawn evolving independently of the Blight and gaining intelligence and sentience. It's a shame they never brought back the Architect, as other Darkspawn factions rising up against the control of the Evanuris would've been awesome. Too bad they forgot about him and the other High Priests of the Old God's (except Corypheus of course). I will agree this is where Veilguard absolutely drops the ball. If they wanted us to believe this was the Blight to end all Blights, they should've brought back intelligent Darkspawn and the other factions. They handled Darkspawn terribly in this game, which says something when they're meant to be your main enemy/ threat for much of the game. None of this Lore is a rewrite. I replayed Origins, 2 and Inquisition recently, and a lot of it was hinted at (Read the codex! Always read the codex), especially in Origins. For the Old God's, they are themselves Thralls of the Evanuris. They were not simply High Dragons, they were changed into something greater through Evanuris influence. It's not hard to believe that the version of lore we get in Origins is twisted history that's largely been lost to time. The Tevinter Imperium did not know the beings they worshipped were Evanuris Thralls, but the Dragons were so powerful themselves that they were considered such. I think it's reflective of real life history, and how bits and pieces are forgotten for the larger ideas. It's a bit ironic too, that Tevinter unknowingly worshipped the Elves they thought below them.

[@bohboh5220]

I agree

[@badjohnnyisbad]

"Maybe they thought calling it the blight would spare them from ever having to use the words taint and spread in the same sentence" 😂

[@mister-x2]

I finished the game recently. I'm sad to announce Taash survived.

[@efxnews4776]

Oh no! 😢

[@KendaricV]

Is there no way to kill her at all?

[@andersfrieden567]

​@@KendaricVignore her questline

[@loonwar5231]

FYI if Traash dies you are locked into the bad ending where the game straight up tells you "you need more friendship".

[@andersfrieden567]

@@loonwar5231 as far as I am concerned - everybody dies is the best ending.

[@Kross415]

There's a cinematic after the game's ending credits ''implying'' the forgotten ones are behind everything that happened on DA from 1 to 4 since the betrayal at Ostagar in order to gain strength/weaken their enemies and break free thus setting the story for a sequel. I know, pretty bold to assume this was going to get a sequel 🤣

[@nuhre]

We don't talk about that

[@Kross415]

@@nuhre 🤣 Understandable

[@Logikalx01]

ah yes, the Jailer treatment

[@muronooo]

correction they are behind EVERYTHING since the blood mages that started the blights... I hate miss corinne and her writers and hope they never touch another IP again.

[@xavdeman]

​@@Logikalx01Jailer treatment?

[@ValadrielTheMad]

Valadriel The Mad Approves of this review. You clearly love this world as much as I do and was equally disappointed.

[@darkmirror21]

What's more insulting about this is that Patrick Weeks, or Trick Weeks as they go with now, was a veteran writer for ME and DA and was even the writer for Tresspasser who, for some wild reason, has clearly changed writing style and pretty much took this game by its reigns and made it into whatever the fuck we got and even had a self insert who acted so fucking creepy on the romance route that the kabedon scene looks like you're in front of a predator.

[@nuhre]

Patrick Weekes was only as good as the people he wrote with. He wrote Solas with David Gaider. Now that he's gone, he had to do all the heavy lifting himself, and it showed his lack of talent.

[@mattmark94]

@nuhre doesn't help that he has become a complete nutjob.

[@CRAM079]

I would rather Bioware be shutdown then let them continue to ruin the world's their older, more respectful devs worked tirelessly to create. The people who made DAv are not the same people who made DAO.

[@EcardEcardian]

Drag Age the Retcon Guard.

[@benjaminjane93]

I was immediately turned off from this when I first heard the dialogue. There is no problem doing things like contemporary english in a medieval fantasy in a general sense. Not every world has to sound like southern England. But I think when you start using overtly contemporary language like "So, totally" or "That's poggers, bro" or "Ok... that happened. Lame." It starts to destroy the immersion of the world because at that point you are injecting OUR world and OUR customs into the secondary world.

[@WolfJarl]

How did they manage to not only over-complicate, but make the lore even more nonsensical than Warcraft's? Even after this video I'm STILL confused what the connection was between the Titans and the Old Gods. In fact since Dragon Age: Inquisition the Titans were such a nonsensical addition that it feels like they just looked at Warcraft with its Titans and desperately wanted to compete by adding something from a completely different series to their own. They omitted Tevinter's use of slavery; "Because it's bad, m'kay. You shouldn't... You shouldn't have slaves, because it's bad, m'kay. Don't have slaves, because it's bad, m'kay." And that mentioning something bad in a fictional setting that isn't real would hurt people's fee-fees. That and no-one's allowed to be evil, since that'd also hurt people's fee-fees that everyone isn't nice. Like these people if writing for Baldur's Gate would try to turn the followers of Bane or Bhaal into nice guys. As in the god of tyranny and hatred and the god of murder respectively.

[@janisir4529]

Inquisition basically used the Titans to explain how lyrium came to be, and then left it there, and it basically asked more questions than answered. It kind of has a set up for a sequel vibe to it, set up something even more ancient than Solas, just in case they reveal too much in Dragon Age Dreadwolf, that we never got.

[@autumndev]

Thank you for making this. I was going insane playing veilguard. I kept thinking "This can't have been canon before, right??"

[@nuhre]

No problem!

[@docmacabre]

Also, if the Taint is the dreams of the titans, how can it infect their blood? In Inquisition, Bianca, the dwarf, not the crossbow, tells the Inquisitor that red lyrium is infected with the Blight. How did Ghilan'nain manage to change the Darkspawn into Dorkspawn so quickly? Now, if it had been established that time runs differently in the Lighthouse, similarly to Interstellar, fine. But it hasn't. It just looks as if you stay there for a day or two, and then return to the physical world. Why isn't Ghilan'nain using her Blight-controlling powers on the Wardens? They have Darkspawn blood in their system. Corypheus managed to trick the Wardens into hearing the Calling. You'd think "Ghilly" would be able to do far worse with her awesome powers! Then they tell us that you can only kill an Evanuris if their respective "old god" is slain first. Yet, somehow, all the other Evanuris died in Solas' prison because they apparently had been weakened after the death of their dragons? What happened to "the first of my people don't die so easily"? And the titans: in Inquisition, while in the Raw Fade, you come across a note, "Whispers Written in Red Lyrium", which suggests that the titans have "found their dreams again" (which is probably what they based their idea of tranquil titans on). If the titans found their dreams again, how come they're all dead or still tranquil in Veilguard? This is mentioned during Harding's quest, when she goes to visit those two Kal-Sharok dwarves. Also, if all titans were indeed tranquil, what about the one from the Trespasser DLC? The note also says "[...] We are sundered, We are crippled, We are polluted [...]" Sundered, crippled, polluted? Doesn't sound very tranquil to me! There is a Forgotten One that shows up in Veilguard, Anaris, but it makes no sense either. How did he break free? They weren't imprisoned with the Evanuris. If the tear in the Veil was what helped him get out, then why didn't he already do so in Inquisition? Never mind that they were said to have been locked away in the Void, as you mentioned. The Forgotten Ones, or rather, another one of them, Geldauran, also contradict the idea that the Evanuris (and the Forgotten Ones) once had been spirits. In Veilguard, Anaris doesn't have a corporeal form. Yet in Jaws of Hakkon, you find a codex entry, "Geldauran's Claim", which seems to have been left by Geldauran himself. It's been carved into stone. How would a spirit without physical form accomplish that? And if Anaris manages to free himself, then where is Geldauran, or the other ones?

[@АннаГубанова-ц1ш]

There is a side quest in Failguard about unnamed forgotten one getting himself a physical vessel out of a dalish elf. Through the blood magic ritual. Easy-peasy... Why waiting for thousands years thou? No answer 😅

[@docmacabre]

@@АннаГубанова-ц1ш Yeah, it makes zero sense and ignores established lore pertaining to the Forgotten Ones.

[@comradekitty3759]

10:23 we literally play a dark spawn general in one DLC. you act independent of the archdemon when it tells you to destroy something. you're basically a tainted smart being. HOW DID THEY BECOME SO DUMB.

[@ryanblack3686]

Isnt the archdemon whispering to you throughout the whole dlc?

[@petetrc9671]

If Bioware was serious, Veilguard should've resembled Dark Souls or Dragon's Dogma both in difficulty and character design. It would've been a more natural evolution from DA:O..

[@mdd4296]

Early alpha did attempt at more realism atleast for the warrior class: slower movement, clunkier animation, short sidestepping instead of generous rolling, You can still see the rot with the vfx spam and the drop kick though

[@PrimaItalia]

Fantastic video. The lore being ruined and the massive retocons is the biggest reason why I hate Veilguard. The franchise has been demystified and that was one of the major draws for me. Honestly, it reallyhas ruined the franchise for me so much that I do not think I can play Origins again...I hate this new Bioware so much for what they did to this franchise lore.

[@tljscrewjob6397]

Sorry to read that for you. Disney did the same thing with me, as well as Mark Hamill (Luke’s actor) with Star Wars. I can’t watch the Original Trilogy anymore. Luckily for me, I haven’t played Veilguard and am currently playing a human noble and just got to Ostagar.

[@andersfrieden567]

It's hard to erase something from a memory, but I pretend that Veilguard and the sequel trilogy of Star Wars are just bad fanfics, not a continuation of the story I loved.

[@gamingforever9121]

@@andersfrieden567they are bad fan fiction.

[@erikwilliams1562]

It's kinda like the Alien and Terminator series. After a certain point, I refuse to believe the later entries exist.

[@fl4shblade]

this is utter weakness, just compartmentalize. disney wars isn't star wars and failguard isn't dragon age.

[@borrow4654]

Thank you for making this CRUCIAL video. I wish we could go back in time to forget this game exists, and have it made by people who actually respect and understand dragon age. Youd think people who studied and are PAID for story telling would understand the established lore of an IP better than players and youtubers.

[@Eporubi]

OMG, Great video! Just yesterday I was discussing with a friend about everything you said in it. The way they approached heavy themes in The Veilguard (such as slavery, religious oppression, characters' religiosity, war, culture, etc) was so immature and inconsistent. These topics, which were explored so deeply since Origins, now seem treated in a shallow manner, falling short of the standard that the previous games established. Tevinter, in particular, was a major disappointment for me. It is as you said, since the first game we were introduced to this imperium as something radically different from what we know in the southern parts of Thedas. A place that, over centuries, appropriated elven culture, used slavery to raise its monuments, and magic to build a society where one’s hierarchical status is defined by arcane aptitude - in contrast with other regions, where prejudice against magic runs deep. It was supposed to be a highly elitist society marked by prejudice with the non magical, elves and the Qunari (because of the endless war with the Qun), and a nation where even spirits were expected to be enslaved. Minrathous, the capital, should have epitomized this oppressive reality, reflecting all these aspects. Fu**! Some of these aspects are present in Kirkwall in DA2, which, as a former Tevinter colony, conveys FAR MORE convincingly the essence of the Empire and its oppression. Even the architecture of the city is a tangible reflection of the brutality and history of slavery that shaped it, functioning effectively and immersively within the lore. IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR SOME RESPECT FOR THE LORE!? DARN IT! Sorry, got a little too heated there. Anyway, I feel the urge to discuss more, but this comment will become a bible if I do.

[@Snappybiscuits]

Andruil should have become the first broodmother. The void corrupted her and turned her into the tiddy tentacle monster. I feel like that would make sense as the first magisters I couldn't see creating them when they first turned into darkspawn. Andruil probably developed the way of creating broodmother.

[@bulat8362]

More likely Ghilan'nain was the one to come up with the idea. And she could've been the one to instruct the Magisters Sidereal how to create them.

[@Artemisarrowzz]

They never even explain how tf that happened. Why were Corypheus and the Architect both in the Deep Roads or trapped? Why did the Grey Wardens, who appeared centuries after, trap them? Where were they before, or if they got reborn as a random darkspawn, why could they do that? Why does interacting with the source of the Blight grant those powers and I am the only one who remembers that the Taint does come from the Magisters and they had already infected the sleeping Archdemons depp underground? How did they do that in the first place? WHY did they do that? Was the first broodmother also a Magister? Broodmothers need very specific steps to become one, how and when did the first darkspawn figure it out? What exactly was Corypheus doing before he was found out by the GW? Why did nobody mention the elven gods before even tho they had ample contact with elves, as slaves and supposed pillagers of their Empire? Why was is such a common knowledge that the Magisters had carried the Taint in the first place, if it took them 2 centuries to defeat the first Blight? And we KNOW the Magisters are real!

[@Snappybiscuits]

@Artemisarrowzz don't forget the difference between broodmothers. The mother looked different, but they never elaborate. Do they look different because the hosts are different races, or was the change in appearance being the architects magic. There are so many unanswered questions. All of which the TRUE DA community can give the best answers for. Not those tourist game developers.

[@Artemisarrowzz]

@@Snappybiscuits I think it was implied that they looked different because they were different species. However, the question remains: HOW were they created in the first place the og broodmothers. And did the Architect's magic made the human one look less horrible? Can they all have their minds back? What about normal darkspawn, can you make a splinter, non-evil faction? Do they gain souls then? What about the other Magisters, who we were told were on the Deep Roads, HOW and WHY are they there? Did they all lose their memories or are they like Corypheus? Well, shame we never got a game after Awakening lol

[@ryanblack3686]

​@@Artemisarrowzzprob just from magisters fucking a woman tbh

[@krisantusliang9595]

Man zefran tried to kill the only person actively trying to defeat the blight for coins, really shows how noble the crows are... and him switching side right after we beat him really shows how loyal the crows are... perfect representation of the crows Also remember about brood mother and the architect? well i think brood mother doesnt even exist now... Honestly... just stop revealing things... the first game was great... because there nuances where every faction/religion/culture/whatever has different views on things including how darkspawn came to be, but at the end of the day it was a mystery... it gave a lot of information but some of the information connects but some information contradicts eachothers... which leads to the player to come up with their own theories and that was fun... Also sometimes it is better to give new things rather than revealing the mysteries (especially if revealing things makes the world much smaller) For example remember there is this side mission where some lady warden was experimenting blood magic against darkspawn in some tower? (my warden invests on her research in the end btw).... she said blood magic was uniquely effective agains darkspawn, as if it is a new disease that a species has zero immunity against (at least in my memory its like that, its been a long time sinc i played the game).... one would imagine that a city filled with blood magic would do something interesting with it Also the monster that shifts between dimensions that was a dope quest as well... discovering new species like that was so much more fun (i also like discovering ancient civilisation in inquisition that actually have pretty deadly weapons... that was also pretty fun)

[@Oggre]

Felicidades Nuhre ! This is the (hard)work of someone truely in love and passionate by the franchise. I hope some writers at Bioware will humbly watch this video and learn how important it is to respect the lore established, not only for Dragon Age but also for Mass effect etc.

[@PleaseElaborate]

My thought at the thumbnail: "only 40m? Must be a speed run."

[@ThaliaQuinn-y7r]

I was about to say 'ah you have not seen the wolf-statue scenes yet', and then you came in like a wreckingball. Seriously thank you for this video, I thought I just had remembered some of the lore incorrectly, but no, it was just changed.

[@Nekradamus]

I liked the scene where Isabella was all like "it's barving time" and then she barved all over those guys.

[@TubeMage13]

This was a fantastic analysis. I really enjoyed watching it. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into it. This made me even sadder about Veilguard desecrating the rich setting and lore of DA. You touched a lot of the finer points in the lore that clash with what Veilguard presents. Knowing that it went through several cycles of development, including scrapping of earlier versions, it is noticeable that there are bits of lore in Veilguard that would have been serviceable if not for the inconsistencies and retcons made to the rest of the lore. The people who took over the leadership of the project clearly cared more about self-inserting themselves and representing their identity politics than creating a proper continuation for the story and lore built and presented by the previous games.

[@xLiloScaries]

It hurts still. We will never get the DA sequel we wanted.

[@gregorymifsud5389]

the artwork is insane. So good. Such a shock when it switches back to veilguard. Damn such a waste.

[@KisekiFan]

I can actually answer some of those questions, Its cause they are retconning everything from Origins to Inquisition to make way for Veilguard to be their new canon. In Veilguard when we meet with the Inquisitor he says that all of Ferelden save Red Cliff and Orlas has been destroyed by the blight, this is weird because the blight should have started by one of the Elven gods in Teventer all the way in the North yet the South is destroyed, there for everything and everyone from Origins to Inquisition is dead. Then in the secret ending i believe there are shadowy figures that claim to be the one responsible for everything from the Teventer mages entering the golden palace, to logain's betrayal and so on thereby making Veilguard the new canon and a reboot of the series now with modern day term, their new take on the Qun and non-binary languages.

[@Astralify]

15:54 "... single minded creatures, driven by the urge to corrupt and destroy"... I think that description fits perfectly with the current day western DEIvelopers. I would've been funny, if it wasn't also tragic, and in the case of our favorite franchises - painful. DA's lore is too big and intelligent to be worked on by any of the woke darkspawns in the industry, which is exactly why I dismissed the game once it was announced years ago. And oh boy, did it go soo much further with it's blight/filth, even the Babylon bee couldn't have imagine it to be soo in your face it hurts. Excellent video and presentation btw!

[@ChopinNuzlocke]

This game amplified a pet peeve I had with Inquisition, which felt like the writers were implying that everything important in Thedas was because of elves: the Tevinter Imperium was made from old elven ruins, the Veil was made by an elf, and is the reason why reality even exists, etc. Veilguard has taken that implication and claimed it as a fact: everything, from the Blight to Andraste, is because of elves. There's no mysticism, no potential in the existence of the Maker, nothing but elves. How boring.

[@Havoc10K]

As far as I remember the blight was meant by the Maker to be a punishment to the humans for entering the Black City. The tevinter magisters entered the Black City with Corynthias as their leader, what they wanted to see was to meet the Maker, what they found was an empty seat. Upon witnessing the empty seat most of the tevinter Mages accompanying Corynthias nearly instantly turned into darkspawn and attacked the Magisters. Then they heard a voice they identified as the voice of the Maker telling them that for trespassing on the Black City, Humanity will forever be punished with the Darkspawn taint, reflecting their vile nature and their willingness to sacrifice everything for more power than they deserve. Magic was always believed to be a gift from the Maker which Tevinter Mages abused, instead of harnessing and using magic in it's pure form, they twisted it with blood magic to empower themselves more, the very same magisters that tainted magic itself with their own blood, entered the Black City of the Maker. understandably, the Maker was not pleased, hence he did not show himself to them. With Dragon Age 2 and inquisition we also learned that when Corynthias entered the Black City, he didn't just enter the Throne Room uninvited, when he saw the throne of the Maker empty, he destroyed the throne itself and used blood magic to desecrate the hall in his anger. The Veilguard doesn't use the established lore properly, and what I suspect that happened was that someone made up some story while making the game, someone else confronted them about the contradictions, and they went like "who cares, this will be canon now", I mean, they are the developers, no one should dare question their decisions about lore. And this is where I share my opinion with several of my peers, I don't consider Veilguard as canon. I already didn't like Inquisition and nearly stopped playing it when I recruited Sera, the most annoying elf I ever encountered in any game. Dragon Age 2 was really hard for me to play because I personally fell in love with Bethany Hawke, meaning if I wanted to play with her being alive, I could not play as Mage, so I allowed myself 2 playthroughs as Mage only, one male and one female. In every playthrough I killed Anders because fuck him. Fenris was annoying enough as well so I killed him too, didn't need him to finish the game. I loved Dragon Age: Origins, despite it's flaws, it's an excellent game and I wish BioWare never simplified the combat. DA2 and Inquisition had vastly simplified combat systems, although with DA2 it was still very much entertaining, Inquisition was just badly designed and rushed.

[@mariamstaton2443]

Part of the beauty of Origins was that it left such things mysterious. We didn't have the concrete answers, we had the world's history, or, more accurately, Stories, which is the same word in my language. Even if they has done a good job with VD, any concrete answer to the mysteries of Thedas's history and mythology would have cheapened, deadened much of the world they created. "You want the Truth? No. . . Far better the lie." ---Flemeth

[@graye2799]

I'm pretty sure that inquisition says that corypheus found the black city already corrupted, and his line that says, "for ive have seen the throne of the gods, and it was empty" was clearly meant to imply there wasn't a maker there and it was something else.

[@bulat8362]

​@@graye2799Corypheus denies the Maker and doesn't acknowledge his existence. The "empty throne (which I believe to be a metaphor from the Chant of Light and shouldn't be taken literally) of gods" is about the Old Gods who Corypheus worshipped, and he alludes to them not being in the City as they (the Magisters) originally thought or even not being real.

[@aryess6807]

@@bulat8362 I always interpreted it as that the moment him and his fellow magisters touched/entered/teleported to the city it turned black. He says in his quote that it was already black not always black. I think people forget that the city was always visible in the fade no matter where you are. So at one point it should of been golden, why else would it be referred to as the "Golden" city it if was always black.

[@tubey84]

In Origins, the Blight is seen as a disaster for the entire world. In Veilguard, it's basically the set-up for a sitcom.

[@abeshonest]

Bought and replaying the og DA:O, its hard to believe how far Bioware has fallen. Thank you for the vid ❤

[@nuhre]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@john32505]

Girl, you overcooked Bioware with this!! 🔥

[@andersfrieden567]

Somehow they made it all about the elfs, pushing aside all the other divine beings, yet failed to nail the satisfactory resolution to their arc. Solas should have destroyed the Veil at least in one of the endings. Even in the supposed "bad ending" he fails to execute his plan. P.S. even though Origins is unmatched, DA2 and Inquisition still feel like Dragon Age games, unlike Veilguard which feels completely out of left field.

[@conorjames532]

Wow, great video. More proof of how lazily made the game is. Let us hope it is the last DA game because honestly VG just tainted the series completely.

[@awdrifter3394]

It's a blight on the series.

[@iankron8586]

Hey nuhre. Some things I wanted to clarify based on your points. 1) The Evanuris sustaining the veil with their lifeforce. They are immortal as long as their high dragon/archdemon is alive, so theoretically they could sustain the veil forever. The dragon age wiki also says that the other 5 Evanuris died in their prison in the fade sometime after their dragons were killed. 2)The reason high dragons/archdemons have the ability to ressurect and transfer bodies is because they are bound/tied to the Evanuris. Most likely the Gods have invested part of their souls into the creatures the same way Corypheus did with his red lyrium dragon, what we don't know is wether they used magic to bind themselves with the dragons or if they did it through the use of lyrium as Corypheus did. This is probably why Razikale's soul returns to Ghilan'nain after he is killed, because his soul is a part of her. (However it doesn't explain why it doesn't transfer to Davrin's body who is the one that kills the archdemon and who is the closest blighted creature in the vacinity) 3) I think the darkspawn follow the archdemons because they possess a higher intelligence. Similarly to how some follow the Architect because he is one of the darkdpawn that is capable of speaking so they consider him more powerful and choose to follow him. Personally I agree with you about the origin of the blight being wasted, as being a supernatural all consuming force straight out of the void adds so much more mystery. All other of your points I found very valid.

[@nuhre]

That makes it worse, actually

[@iankron8586]

​@@nuhreI agree. Nobody really comments on the fact that Davrin is alive after killing an archdemon. I think the whole idea to everything relating back to a common denominator, that being ancient elves really killed the lore potential. Also I've been wondering, it is heavily implied throughout the game that the maker doesn't exist but if that's the case who put the archdemons into the underground prisons after the breach of the golden city. It's clearly not Solas since he confesses to rook that he never expected the Evanuris to use the dragons to convince the magisters sidereal to breach the city. Any thoughts on this?

[@cttommy73]

That's not even how the Archdemons work in DAO. The explanation given is that the Archdemons, tainted old gods with a souls, as even Morrigan said, transfers across soluless darkspawns, hence their "immortality". It has absolutely jack all to do with Elves of any kind. And in order to kill them, a being tainted with a soul, must be the one to kill it so that it is absorbed into the body with a soul, and because 1 body can't have 2 tainted souls, they fight and the ensuring fight destroys the souls, hence the death of an Archdemon. Again, absolutely nothing to do with Elves. The retconned of everything being Elven made is so stupid.

[@noctoi]

Yeah... the Wiki is run by the Community Council members, and they were THERE when all these retcons were penned into the game. They HELPED and promoted the game with the Dev Team. I don't trust the Wiki further than I can toss it these days.

[@SomersetDrinker]

Templars take lyrium to give them their abilities. How did they not get tainted? Why is red lyrium tainted lyrium? Why did the magisters unleash the blight if the titans could do it all along? Why did BioWare hire a bunch of talentless narcissists? All questions that can be “answered” by pink news 😂

[@NovaG0]

Personally I'm okay with the Chantry being reduced to a lie but it needs to be written to make sense.

[@ateeshJ]

I can think of only one reason they could have f**ked up the lore to this degree is that there were only two Old Gods/Archdemons left and they wanted to milk the series beyond that and the writers were too incompetent to write something within the established lore.

[@patrickhickey4047]

The biggest issue I had with the sequels to Origins is that one of the main themes of Origins was something like this- "This is a fantasy world with all kinds of fantasy world problems. But the REAL problem is the blight. Everyone needs to get over themselves, get over their petty struggles for power, even get past the mundane horrors of living in a fantasy world, and ally to combat the blight. Or we all die." The whole point is that the blight matters more than the rest of it. It matters more than the mages and their detractors. It matters more than the elves' problems. It matters more than the dangers of the fade. Those are all real. But the blight is the biggest problem. From there, the rest of the plot flowed. Ok, so the blight is really important. Why isn't there a well organized response to it? Because it only shows up every few generations, and people forget. Plus you have to [giant spoilers here] to end a blight, and it's hard to get volunteers for that. So instead there's this secret order that technically has all this power to conscript people and run things when there's a blight. But this doesn't work well because by the time a blight rolls around, people forget why all of this matters. So... the problem with the sequels is that once you've made this your premise, every threat you can set up in a sequel either feels repetitive (another blight?), or lower stakes than Origins (one of the threats Origins said wasn't that big of a deal in the face of a blight), or like it undercuts the blight (one of the threats Origins said wasn't a big deal, escalated to world ending levels). I don't think they ever figured out how to write around this issue. I'm not sure it can be done.

[@assassinb460]

It could have been done with the Inquisitor, though. If it were made like Origins. Where you select this unknown person that becomes important in stopping the greed of the ancient blighted Magisters, like Cory and the Architect. I would rather have those old magisters be the villains a thousand times than the stupid Evanuris. It made me hate the elves. And I always played elf. Veilguard just makes the in-world prejudice against elves being justified, and it ironically made the Chantry being right, too. I also dislike how the Blight turns out to be the fault of one person, Solas. He is basically an elven Anders. I killed Anders, and NuBioware doesn't let me kill Solas. So I killed all their new characters. They don't get to live if all my choices in previous games get to die. This was the last time I bought anything from that company. 😅😅😅

[@captainmurphy4948]

Honestly I think a less high-stakes sequel can work if it makes sense in-universe. I think Awakening and some of the other Origins DLC was trying to set that up, where the emphasis shifted from combating the blight to trying to figure out exactly what it is, how it can be controlled, the relation of the blight to blood magic and normal magic and so on, all to avoid the next two blights, or at least mitigate them. Back in the day I think Bioware could have pulled something like that off, and looking at ME1 and ME2 they kind of did (well, until the last ME2 DLC when it's back to stopping the reaper invasion completely). Nowadays, no.

[@TheLewisDawg]

Hi, Nuhre. Just wanted to say that it's lovely to see a calmer, more contemplative video from you once in a while. I know most people watch you for your fiery gamer rage, but don't let that discourage you from doing these level-headed, in-depth examinations. I enjoyed this one a lot, and I'm sure many people feel the same way. (that said, I realize that videos of this format take a lot of work, so obviously they can't be too frequent) As for the content of the video, Veilguard truly seems to be the perfect illustration of what extreme political correctness does to creativity. So many things are now taboo. "Slavery" has become a feared word in the US, so no actual slavery can be shown. "Piracy" seems to be associated purely with "personal freedom", so it has to be inherently good (the One Piece school of thought 😄). "Child slave assassins" are just such a sad thing to think about. And from what I've seen, it's just no longer possible to take any stance on anything. Extremes are bad, so everything is just softened, smoothed, defanged... because if you do an immoral or cruelly pragmatic thing in a videogame, OBVIOUSLY you're just itching to do it in real life too. I'm beginning to understand the people who say Veilguard is aimed at children for the purpose of indoctrination.