Remember how the whole point of DA2 was that trying to find "somebody to blame" for everything that went wrong at Kirkwall was a foolish endeavor, and that everything that went wrong was the result of everybody's own mistakes and flaws catching up to them, and that usually problems don't have a main "villain" that needs to be beaten? I wish Bioware remembered.
Dai had probably the most important decision in the series midway through the game, where you either save the rebel mages or templars. So many different interesting ways they could’ve explored the ramifications of that, now gone, because the new writers have no clue about the setting they’ve taken over
Logain alive in Inquisition: "Oh Inquisitior I forgot to mention this shadowy group that manipulated me while I was ruling Ferelden! You might want to watch out for those guys in future."
I preferred my idea that Logain was pragmatic and intelligent and knew what he was doing. Made for a fine grey warden imo. Pls don't take this away from me.. sigh.
@@Brakka86 Even Solas says that Loghain's actions were complicated. Was it selfish treason? or a pragmatic strategist refusing to throw lives into a lost battle? If Solas can't notice these shadowy hooded men, then he's a terrible trickster. None of this makes sense.
Sadly, this is the same old nonsense modern writers of legacy franchises always pull: insert their new antagonists who are secretly behind everything that's happened before, all so they can claim that their Bad Guys are better-er-er than the OG writers. Same crap happened over in Warcraft with The Jailer.
The crucial point is the tradition of DA games afterward telling EACH player, from Zevran killing me to Zevran banging folks, that our choices were meaningless, and only make us another lackey in the next sequel.
@@Derhone Nah that shit was cool as hell... the expansions when they started making women mode dominant was when they dug their grave. SWTOR now is girl bosses.
No, the real Executors sit much higher. If you want to track them down - look at the top shareholders' charts in all those companies, the same names as the ones of Microsoft, Sony, Disney etc. And every other company in US bigger than a mom-and-dad store. They are the ones pushing ESG/DEI, Why? Because consolidation. They are creating monopolies. EA/Bioware go belly up, get purchased for a change by either MS or Sony (or maybe even Disney, who knows, they wanted their games division for long) and now DA, Mass Effect etc are in the hands of a large corporation. No one will allow an established franchise to just go missing. There will be more DA/ME games every couple of years then.
Hallmark of a terrible writer, in order to to show the significance of his own work he has to reduce and defile the existing lore. Like in the first season of Loki where people were using infinity stones as paperweight to demonstrate whatever calamity that had befallen the universe pales in comparison to what we are going to do!
I tried warning people. Nobody bloody listens. We are still living in the clown dimension. Our original normal world was gobbled up by it when the crazies from the other dimension came out of their world to ours. The only way to unf*ck it up is to deny this world by changing it back. That requires waking up the zombie hordes and getting them back to human status by waking them up frtom hypnotic mind-controlled state and finally winning the war. Then close the portal and keep the clown dimension contained with the seal so they never escape from their dimension again. (ie defund these people from ever working in the game industry again - they do this stuff on purpose to ruin our fun) If you bought this game I feel sorry for you. Just buy from companies that care about customers. It's not rocket science people. Stop bowing down to IP and franchise. Judge games based on their individual merit and quality. What they did to Saints Row they also did to Dragon Age and they are breeding and growing in numbers. Get over it. If we defund them then we limit the spread. My hope is the whole franchise is rebooted with Larian contracted to handle the games. EA hands them a big amount of money and starts to reboot from the end of Dragon Age Origins. (like redo everything from DA 2 and onwards)
Didn't you know? The ogre that killed Duncan did it on orders from the evil theodosian illuminati 😎We'll get to avenge him in the next game for sure, since Loghain obviously now wasn't to blame for his death after all
It's over. DA is over. I knew the ending for some time now, and still can't accept it. It takes all previous games, and shits on them. Devalue everything that was happening. Now we're in Marvel vs Iluminati.
I once had the theory that poo, or at least the smell of allure it may have for gay, is not MEANT devaluing, but instead tempting, seducing. Still, only Davy Gaydor will ever know for sure.
As if the game didn't invalidate the previous entries enough already with the characters having amnesia regarding their past, this reaches a new level of stupid and insulting.
No it'd be way worse than that. They'd probably make some shit saying the reapers somehow manipulated the Leviathans into making the reapers even tho the reapers didn't exist yet.
Jup and instead of at least a cinematic, it's just brought to you by the inquisitor saying it. It was Morrigan porting him in, why not take the HOF?! Oh no, they had to redcon that too...
@@TheDarkRaven Well since all the archdemons are dead now and there are no more blights. Doesn't that also mean the Wardens are "set free"? Or is the taint, still the taint?
This is what these people do. They had nothing to do with Origins, but they insert themselves "Well actually, it was OUR villains that were the true masterminds, those villains you liked were just errand boys and didn't actually do anything themselves!"
Its more like they have to sequel bait because Bioware lives off its IP's Mass Effect and Dragon Age at this point. DA:I already killed off alot of the pre-existing plothooks, DA:V resolved the rest and now they have to invent something new to have content for the next game.
@@shizachan8421 See that sounds a little silly to me, because presumably a new Dragon Age game can always just bring up another Archdemon to lead a new Darkspawn invasion to center a game around, but nah, they've written themselves in a corner by apparently killing off all the remaining Archdemons in one game in favour of some esoteric "the true threat" that didn't exist before the last two games.
@@Tarquin47 Didn't they already kill off the Archdemons in DA:I too? Like, they really burried the Dark Spawn threat a long time ago. But generally, it is kinda what you have with series which feel the need to continue but don't really have any direction to go, we get an ever growing escalation of true villains. Like come on, the Elven Gods plot in DA:I was already an asspull as well. So far the game looks like it could be the most fun in terms of gameplay since DAO though.
@@shizachan8421 Apparently not because Veilguard has two more Archdemons and another blight, but it seems to be handwaved as just a thing that happens, though they kill them off in the same game, I really can't agree it was buried a long time ago when Origins was just stopping one Archdemon out of many and they might as well have not existed in 2 or Inquisition, they should still have been a massive threat even off screen or for future generations. I agree on the constant new villains though. If I had the choice, I would focus every Dragon Age around a Blight, but it would be a vessel for deuteragonists and secondary antagonists to appear that hamper the player or somehow aid the Darkspawn. So far everything else in the setting isn't interesting enough to me to carry it's plot on it's own.
@@Tarquin47 I could have sworn that the corrupted Grey Wardens already killed the Archdemons in Inquisition, but I think that just tells us how much of an afterthought that plotline became, doesn't it? In this regard I think viewing Veilguard as this big outlier that breaks the series is kind of delusional. It just follows trends that started with DA2, even though I consider it the best Dragon Age in terms of Story and Companions (the worst in terms of gameplay though. Like, Veilguard as it looks right now can't be worse than DA2). Veilguard so far just looks very much like a Dragon Age Inquisition 2.
What a disgrace. Not only do they fail at making their own thing with this mess of a game, they HAVE to retroactively ruin the stories written by their betters. Any schmuck could come up with something better. Where do I have to sign up to become a writer?
The idea that a shadowy organization orchestrated the most insignificant events in Thedas throughout the millennia without any specific purpose is stupid beyond belief. The story of Thedas did not need a great shadow master to be good. They are burning everything that made DA an interesting universe, and soon I predict that the main storyline of Mass Effect will be about "the infinite powers that hid behind the reapers". These people have seriously abused our benefit of the doubt and our patience. It is time to fire these clowns who write the dialogue, characters and stories at Bioware.
Origins explored the topics of personal choices and responsibility a lot: - Alistair's arc is all about taking your life into your own hands, owning your actions, growing out of caregiver relationships (Eamond, Duncan, Goldanna) and standing on your own. - Logain was about making sacrifices for what you believe to be right, and then atoning for your actions, paying the ultimate price. - Leliana was about the will and power to turn your life around even when it's in complete ruin. Showing that, if you have enough personal strength, you can climb out of the gutter to glory. - Ogren was similar to her in that regard: coming a long way from a desperate drunk to a grey warden and a father. - Wynn and Sten were the embodiments of personal responsibility, putting their principals and beliefs above their own lives. It's heartwarming to see that none of that mattered. They have all fallen now, and their actions and sacrifices have bought Ferelden an extra decade of existence at best. Everything was predetermined by some shadow society. The whole Alistair/Logain/Duncan/Grey Wardens arc was less significant in the end than weather or not The Inquisitor bedded Solas. And as our favorite "unimportant" heroes die off screen, we are shown that not only their deaths but their lives didn't matter at all. Thank you, failguard
This sort of cheesy end-credits scene that diminishes everything that came before but teases a big next installment just seems like another facet of Marvelization
Oh you found it! Totally agree. It feels cheap, it feels like a cop out, and it honestly feels like a bit of an Eff-you to everyone they called "tourists" leading up to the release of "the" veilguard. Kind of like they made it abundantly clear that OG DA:O players weren't the target market, then made sure we knew they didn't want or need us, and if we happened to reach the 'secret ending' they had to get that last kick to the balls in before we walk out the door for good. I hate it. It's as cheesy and cheap as the rest of the game.
Original DA:O players have been burned since DA2 mate, everyone who makes a gender studies joke is a tourist. DA2 had a good story, but the game itself was otherwise total shit. Worse gameplay, recycled maps and the games story was effectively unfinished and quickly wrapped up. DA:I already started with being an immense disconnect from what was set up before.
@@shizachan8421i didn't have a problem with da 2 personally. I had issues with it, like you mention but it was still a dragon age game. The characters well written, good dialouge, good story, it was still dark fantasy and respected the lore. In a story driven game those are most important to me. So as long as the gameplay is halfway decent ill live with it if the story and writing is good.
@@EM-vw7im The gameplay was really, really shit though, the story and the companions were the best. Tbh, I've seen a page from the DA:V Artbook and for me it looks like kind of just doing the wrong call. It seems like the original plan was to have more of a villain party who have to work together to stop a greater threat to the world and they considered returning Calpernia as a Companion, so its not like the team wasn't cooking up something, just then they replaced a fine meal with Mac'n'cheese. Seems like they went all wholesome more because they wanted to go found family instead, which for me is weird because I thin the best found family dynamics are in groups which start off utterly dysfunctional.
I'm convinced the reason defenders of this game don't have as much of an issue with the writing is because they're spending more time defending the game on social media than they are actually playing it.
If true this basically invalidates the entire Origins, Loghain wasn't between duty, survival, and greed at Ostrigar facing a overwhelming numbers of darkspawn army, no he was a puppet of the Illuminati, it reduces so many stories and characters to "Illuminati done did it"
The vibe executors gave in Inquisition was more of a neutral group that is just observing and not quite yet planning to do anything in Thedas. It was explicitly said by them Corypheus is a threat to them even though in this ending Corypheus was manipulated by them as well? I thought it was Solas manipulating him in the first place?
Adding some external group or entity cheapens Loghain's character, he had his own motivations, his hate for Orlais affected his judgement. No need to have someone "guiding" him. I also don't like how even Bartrand was influenced by this mysterious group, so what happened to Hawke wasn't entirely a coincidence. Some stories were fine on their own, there was no need to introduce some "cosmic" scale to them.
I don't even get why they needed to influence Bartrand. His betrayal isn't important to the events of Kirkwall, Hawke would get out of the deep roads and get rich and the red lyrium would reach the surface no matter if he locked Hawke inside or not, that's why he's dealt with in a companion side quest.
This is postmodern writing. It isn't enough to think you can do better with the material. You have to destroy everything else to prove how awesome and creative you are.
Era of a "tradition" is a long gone paradigm in western world. Just follow the works of your existing writers/devs who are still able to give to us a really captivating, fulfilling storytelling
I am still waiting for someone from BioWare to come out and say "Gotcha! This was all a prank! Here is the ACTUAL Dragon Age 4!" We did our waiting, 10 years of it, and this is our "reward"...? Dragon Age is dead.
It metaphorically is dead... It's called the dragon age because of the dragons... Archdemons being the most powerful of all dragons... The game ends and tells you, no more blights... So literally the Dragon Age is over... 1) New ages are determined by world altering events so: 2) There has never been an age with more than 1 blight 3)The veilguard ends all blights forever. The blight is 1200 years old!!!! Even older than Andraste and Justinia. 4) Naming an age after finally seeing dragons again for a long time and then killing the most powerful dragons forever sure sounds as a good way to end the dragon age... 5) We not only ended all blights, we did it by defeating a double blight... Never happened before in the histories... The Dragon Age is OVER. Ending the blights is more than warranting enough for a new age to be formed (when the time is right)
@@wooxi_ In Thedas (the world the game takes place in) every 100 years is classified as an age or era. Each age is named for a significant event that occurred at it's beginning or at the end of the previous age. In this case, dragons had long been thought extinct and one emerged from nowhere during a major battle somewhere. So, the powers that be in Thedas name the coming age the Dragon Age. Hence, the game being titled Dragon Age. Archdemons are dragons, the most powerful of all. They are dead and will never come back, just like the blights. The Dragon Age is over...
@@wooxi_ Yes it is... It specifically says that big significant happenings influence when a new age takes place. Ending all blights for eternity sounds a bit significant doesn't it? Not to mention that the Dragon age was already going on in dragon age 1 and Veilguard already happens 10 years after inquisition... 1) At least 40 year have passed through the games and the dragon age was already happening for decades... 2) All archdemons have been defeated 3) Blights which have plagued the entire continent for several ages have ended... 4) Significant occurrences and situations affect when an age ends or happens. I think all of the above are more than enough to warrant a new age... And yes very simply. Ending a 1200 plague surely warrants that.... 5) There was never 1 age that had more than one blight. The Dragon Age has/had 3... The last and blightiest of all the blights. Ending all blights surely ends the last age... No archdemons = no blights = no more "Dragon Age"... Very simple smoothbrain. You can "lol" and hahaha as much as you want. You have provided 0 evidence to provide the contrary.
8:27 Sounds like you had a lot of expectations for a puppet dev team that's attempting to completely dismantle the lore, tone, and setting of a story that you used to love.
The irony of a outside force guiding the plot and story is hilarious, since their studio was definitely guided by outside forces to make the game DEI, so they can get that sweet blackrock money.
I don't understand why there was a need for an 'end'. Just leave some stuff shrouded in mystery, mystery is cool. Why did some characters do things? Power. Madness. Exploration. Curiosity. Take your pick, it's just something that happened in a big, living world, and that's cool.
@@sideburngthepeacebringer27 Yeah I always hated what they did with the Reapers. We are beyond your comprehension... also here's everything detail about our comprehendible origin.
Always amazing when writers decide to retcon the events of a whole series as being orchestrated by a shadowy unseen force, undermining the significance and agency of the preestablished villain's actions.
At this point I’d be glad for the series to end and never get picked back up. If it means these people can stop damaging the series and its characters.
The reason they needed these illuminati is that they know their writing is subpar, they know their ability to understand or connect with the IP and its fans is nonexistent, and so they must find the most contrived way to connect the future game with the old games, so they can keep tugging on people’s nostalgia. Nostalgia is all they have left. Of this game released without the DA brand name, how do you predict it would have done? There’s your answer.
Wow... when I thought it couldn't get worse, they actively flame the old games and lore... you know, the people who actually put thought into writing a good story, characters and dialogue... ffs. Unless they are going to remove this nonesense the game goes from the 'might buy for 5 euro' to the 'not going to touch this with a 5 foot pole, ever' pile.
lol, they tried the similar thing in WOW, retconning everything people loved about the lore, creating one mysterious, super intelligent, behind the scenes master manipulator, playing 4D chess. Now everyone pretends that expansion never existed XD
Dragon Age was compelling because of complex character motivations shaped by a flawed world. Now it's black and white morality as determined by the HR board. There's a right way to do black and white morality, dont get me wrong... But it can't be done by a HR board.
The current bioware devs show complete contempt for the devs and players of the previous games, I cant wait for the studio to be closed, should have happened after Anthem or Andromeda
@@smithynoir9980 Yeah, thats where my head is at too. Just sit back and watch these companies burn cash producing failure and failure. As someone who is a big fan of NFL football, I've boycotted the Madden franchise for well over a decade due to its terrible gameplay and lack of franchise features, all the while milking fans with their microtransactions. Let the next MA burn another 200+ million, and ruin another franchise I love, I'll just enjoy watching the true fans roast it like Dragon Age.
@drzerogi Heck yeah! I get stuck in the mud of it sometimes, but ultimately, your attitude is the best way to go about it. I remember playing the NFL games as a kid with my Dad, it's sad to see them just do another same-same Madden title every year or two, there's so much untapped potential there for both gamers and fans of the sport. May they keep losing money and fingers crossed it gets placed in more caring hands one day.
non conspiracys aside. Are we really surprised that the people hired to replace those who made dragon age great in the first place. Could not replicate or exceed the work of greater men?
This is lame because Dragon Age was more realistic about its politics. It's not just one group ruling the world and spinning everything. That's boring.
I shouldn't have watched the endings but i'm glad i did. I'm am so disappointed in Bioware/EA after BG3 i held out hope that this game would rise to new highs and to see it hung so low just sadness me. Thanks for the great video once again
All of Origins happened and Thedas was saved just because Flemeth saved the last wardens by sheer chance. Loghain and his illuminati friends would have doomed the world.
Well, if the Illuminati are the ones who tempted the magisters into entering the Fade and unleashing the Blight in the first place, maybe that was their plan. Still dumb as hell to introduce some shadowy cabal of world ending cartoon villains that remove the agency of every previous antagonist though.
That's true, cause even if they somehow knew Flemeth was Mythal. They couldn't have expected her to save anyone especially the ones who would save Ferelden.
Much like what they did with Mass Effect in Andromeda. Introducing another bigger big bad that just, falls absolutely flat, but even Andromeda didn't retcon the agency and choices of the previous games to this degree.
Because at least with Andromeda they had the foresight to at least remove it from any meaningful connection to the other games. Freeing them to try their own thing.
looks like the same story all the franchises that get worn as skin suits do, LOTR, Star Wars, Star Trek Discovery, just corrupting the original vastly more superior lore.
This stuff is so dumb, it's like the TVA in Marvel. It just goes back and makes it so every interesting character, who seemingly had motives based on their own personalities and experiences, was just a pawn. Everything they did was pre-ordained by some higher power. Forget their pasts, their traumas, nope some shadowy organization was pulling the strings. F that. These writers should be writing crossword puzzles on the back of children's cereal boxes.
So 4 games in they reveal every evil plan ever was the result of one faceless group of vague villain's with no clear plan or presence in the story, yet they are made out to be the most important faction with in the entire story. Narratively this is conspiratorial equivalent of the "It was all a dream" ending.
The Executors are basically Dragon Age’s version of “Palpatine’s behind it all” If Bioware wanted a big bad of the series, Veilguard missed that opportunity with the Dreadwolf, a morally complex character whose motivations are more understandable than “hahaha I’m evil” like Corypheus and the Evanuris. Instead they sidelined Solas for more one dimensional cartoon villains Solas’ character makes more sense as a puppet master figure rather than the Illuminati. It’s a little late to introduce a series big bad 4 games in that were basically retconned into “We were there the whole time.” It feels unearned. Dreadwolf earned that writing possibly but Bioware sidelined him.
@@enzomax2553 Its not even an issue of cultural war, the game is just terrible. You don't have the freedom to be an asshole or an antihero. There's no cultural or religious weight in the races, something super characteristic in Origins, 2 or even Inquisition. The big bad is just Corypheus 2.0 with a worse design. Everything cool about the lore is just "oh yeah, the elven gods made it.". Its a disgrace.
@@perseusveil9376 Just so, which makes supporting this game all the more baffling... unless their supporters are no better than yes-men that conflate identity politics with blind fanaticism.
@@perseusveil9376 100% agreed. And honestly, I think one of the greatest achivements Veilguard has managed, is to make even such a terribly lousy antagonist like Corypheus look good in comparison to Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan. Corypheus is atleast conceptually interesting (being one of the Tevinter magisters that broke into the golden city), has a great VA, and some of his dialogue is really good. Inquisiton atleast also tries to make parallels with him and the inquisitor. All taken together resulting in that Corypheus has a certain level of gravitas, if not necessarily depth at the end of the day. But the same can't really be said for Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan. Their dialogue wouldn't be out of place in Care Bears. Ghilan'nain has a cool design, but that's where it ends. Everything about them is shallow, and Veilguard even makes old elf lore, the genuinely good stuff from the previous games, come off as incredibly boring and basic in-game to sell G&E as villains. Know I'm not alone in considering Inquisition to have been a "not-amazing but serviceable" Dragon Age game, but jc do I miss it now.
That makes sense. As to why Logain survived not only the Landsmeet, not only the 5th blight but also the trip to the fade. it was the Illuminaty the whole time !!!!!
Retconning the entire lore of the franchise at the end of the 4th game is just the icing on the cake of ineptitude that these dime store writers served to us. It's all one big joke at this point. Why though? I get the idea that you may not be comfortable trying to expand the lore of more competent artists' previous world building but I think it goes beyond that because when you consider seriously the massive financial loss this will/should impart on BioWare and EA which ultimately won't matter because these companies seem to have no qualms about spending uncouth amounts of money to do shit like this all in service to THE AGENDA
Especially when we can make Logain into a warden, and like you said what they had to gain from blight winning over if its for some grand shadowy generational scheme then I don't like it, its too much, it reminds me of the bloat that Marvel comics have where everyone died, was revived became a god or a villain atleast once.
I think the saddest element to this is, there's still the mysteries of where the Humans and the Qunari came from. This game could have just wrapped up the mysteries of the elves and dwarves and still had places to take us, across the ocean, north beyond the death jungle, and west over the impassable mountains. They didn't have to do this, but they're not good writers.
From all the gameplay videos and cutscenes, discussions etc I've consumed outside of playing the game myself as I absolutely refuse to contribute money to this game, it looks like this: The current Dragon Age universe is like a ship that has crashed into an iceberg and is sinking. And the creators of Veilguard purposefully pre-emptively cut away the lifeboats that represented the history of the previous games, the players' collective actions that contributed to the various potential states of the story, character designs etc. And they're like, "well the only way we're all gonna see this universe through is if you get on OUR lifeboat."
The Hero of Ferelden, discovering this somehow. "Huh... these guys somehow keep betting on losers... you'd think they'd hit a winner at least once." *The real Morrigan, resting her chin in her palm, wearily, as she looks at the situation.* "Indeed... and Mother would have definitely discovered them one way or another."
from "people are complicated and sometimes do shitty things" to.... this. everytime I start to soften, and maybe think about giving the game a chance... something more comes out.
The whole thing is just sad. Just want to hold onto what came before and forget this game exists. That is my plan at least. Thanks for playing it and sharing your take. I'm never going to play it.
i love that they put in a secret ending hinting at a new game when we all know full well sales under 100,000 combined on all platforms is basically the death-knell for bioware
It's probably way more than 100 000. Not everyone who has the game will play at the same time on Steam, so really you might get 200 000 sales just there and the currently playing number could still be under 100 000 as it is. Still, this game would have to sell millions and millions.
The sales aren't that catastrophic and, given the built-in following of para socially invested fans that are willing to take the bare minimum so long as the game is published under their brand, that was never going to happen. It'll take a few months to see how well it's truly done but I'm expecting similar numbers to Andromeda. Which isn't great but would be profitable enough to keep the lights on at Bioware so we can do this whole drama at least once more.
@@ttubebaby absolutely no chance this is profitable. An AAA studio running for the last 10 years? They need $250M, minimum, to break even. Probably more, with marketing and so forth. They're not getting that off maybe a couple of million sales if they're VERY lucky, at the most optimistic estimate. No chance.
Love the way you still emphasize the awkward "the" in "DA: the V". XD I've been comparing this "DA" reboot to how they re-rebooted Doctor Who, but that end scene now clearly seals the deal as the same thing. They introduced a way for alllll the decades of Doctor Who- every Doctor of the 12- to now be placed on a single platter and dismissed in favor of new lore... as the franchise itself went to shyte. I suppose they did that w the "time change" element in the Abrams Star Trek movies as well, but at least that had a very definitive breaking point of a point in time that allowed a portion of the lore to remain unscathed rather than the Doctor Who and Veilguard one which undermines the lore of the entire franchise, pulling the rug out from under it all. Not surprised that they appeared in one of the more recent novels... where all the new "veil jumper" type factions and retrofitted wardens came from. It's not just a "lack of creativity" that makes it a crap artistic decision. I mean, it is that- big time- but it's more a matter of them trying to take credit for everything that the original dev team did, the original lore development that they largely erased by removing all player-choice content, all to get their amateurish fumbling mitts onto everything as if to say it was THEIR idea and link it to their OWN reboot's contrived plot. They couldn't even be trusted to leave it alone, but had to trash it as just everyone not knowing who the real enemies were all along in Ferelden, Kirkwall, and across the Inquisitor's journey. As you said- no agency for ANYone- not the villains, not the protagonists (not even Rook), no struggle involved since it was all pre-destined or crafted by someone else (the new dev team...) So all the elements of chance, all the swings of fortune built into any great struggle where things could've gone one way or another, the precipice battles and decisive victories- all now melted down into the concept of a plan of a whim of the Illuminati. Just say, "Gaider sucked and we're way better." The implication is clear enough... There's a curious phrase at the ending of Veilguard where Rook says, "And we will always be grateful to those whose stories brought us where we are today..." Putting aside that it would be "whose stories brought us TO where we are today", it just demonstrated that they actually think they've shown gratitude to the dev team that handed them all that fantastic lore for them to squander and selectively ignore and besmirch... and now make irrelevant. "So, now that we've established that we're the new dev team around here, thanks and all, but the franchise so far has merely been the stepping stone we needed and we are soooo movin' on..." The phrase that follows the "gratitude" statement was, "And those whose stories will live on forever," showing presumably Varric in the distance as something already now "in the past", memorialized but being left behind. It just straight up patronizes both the players and former devs while insisting on being taken seriously as the new franchise leadership... before playing the Illuminati sequence that demonstrates one of so many reasons exactly why they never can be...
My feelings exactly, and I also noticed this weird „thank you” phrase in the ending, with Morrigan wandering off. It was like „yeah, you got your cameos but they won’t be returning”, then credits, and then this Executor thing in the end as a final blow. I’m a lore nerd for Dragon Age, I’ve been waiting patiently for ten years, going through all the additional media. The tonal shift was visible already in „Tevinter Nights”, an extremely uneven anthology, and in the Netflix series, but I thought that it may lead to some creative resolutions to the long-open plot points. What I got was DA: The V, a story of angsty teens with a journaling obsession, where major lore (including stories from recent media produced under the auspices of the same team that directed DA:theV) was handwaved, and everything concluded with a clear statement that none of the characters in Thedas ever had any agency in anything, and that the new team responsible for the franchise won’t hesitate to bury all the past stories to impose their own ideas while being carried on by a (still relatively) strong gaming brand Dragon Age is.
@@michapietrusinski4892 Wow, you managed to endure their literature? I admit I only bought Gaider's early DA books recently (to get more DA from when it was DA), but the newer Weekes-connected crap is what they deferred to for Veilguard- "Veil Jumpers" and the other new factions. No way I'd read it now given the demonstrative attitude of "yeah, this is the new lore, so you can forget that past crap from Gaider." So I'm reading Stolen Throne... XD
@@bhryaen3743 I enjoyed Gaider books, they were actually more mature narratively than the games themselves. Even "The Masked Empire" was quite alright, despite the common writing pitfall -- many characters speak in the same way despite being characterised as members of different races and social backgrounds. "Tevinter Nights", which is for some reason quite praised, has maybe two-three great stories ("The Horror of Hormak" is what actually gave me hopes for deep, dirty, brutal lore drops in Veilguard), and "The Last Flight", to which Davrin's quest is a direct, unnecessary tie-in, reads like a spin-off and also a farewell letter to the Circles and Templars.
At this point I am fully convinced, that the “modern audience” BioWare is purposely destroying their franchises just out of spite towards the old guard 😂
this is genuinely vile, like i dont want to hear any “all complaints are invalid because youre not true dragon age fans” no this is the biggest offence and stain on the entire franchise and cannot be excused
this game gets worse by the day huge red flags went up for me when it went from Dreadwolf to Veilguard, shouldve called it out then never hoped EA would shutdown another fantastic studio, let BioWare die EA
Thanks for the video. I had no idea that the ending I got was the "secret" ending. I also didn't pay much attention to it, just learned that the Executors were scheming in the background. It's only when you had mentioned Loghain that I went back, rewatched the clip and was like oh, I didn't even notice.
A shadowy organization manipulating events behind the scenes and being the ultimate or penultimate antagonist could work but it would require A) the entire series and setting being written with that in mind from the very start (Which Dragon Age obviously wasn't) and B) Exceptionally talented writers with the skill and passion to pull it off which Dragon Age no longer has. Those writers have joined other companies (or made their own) and are working on other projects. Bioware now primarily consists of no-talent hacks and hucksters at best and ideologically driven zealots at worst.
The Executors taking credit for almost everything before, just feels like a symbolism of the writer(s), whoever decided on this trying to legitimise their work by smearing it on previous ones. Whether from ego, or insecurity.
Remember how the whole point of DA2 was that trying to find "somebody to blame" for everything that went wrong at Kirkwall was a foolish endeavor, and that everything that went wrong was the result of everybody's own mistakes and flaws catching up to them, and that usually problems don't have a main "villain" that needs to be beaten?
I wish Bioware remembered.
Dai had probably the most important decision in the series midway through the game, where you either save the rebel mages or templars. So many different interesting ways they could’ve explored the ramifications of that, now gone, because the new writers have no clue about the setting they’ve taken over
Isabela is evidence these people never played DA2
All the people who made Dragon Age worth playing arent there anymore, this was inevitable.
Pepperidge Farms remembers
youve got to be kidding me
Logain alive in Inquisition: "Oh Inquisitior I forgot to mention this shadowy group that manipulated me while I was ruling Ferelden! You might want to watch out for those guys in future."
I preferred my idea that Logain was pragmatic and intelligent and knew what he was doing. Made for a fine grey warden imo. Pls don't take this away from me.. sigh.
@@Brakka86 this!!!
Assuming that he KNEW about this group.
@@Brakka86 Even Solas says that Loghain's actions were complicated. Was it selfish treason? or a pragmatic strategist refusing to throw lives into a lost battle? If Solas can't notice these shadowy hooded men, then he's a terrible trickster. None of this makes sense.
Logain was an ass, but he at least had some balls so Alistair still got the chop chop.
"We don't want to invalidate your choices" they said.
Fans: We will remember that.
yup its always the goal
ua-cam.com/video/1cLvcfWvtxo/v-deo.html
...as they invalidated our choices.
Sadly, this is the same old nonsense modern writers of legacy franchises always pull: insert their new antagonists who are secretly behind everything that's happened before, all so they can claim that their Bad Guys are better-er-er than the OG writers. Same crap happened over in Warcraft with The Jailer.
The crucial point is the tradition of DA games afterward telling EACH player, from Zevran killing me to Zevran banging folks, that our choices were meaningless, and only make us another lackey in the next sequel.
This is it. On the nose
ua-cam.com/video/1cLvcfWvtxo/v-deo.html yup, sums it up
the past must be destroyed for their agenda push, to devalue legacy and appeal of the past
They can only destroy in order to look better than others.
You mean like the amateur writers of Blizzard these days?
The real villains were Bioware and Ea after all.
The real Executors lol
No
They made their own grave with the star wars mmo
@@Derhone Nah that shit was cool as hell... the expansions when they started making women mode dominant was when they dug their grave. SWTOR now is girl bosses.
No, the real Executors sit much higher. If you want to track them down - look at the top shareholders' charts in all those companies, the same names as the ones of Microsoft, Sony, Disney etc. And every other company in US bigger than a mom-and-dad store. They are the ones pushing ESG/DEI, Why? Because consolidation. They are creating monopolies. EA/Bioware go belly up, get purchased for a change by either MS or Sony (or maybe even Disney, who knows, they wanted their games division for long) and now DA, Mass Effect etc are in the hands of a large corporation. No one will allow an established franchise to just go missing. There will be more DA/ME games every couple of years then.
@Virtual_Sphere_ it's doesn't matter was cool or not, it was a huge failure made from 100 million dollar
Hallmark of a terrible writer, in order to to show the significance of his own work he has to reduce and defile the existing lore. Like in the first season of Loki where people were using infinity stones as paperweight to demonstrate whatever calamity that had befallen the universe pales in comparison to what we are going to do!
Indeed Lord Darkfield!
I tried warning people. Nobody bloody listens. We are still living in the clown dimension. Our original normal world was gobbled up by it when the crazies from the other dimension came out of their world to ours. The only way to unf*ck it up is to deny this world by changing it back. That requires waking up the zombie hordes and getting them back to human status by waking them up frtom hypnotic mind-controlled state and finally winning the war. Then close the portal and keep the clown dimension contained with the seal so they never escape from their dimension again. (ie defund these people from ever working in the game industry again - they do this stuff on purpose to ruin our fun) If you bought this game I feel sorry for you. Just buy from companies that care about customers. It's not rocket science people. Stop bowing down to IP and franchise. Judge games based on their individual merit and quality. What they did to Saints Row they also did to Dragon Age and they are breeding and growing in numbers. Get over it. If we defund them then we limit the spread.
My hope is the whole franchise is rebooted with Larian contracted to handle the games. EA hands them a big amount of money and starts to reboot from the end of Dragon Age Origins. (like redo everything from DA 2 and onwards)
Or Warcraft with The Jailer bs
Just like the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
@@happyjonn9242 And Lord of the Rings and The Witcher. They wish to erase our history and culture.
Duncan didn't die for this...
No, but he did set standards of wonderful roleplaying and noteworthy character acting alike!!! 🤩
Or did he?
But I'm glad he's dead,or they might have paraded him as a non-binary barf-fetishist
Didn't you know? The ogre that killed Duncan did it on orders from the evil theodosian illuminati 😎We'll get to avenge him in the next game for sure, since Loghain obviously now wasn't to blame for his death after all
Dicks out for Duncan!
It's over. DA is over. I knew the ending for some time now, and still can't accept it. It takes all previous games, and shits on them. Devalue everything that was happening. Now we're in Marvel vs Iluminati.
I once had the theory that poo, or at least the smell of allure it may have for gay, is not MEANT devaluing, but instead tempting, seducing. Still, only Davy Gaydor will ever know for sure.
It's the last game
@@a.m.pietroschek1972 - 🤨 ...are you drunk?
There's still the tabletop RPG. Fairly untainted by this trash. It came out a year after Origins.
I don't acknowledge anything after that anymore.
@@a.m.pietroschek1972 Did you have a stroke?
As if the game didn't invalidate the previous entries enough already with the characters having amnesia regarding their past, this reaches a new level of stupid and insulting.
The Inquisition identified as meaningless, and Zevran only sedated us to protect us from trauma! 🤣
LoL Is that why Loghain sold the elves into slavery? And poisoned the Lord of redcliffe? And ignored the South while it was invaded by the darkspawn?
Mass Effect 5 post credits scene: The Jardaan manipulated the Reapers into starting the Milky Way cicle.
No it'd be way worse than that. They'd probably make some shit saying the reapers somehow manipulated the Leviathans into making the reapers even tho the reapers didn't exist yet.
Don't you dare mixing lore from the original trilogy with that non-canon slop called Andromeda.
Don't give them ideas please .😂
@@GamerModz123I like that better than OPs suggestion tbh. At least it’s still the reapers lol
Apparently, half of Ferelden and Kirkwall have fallen to the blight. They cant help themselves. They have to burn everything that came before to dust.
They pulled a ME3 again: they burned their setting to the ground.
Jup and instead of at least a cinematic, it's just brought to you by the inquisitor saying it. It was Morrigan porting him in, why not take the HOF?! Oh no, they had to redcon that too...
Meanwhile the HOF or the Orleasan Fereldan in Awakening is just out looking for a cure still. 😂
@@TheDarkRaven Well since all the archdemons are dead now and there are no more blights. Doesn't that also mean the Wardens are "set free"? Or is the taint, still the taint?
@FragLord it's dark fantasy. Probably still tainted. 😭
This is what these people do. They had nothing to do with Origins, but they insert themselves "Well actually, it was OUR villains that were the true masterminds, those villains you liked were just errand boys and didn't actually do anything themselves!"
Its more like they have to sequel bait because Bioware lives off its IP's Mass Effect and Dragon Age at this point. DA:I already killed off alot of the pre-existing plothooks, DA:V resolved the rest and now they have to invent something new to have content for the next game.
@@shizachan8421 See that sounds a little silly to me, because presumably a new Dragon Age game can always just bring up another Archdemon to lead a new Darkspawn invasion to center a game around, but nah, they've written themselves in a corner by apparently killing off all the remaining Archdemons in one game in favour of some esoteric "the true threat" that didn't exist before the last two games.
@@Tarquin47 Didn't they already kill off the Archdemons in DA:I too? Like, they really burried the Dark Spawn threat a long time ago.
But generally, it is kinda what you have with series which feel the need to continue but don't really have any direction to go, we get an ever growing escalation of true villains. Like come on, the Elven Gods plot in DA:I was already an asspull as well.
So far the game looks like it could be the most fun in terms of gameplay since DAO though.
@@shizachan8421 Apparently not because Veilguard has two more Archdemons and another blight, but it seems to be handwaved as just a thing that happens, though they kill them off in the same game, I really can't agree it was buried a long time ago when Origins was just stopping one Archdemon out of many and they might as well have not existed in 2 or Inquisition, they should still have been a massive threat even off screen or for future generations.
I agree on the constant new villains though. If I had the choice, I would focus every Dragon Age around a Blight, but it would be a vessel for deuteragonists and secondary antagonists to appear that hamper the player or somehow aid the Darkspawn. So far everything else in the setting isn't interesting enough to me to carry it's plot on it's own.
@@Tarquin47 I could have sworn that the corrupted Grey Wardens already killed the Archdemons in Inquisition, but I think that just tells us how much of an afterthought that plotline became, doesn't it? In this regard I think viewing Veilguard as this big outlier that breaks the series is kind of delusional. It just follows trends that started with DA2, even though I consider it the best Dragon Age in terms of Story and Companions (the worst in terms of gameplay though. Like, Veilguard as it looks right now can't be worse than DA2). Veilguard so far just looks very much like a Dragon Age Inquisition 2.
And here I thought they couldn't ruin the series more... I stand corrected.
I would allow you to hold my Nug, if that is any comfort. 🤗
Yeah they managed to go back in time and ruin the good games and characters too...
Sounds like a metaphor for the devs to say our choices in previous games don't matter because they control everything.
What a disgrace. Not only do they fail at making their own thing with this mess of a game, they HAVE to retroactively ruin the stories written by their betters.
Any schmuck could come up with something better. Where do I have to sign up to become a writer?
At your social & gender study professor
At the sex change clinic
@@nixx0334 Guys please, I want to write better than them lmao
Remember to get your degree from a McDonald's happy meal first. 😂
The Writers are blaming The Illuminati for why the game flopped
The idea that a shadowy organization orchestrated the most insignificant events in Thedas throughout the millennia without any specific purpose is stupid beyond belief.
The story of Thedas did not need a great shadow master to be good.
They are burning everything that made DA an interesting universe, and soon I predict that the main storyline of Mass Effect will be about "the infinite powers that hid behind the reapers".
These people have seriously abused our benefit of the doubt and our patience. It is time to fire these clowns who write the dialogue, characters and stories at Bioware.
Yup, absolutely outrageous. What were they even thinking?!
Woke people don’t think
Probably they wanted to make their own thing and they are willing to ruin their past 3 games to achieve it.
"How do we piss of fans while destroying the franchise to turn it into our own thing?"
They WEREN'T thinking, obviously.
@@leojamesiii7938 Nah they were, some just arent very good at it.
Origins explored the topics of personal choices and responsibility a lot:
- Alistair's arc is all about taking your life into your own hands, owning your actions, growing out of caregiver relationships (Eamond, Duncan, Goldanna) and standing on your own.
- Logain was about making sacrifices for what you believe to be right, and then atoning for your actions, paying the ultimate price.
- Leliana was about the will and power to turn your life around even when it's in complete ruin. Showing that, if you have enough personal strength, you can climb out of the gutter to glory.
- Ogren was similar to her in that regard: coming a long way from a desperate drunk to a grey warden and a father.
- Wynn and Sten were the embodiments of personal responsibility, putting their principals and beliefs above their own lives.
It's heartwarming to see that none of that mattered. They have all fallen now, and their actions and sacrifices have bought Ferelden an extra decade of existence at best. Everything was predetermined by some shadow society. The whole Alistair/Logain/Duncan/Grey Wardens arc was less significant in the end than weather or not The Inquisitor bedded Solas.
And as our favorite "unimportant" heroes die off screen, we are shown that not only their deaths but their lives didn't matter at all. Thank you, failguard
That's because this people is never responsible for their actions, everything is someone else's fault.
When you have room temperature IQ, you come up with shit like this, as far as I'm concerned Veilguard never happened
Doing a Jonathan Frakes to Veilguard in my personal canon lol
Hey Dragon's Dogma 2.01 - The Veilguard is totally unique and stuff! 🤣
Same.
ua-cam.com/video/1cLvcfWvtxo/v-deo.html sums it up
The Veilguard is non-canon. Just someone's fan fiction. And they're not even a fan.
I was wondering if you would cover this, glad you did!
They exhumed Loghain just to shit all over his corpse? Damn, this is a new low, even for Veilguard.😔
This game is just one big insult to the franchise
Not only the franchise, but the fans and the industry as whole.
There was only ever game so far as I am concerned. I took one look at Dragon Age 2 and had no desire to continue.
@@MrShadowfax42 EA should just contract Larian to reboot Dragon Age. Start from dragon age 2 onward. It's what I'd do.
@@UToobUsername01 Were i Larian id just say.;..."nah thanks" to an attempt from EA to eat their soul.
That’s a feature for them, not a bug
This sort of cheesy end-credits scene that diminishes everything that came before but teases a big next installment just seems like another facet of Marvelization
Marvelization, lol. What a term
Dragon Age: The Veilguardians of the Galaxy
Oh you found it!
Totally agree. It feels cheap, it feels like a cop out, and it honestly feels like a bit of an Eff-you to everyone they called "tourists" leading up to the release of "the" veilguard. Kind of like they made it abundantly clear that OG DA:O players weren't the target market, then made sure we knew they didn't want or need us, and if we happened to reach the 'secret ending' they had to get that last kick to the balls in before we walk out the door for good.
I hate it. It's as cheesy and cheap as the rest of the game.
They don't want to work hard so they need to filter anyone with standards.
Original DA:O players have been burned since DA2 mate, everyone who makes a gender studies joke is a tourist. DA2 had a good story, but the game itself was otherwise total shit. Worse gameplay, recycled maps and the games story was effectively unfinished and quickly wrapped up.
DA:I already started with being an immense disconnect from what was set up before.
@@shizachan8421i didn't have a problem with da 2 personally. I had issues with it, like you mention but it was still a dragon age game. The characters well written, good dialouge, good story, it was still dark fantasy and respected the lore. In a story driven game those are most important to me. So as long as the gameplay is halfway decent ill live with it if the story and writing is good.
@@EM-vw7im The gameplay was really, really shit though, the story and the companions were the best. Tbh, I've seen a page from the DA:V Artbook and for me it looks like kind of just doing the wrong call. It seems like the original plan was to have more of a villain party who have to work together to stop a greater threat to the world and they considered returning Calpernia as a Companion, so its not like the team wasn't cooking up something, just then they replaced a fine meal with Mac'n'cheese. Seems like they went all wholesome more because they wanted to go found family instead, which for me is weird because I thin the best found family dynamics are in groups which start off utterly dysfunctional.
And before anyone says something, Mac cheese is just shit.
I'm convinced the reason defenders of this game don't have as much of an issue with the writing is because they're spending more time defending the game on social media than they are actually playing it.
At least half of them don't really play it, yes.
@@garroshhellscream594 Oh no question. The industry is swamped (especially game media) with terminally online activists masqurading as gamers.
Hopefully this IP gets sold to a good studio and they retcon this entire game . Horrific
If true this basically invalidates the entire Origins, Loghain wasn't between duty, survival, and greed at Ostrigar facing a overwhelming numbers of darkspawn army, no he was a puppet of the Illuminati, it reduces so many stories and characters to "Illuminati done did it"
The Executors are just the new writers corrupting the original material
"Everything that once was, was wrong. Let's destroy it and remake it in our own image."
-The Woke Hivemind
The vibe executors gave in Inquisition was more of a neutral group that is just observing and not quite yet planning to do anything in Thedas. It was explicitly said by them Corypheus is a threat to them even though in this ending Corypheus was manipulated by them as well? I thought it was Solas manipulating him in the first place?
Adding some external group or entity cheapens Loghain's character, he had his own motivations, his hate for Orlais affected his judgement. No need to have someone "guiding" him. I also don't like how even Bartrand was influenced by this mysterious group, so what happened to Hawke wasn't entirely a coincidence. Some stories were fine on their own, there was no need to introduce some "cosmic" scale to them.
I don't even get why they needed to influence Bartrand. His betrayal isn't important to the events of Kirkwall, Hawke would get out of the deep roads and get rich and the red lyrium would reach the surface no matter if he locked Hawke inside or not, that's why he's dealt with in a companion side quest.
This is postmodern writing. It isn't enough to think you can do better with the material. You have to destroy everything else to prove how awesome and creative you are.
yup
ua-cam.com/video/1cLvcfWvtxo/v-deo.html
Era of a "tradition" is a long gone paradigm in western world. Just follow the works of your existing writers/devs who are still able to give to us a really captivating, fulfilling storytelling
I am still waiting for someone from BioWare to come out and say "Gotcha! This was all a prank! Here is the ACTUAL Dragon Age 4!"
We did our waiting, 10 years of it, and this is our "reward"...? Dragon Age is dead.
It metaphorically is dead... It's called the dragon age because of the dragons... Archdemons being the most powerful of all dragons... The game ends and tells you, no more blights... So literally the Dragon Age is over...
1) New ages are determined by world altering events so:
2) There has never been an age with more than 1 blight
3)The veilguard ends all blights forever. The blight is 1200 years old!!!! Even older than Andraste and Justinia.
4) Naming an age after finally seeing dragons again for a long time and then killing the most powerful dragons forever sure sounds as a good way to end the dragon age...
5) We not only ended all blights, we did it by defeating a double blight... Never happened before in the histories...
The Dragon Age is OVER. Ending the blights is more than warranting enough for a new age to be formed (when the time is right)
@@FragLord what are you saying? Dragon age isn't called Dragon age because of the archdemons are you okay? haha
@@wooxi_
In Thedas (the world the game takes place in) every 100 years is classified as an age or era. Each age is named for a significant event that occurred at it's beginning or at the end of the previous age. In this case, dragons had long been thought extinct and one emerged from nowhere during a major battle somewhere. So, the powers that be in Thedas name the coming age the Dragon Age. Hence, the game being titled Dragon Age.
Archdemons are dragons, the most powerful of all. They are dead and will never come back, just like the blights. The Dragon Age is over...
@@FragLord but not because of archdemons lol
@@wooxi_ Yes it is... It specifically says that big significant happenings influence when a new age takes place. Ending all blights for eternity sounds a bit significant doesn't it?
Not to mention that the Dragon age was already going on in dragon age 1 and Veilguard already happens 10 years after inquisition...
1) At least 40 year have passed through the games and the dragon age was already happening for decades...
2) All archdemons have been defeated
3) Blights which have plagued the entire continent for several ages have ended...
4) Significant occurrences and situations affect when an age ends or happens. I think all of the above are more than enough to warrant a new age... And yes very simply. Ending a 1200 plague surely warrants that....
5) There was never 1 age that had more than one blight. The Dragon Age has/had 3... The last and blightiest of all the blights. Ending all blights surely ends the last age...
No archdemons = no blights = no more "Dragon Age"... Very simple smoothbrain. You can "lol" and hahaha as much as you want. You have provided 0 evidence to provide the contrary.
As a great author once said
“Evil cannot create only corrupt”
8:27 Sounds like you had a lot of expectations for a puppet dev team that's attempting to completely dismantle the lore, tone, and setting of a story that you used to love.
The irony of a outside force guiding the plot and story is hilarious, since their studio was definitely guided by outside forces to make the game DEI, so they can get that sweet blackrock money.
They pulled ''The Jailor'' from WOW Everything that ever happened in lore is manipulated by some dumb new enemy that will fail.
The inquisitor is in the game for a whole ten minutes maybe and that’s it
I don't understand why there was a need for an 'end'. Just leave some stuff shrouded in mystery, mystery is cool. Why did some characters do things? Power. Madness. Exploration. Curiosity. Take your pick, it's just something that happened in a big, living world, and that's cool.
Similar to how they ruined the Reapers in ME3
@@sideburngthepeacebringer27 Yeah I always hated what they did with the Reapers. We are beyond your comprehension... also here's everything detail about our comprehendible origin.
Always amazing when writers decide to retcon the events of a whole series as being orchestrated by a shadowy unseen force, undermining the significance and agency of the preestablished villain's actions.
At this point I’d be glad for the series to end and never get picked back up. If it means these people can stop damaging the series and its characters.
My only hope is that bioware shutsdown and someone competent buys the ip.
@@EM-vw7im EA is more confortable letting IP's die than doing that. Your hope is better spent elsewhere.
The reason they needed these illuminati is that they know their writing is subpar, they know their ability to understand or connect with the IP and its fans is nonexistent, and so they must find the most contrived way to connect the future game with the old games, so they can keep tugging on people’s nostalgia.
Nostalgia is all they have left. Of this game released without the DA brand name, how do you predict it would have done? There’s your answer.
I already made the suggestion on reddit, and I'll make it here. The Veilguard should not be taken as canon and should be largely ignored.
Just a bad Varrick's/Inquisitor's nightmare and nothing more
They could’ve done multiple games surrounding some of the revelations that they just hand waved away in this game.
@@marcuskane1040 Hawkes Fear Demon Nightmare in the fade.
If only, I'd rather not think of it , just a weird spinoff.
Veilguard simply identifies as Dragon Age game. It's a bad fanfic.
Wow... when I thought it couldn't get worse, they actively flame the old games and lore... you know, the people who actually put thought into writing a good story, characters and dialogue... ffs. Unless they are going to remove this nonesense the game goes from the 'might buy for 5 euro' to the 'not going to touch this with a 5 foot pole, ever' pile.
At this point the fanfic I wrote ten years ago is a more viable DA story than Bioware's own creation
lol, they tried the similar thing in WOW, retconning everything people loved about the lore, creating one mysterious, super intelligent, behind the scenes master manipulator, playing 4D chess. Now everyone pretends that expansion never existed XD
Dragon Age was compelling because of complex character motivations shaped by a flawed world.
Now it's black and white morality as determined by the HR board. There's a right way to do black and white morality, dont get me wrong... But it can't be done by a HR board.
It's tiresome
How is Solas Black and White morality?
There was always a bad thing that was just "Black morality"
The current bioware devs show complete contempt for the devs and players of the previous games, I cant wait for the studio to be closed, should have happened after Anthem or Andromeda
Keep them open, let EA's investment in BioWare be a continual sinkhole.
@@smithynoir9980id rather them shutdown before they can shit on dragon age or mass effect again, im irrationally attached to those things.
@@smithynoir9980 Yeah, thats where my head is at too. Just sit back and watch these companies burn cash producing failure and failure. As someone who is a big fan of NFL football, I've boycotted the Madden franchise for well over a decade due to its terrible gameplay and lack of franchise features, all the while milking fans with their microtransactions. Let the next MA burn another 200+ million, and ruin another franchise I love, I'll just enjoy watching the true fans roast it like Dragon Age.
@drzerogi Heck yeah! I get stuck in the mud of it sometimes, but ultimately, your attitude is the best way to go about it. I remember playing the NFL games as a kid with my Dad, it's sad to see them just do another same-same Madden title every year or two, there's so much untapped potential there for both gamers and fans of the sport. May they keep losing money and fingers crossed it gets placed in more caring hands one day.
non conspiracys aside. Are we really surprised that the people hired to replace those who made dragon age great in the first place. Could not replicate or exceed the work of greater men?
What's so funny to me is that these newcomers try to insult old fans and devs alike by calling them tourists.
I sure wasn't.
This is lame because Dragon Age was more realistic about its politics. It's not just one group ruling the world and spinning everything. That's boring.
I shouldn't have watched the endings but i'm glad i did. I'm am so disappointed in Bioware/EA after BG3 i held out hope that this game would rise to new highs and to see it hung so low just sadness me. Thanks for the great video once again
They should have kept the old gods as gods and make it that they were the illuminati.
There has never been a better time to completely memory hole everything after Dragon Age Origins.
I liked every game but DAV.
All of Origins happened and Thedas was saved just because Flemeth saved the last wardens by sheer chance. Loghain and his illuminati friends would have doomed the world.
Well, if the Illuminati are the ones who tempted the magisters into entering the Fade and unleashing the Blight in the first place, maybe that was their plan.
Still dumb as hell to introduce some shadowy cabal of world ending cartoon villains that remove the agency of every previous antagonist though.
That's true, cause even if they somehow knew Flemeth was Mythal. They couldn't have expected her to save anyone especially the ones who would save Ferelden.
Much like what they did with Mass Effect in Andromeda. Introducing another bigger big bad that just, falls absolutely flat, but even Andromeda didn't retcon the agency and choices of the previous games to this degree.
Because at least with Andromeda they had the foresight to at least remove it from any meaningful connection to the other games. Freeing them to try their own thing.
Best we can hope for is someone like Larian buys the IP in a decade.
I honestly think larian would be better off creating their own dark fantasy
This is the very first DA game that I have absolutely zero qualms about getting spoiled on...because I will never play it.
I quit the series with Inquision (I didn't like the gameplay loop), so no love lost here.
looks like the same story all the franchises that get worn as skin suits do, LOTR, Star Wars, Star Trek Discovery, just corrupting the original vastly more superior lore.
This stuff is so dumb, it's like the TVA in Marvel. It just goes back and makes it so every interesting character, who seemingly had motives based on their own personalities and experiences, was just a pawn. Everything they did was pre-ordained by some higher power. Forget their pasts, their traumas, nope some shadowy organization was pulling the strings. F that. These writers should be writing crossword puzzles on the back of children's cereal boxes.
ua-cam.com/video/1cLvcfWvtxo/v-deo.html sums it up well why writers keep doing this
So 4 games in they reveal every evil plan ever was the result of one faceless group of vague villain's with no clear plan or presence in the story, yet they are made out to be the most important faction with in the entire story. Narratively this is conspiratorial equivalent of the "It was all a dream" ending.
The Jailer strikes again
The Executors are basically Dragon Age’s version of “Palpatine’s behind it all”
If Bioware wanted a big bad of the series, Veilguard missed that opportunity with the Dreadwolf, a morally complex character whose motivations are more understandable than “hahaha I’m evil” like Corypheus and the Evanuris. Instead they sidelined Solas for more one dimensional cartoon villains
Solas’ character makes more sense as a puppet master figure rather than the Illuminati. It’s a little late to introduce a series big bad 4 games in that were basically retconned into “We were there the whole time.” It feels unearned. Dreadwolf earned that writing possibly but Bioware sidelined him.
Genuinely can't understand how an honest Dragon Age fan can defend this game.
Because they're not Dragon Age fans, just cultural warriors.
@@enzomax2553 Its not even an issue of cultural war, the game is just terrible. You don't have the freedom to be an asshole or an antihero. There's no cultural or religious weight in the races, something super characteristic in Origins, 2 or even Inquisition. The big bad is just Corypheus 2.0 with a worse design. Everything cool about the lore is just "oh yeah, the elven gods made it.". Its a disgrace.
@@perseusveil9376 Just so, which makes supporting this game all the more baffling... unless their supporters are no better than yes-men that conflate identity politics with blind fanaticism.
You should have a look on the DragonAge subreddit @@enzomax2553
@@perseusveil9376 100% agreed. And honestly, I think one of the greatest achivements Veilguard has managed, is to make even such a terribly lousy antagonist like Corypheus look good in comparison to Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan. Corypheus is atleast conceptually interesting (being one of the Tevinter magisters that broke into the golden city), has a great VA, and some of his dialogue is really good. Inquisiton atleast also tries to make parallels with him and the inquisitor. All taken together resulting in that Corypheus has a certain level of gravitas, if not necessarily depth at the end of the day.
But the same can't really be said for Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan. Their dialogue wouldn't be out of place in Care Bears. Ghilan'nain has a cool design, but that's where it ends. Everything about them is shallow, and Veilguard even makes old elf lore, the genuinely good stuff from the previous games, come off as incredibly boring and basic in-game to sell G&E as villains. Know I'm not alone in considering Inquisition to have been a "not-amazing but serviceable" Dragon Age game, but jc do I miss it now.
Anyone else remember how in Inquisition you could make Cassandra hate you so much you drove her to drink? That's about how I'm feeling right now.
this reeks of the developers hating the other 3 games tbh.
THe literally pulled a Blizzard : WoW Shadowlands - The Jailer manipulated all events all the time !
That makes sense. As to why Logain survived not only the Landsmeet, not only the 5th blight but also the trip to the fade. it was the Illuminaty the whole time !!!!!
Retconning the entire lore of the franchise at the end of the 4th game is just the icing on the cake of ineptitude that these dime store writers served to us. It's all one big joke at this point. Why though? I get the idea that you may not be comfortable trying to expand the lore of more competent artists' previous world building but I think it goes beyond that because when you consider seriously the massive financial loss this will/should impart on BioWare and EA which ultimately won't matter because these companies seem to have no qualms about spending uncouth amounts of money to do shit like this all in service to THE AGENDA
Please spoil away! It's already rotten anyhow.
And it's not like BioWare themselves didn't spoil >70% of their own game anyway 🤷
FR
“Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy what has been invented or made by the forces of good.”― J.R.R. Tolkien
Especially when we can make Logain into a warden, and like you said what they had to gain from blight winning over if its for some grand shadowy generational scheme then I don't like it, its too much, it reminds me of the bloat that Marvel comics have where everyone died, was revived became a god or a villain atleast once.
Loghain isn't even a thing in modern I guess
Bioware doesn't write god tier villians anymore now we have only moustache twirling ones
Is this Bioware's attempt to make Mass Effect 3's ending seem better by somehow making something worse?
I think the saddest element to this is, there's still the mysteries of where the Humans and the Qunari came from. This game could have just wrapped up the mysteries of the elves and dwarves and still had places to take us, across the ocean, north beyond the death jungle, and west over the impassable mountains. They didn't have to do this, but they're not good writers.
From all the gameplay videos and cutscenes, discussions etc I've consumed outside of playing the game myself as I absolutely refuse to contribute money to this game, it looks like this: The current Dragon Age universe is like a ship that has crashed into an iceberg and is sinking. And the creators of Veilguard purposefully pre-emptively cut away the lifeboats that represented the history of the previous games, the players' collective actions that contributed to the various potential states of the story, character designs etc. And they're like, "well the only way we're all gonna see this universe through is if you get on OUR lifeboat."
The Hero of Ferelden, discovering this somehow. "Huh... these guys somehow keep betting on losers... you'd think they'd hit a winner at least once."
*The real Morrigan, resting her chin in her palm, wearily, as she looks at the situation.* "Indeed... and Mother would have definitely discovered them one way or another."
from "people are complicated and sometimes do shitty things" to.... this. everytime I start to soften, and maybe think about giving the game a chance... something more comes out.
This ending reeks of entitlement and narcissism. It's like these people think they have a better ending and story to tell than their predecessors.
The whole thing is just sad. Just want to hold onto what came before and forget this game exists. That is my plan at least. Thanks for playing it and sharing your take. I'm never going to play it.
My immediate when seeing the secret ending: "No... fuck no, they didn't just do that. They didn't just pull a Blizzard."
i love that they put in a secret ending hinting at a new game when we all know full well sales under 100,000 combined on all platforms is basically the death-knell for bioware
It's probably way more than 100 000. Not everyone who has the game will play at the same time on Steam, so really you might get 200 000 sales just there and the currently playing number could still be under 100 000 as it is. Still, this game would have to sell millions and millions.
The sales aren't that catastrophic and, given the built-in following of para socially invested fans that are willing to take the bare minimum so long as the game is published under their brand, that was never going to happen. It'll take a few months to see how well it's truly done but I'm expecting similar numbers to Andromeda. Which isn't great but would be profitable enough to keep the lights on at Bioware so we can do this whole drama at least once more.
Sales are much higher but still at the most generous estimates and crunching all the numbers down I can’t see how this game makes its money back
@@ttubebaby absolutely no chance this is profitable. An AAA studio running for the last 10 years? They need $250M, minimum, to break even. Probably more, with marketing and so forth. They're not getting that off maybe a couple of million sales if they're VERY lucky, at the most optimistic estimate. No chance.
Oh Bioware. From spearheading the gaming industry and the rpg genre to just follow trends.
Love the way you still emphasize the awkward "the" in "DA: the V". XD
I've been comparing this "DA" reboot to how they re-rebooted Doctor Who, but that end scene now clearly seals the deal as the same thing. They introduced a way for alllll the decades of Doctor Who- every Doctor of the 12- to now be placed on a single platter and dismissed in favor of new lore... as the franchise itself went to shyte. I suppose they did that w the "time change" element in the Abrams Star Trek movies as well, but at least that had a very definitive breaking point of a point in time that allowed a portion of the lore to remain unscathed rather than the Doctor Who and Veilguard one which undermines the lore of the entire franchise, pulling the rug out from under it all. Not surprised that they appeared in one of the more recent novels... where all the new "veil jumper" type factions and retrofitted wardens came from.
It's not just a "lack of creativity" that makes it a crap artistic decision. I mean, it is that- big time- but it's more a matter of them trying to take credit for everything that the original dev team did, the original lore development that they largely erased by removing all player-choice content, all to get their amateurish fumbling mitts onto everything as if to say it was THEIR idea and link it to their OWN reboot's contrived plot. They couldn't even be trusted to leave it alone, but had to trash it as just everyone not knowing who the real enemies were all along in Ferelden, Kirkwall, and across the Inquisitor's journey. As you said- no agency for ANYone- not the villains, not the protagonists (not even Rook), no struggle involved since it was all pre-destined or crafted by someone else (the new dev team...) So all the elements of chance, all the swings of fortune built into any great struggle where things could've gone one way or another, the precipice battles and decisive victories- all now melted down into the concept of a plan of a whim of the Illuminati. Just say, "Gaider sucked and we're way better." The implication is clear enough...
There's a curious phrase at the ending of Veilguard where Rook says, "And we will always be grateful to those whose stories brought us where we are today..." Putting aside that it would be "whose stories brought us TO where we are today", it just demonstrated that they actually think they've shown gratitude to the dev team that handed them all that fantastic lore for them to squander and selectively ignore and besmirch... and now make irrelevant. "So, now that we've established that we're the new dev team around here, thanks and all, but the franchise so far has merely been the stepping stone we needed and we are soooo movin' on..." The phrase that follows the "gratitude" statement was, "And those whose stories will live on forever," showing presumably Varric in the distance as something already now "in the past", memorialized but being left behind. It just straight up patronizes both the players and former devs while insisting on being taken seriously as the new franchise leadership... before playing the Illuminati sequence that demonstrates one of so many reasons exactly why they never can be...
My feelings exactly, and I also noticed this weird „thank you” phrase in the ending, with Morrigan wandering off. It was like „yeah, you got your cameos but they won’t be returning”, then credits, and then this Executor thing in the end as a final blow.
I’m a lore nerd for Dragon Age, I’ve been waiting patiently for ten years, going through all the additional media. The tonal shift was visible already in „Tevinter Nights”, an extremely uneven anthology, and in the Netflix series, but I thought that it may lead to some creative resolutions to the long-open plot points. What I got was DA: The V, a story of angsty teens with a journaling obsession, where major lore (including stories from recent media produced under the auspices of the same team that directed DA:theV) was handwaved, and everything concluded with a clear statement that none of the characters in Thedas ever had any agency in anything, and that the new team responsible for the franchise won’t hesitate to bury all the past stories to impose their own ideas while being carried on by a (still relatively) strong gaming brand Dragon Age is.
@@michapietrusinski4892 Wow, you managed to endure their literature? I admit I only bought Gaider's early DA books recently (to get more DA from when it was DA), but the newer Weekes-connected crap is what they deferred to for Veilguard- "Veil Jumpers" and the other new factions. No way I'd read it now given the demonstrative attitude of "yeah, this is the new lore, so you can forget that past crap from Gaider." So I'm reading Stolen Throne... XD
@@bhryaen3743 I enjoyed Gaider books, they were actually more mature narratively than the games themselves. Even "The Masked Empire" was quite alright, despite the common writing pitfall -- many characters speak in the same way despite being characterised as members of different races and social backgrounds. "Tevinter Nights", which is for some reason quite praised, has maybe two-three great stories ("The Horror of Hormak" is what actually gave me hopes for deep, dirty, brutal lore drops in Veilguard), and "The Last Flight", to which Davrin's quest is a direct, unnecessary tie-in, reads like a spin-off and also a farewell letter to the Circles and Templars.
this game needs to be rebooted from scratch
I bet they feel very intelligent writing this retcon
At this point I am fully convinced, that the “modern audience” BioWare is purposely destroying their franchises just out of spite towards the old guard 😂
It's the same thing as saying "it was all a dream." Same effect, anyway.
Just saying: Your choice of the sad, ominous Velen exploration music in this video is *chef's kiss*.
Because the Jailer from WoWs shadowlands worked out so well
Im so frustrated i could cry. I know its only video games but i spent good money and thousands of hours on this series. Such a slap in the face.
Wow, retroactively inserting a secret villain into an established story, that always ends well...
I feel like the devs just played Inquisition and went along with that.
This cements my stance on this game.....fuck it, and may it be made fun of for all eternity
Greta, it's the Shadowlands retcon all over again
this is genuinely vile, like i dont want to hear any “all complaints are invalid because youre not true dragon age fans” no this is the biggest offence and stain on the entire franchise and cannot be excused
Oh my god they did "The Jailer" from WoW to Dragon Age!
this game gets worse by the day
huge red flags went up for me when it went from Dreadwolf to Veilguard, shouldve called it out then
never hoped EA would shutdown another fantastic studio, let BioWare die EA
Thanks for the video. I had no idea that the ending I got was the "secret" ending. I also didn't pay much attention to it, just learned that the Executors were scheming in the background. It's only when you had mentioned Loghain that I went back, rewatched the clip and was like oh, I didn't even notice.
A shadowy organization manipulating events behind the scenes and being the ultimate or penultimate antagonist could work but it would require A) the entire series and setting being written with that in mind from the very start (Which Dragon Age obviously wasn't) and B) Exceptionally talented writers with the skill and passion to pull it off which Dragon Age no longer has. Those writers have joined other companies (or made their own) and are working on other projects. Bioware now primarily consists of no-talent hacks and hucksters at best and ideologically driven zealots at worst.
The Executors taking credit for almost everything before, just feels like a symbolism of the writer(s), whoever decided on this trying to legitimise their work by smearing it on previous ones.
Whether from ego, or insecurity.