The Controversial Art Style of Dragon Age: the Veilguard 

The fact that the devs are throwing tantrums and lashing out at genuine criticism is what ended this for me.

The issue here is primarily in the marketing approach. The suggestion that people who express dissatisfaction with this design style, presentation or UI simply don't "get it", is a mistake many entertainment companies have made lately, at great cost to themselves. A game's appeal should not require someone with a specialized degree to explain or rationalize why it's actually good. it should be appealing to general audiences without requiring extra context to be added. That alone is an indication of a serious problem. There are many other games, made by teams with similar budgets and experience to Bioware that do not have this issue with their titles. If the overbearing UI elements could be turned off to give a more desired experience to most players, then that should have been the version presented to audiences first, with this version being saved for their extensive accessibility discussion. When trying to sell a product, it is unwise to present an inferior product, then try to explain to the potential customers that they can actually improve it. That's just bad business etiquette.

The Fortnite criticism is not really wrong even though there are discernible differences. The balance of realistic and stylized has gone just a slight bit further toward stylized while not entirely losing the realistic elements and it's creating MORE of an uncanny valley effect rather than resolving it. Veilguard characters look like cartoons wearing human skin. It's unnerving.

Regardless, I'm afraid I'll be skipping this installment. For me, the enjoyment of DA was the continuity, the idea that every player is shaping their own world of DA with every installment serving as a chapter, some quests some players will miss/ignore, other players will do it and others still will opt for the alternate choice in it, the fact that Veilguard will only carry over 3 of the choices from Inquisition and not heed the rest of the Inquisitor's actions, that makes it feel like it will all end the same no matter what. So close to reaching the finale of a story that was molded by the player and now it all more or less ends the same way, that will definitely be a sour note for a lot of fans.

Still skipping this game. Your snobby “criticism” of the cons reminded me why i’m not buying. Thanks for saving me £60

My two cents on the purple is that there's almost a colour signature for each protagonist, and Origins was just retroactively coined. Since the Warden is just that: THE Warden of Ferelden- they can pick up the iconic blue of the Grey Wardens, Hawke's was very clearly red like blood smear across their face and the red present in their character specific armor. The Inquisitor is green, because of the anchor. I think they didn't need to go quite so hard on it, but I think it was meant to tell you that purple is Rook's colour! I'm not an expert though, just someone who loves characters having a signature colour identity

Yeah, well, if you play the game, you don't really see the light passing through a surprisingly magical dwarf-elf or whatever it is.... But you see the Funko Pop heads! Take Xcom 1 and 2 for example - lots of customization for characters that have barely any cut-scenes and basically no story or personality. But they look right, because they fit the world and the heroic aspiration of the game by having body proportions ripped straight out of a hero comic book (not a superhero comic book, mind you) / action figurine. Dare i say, never, no-one , has ever read a fantasy book and imagined all the characters having heads so big. Hell, Korean games are approaching El Greco proportions in a bid to make their characters seem more tall, slim, athletic. Yet the first thing about veilguard that we see is that gravity is 1.3 times that of Earth's, with their short, stubby funko pop heroes. It's like the characters were first designed right, and then a marketing executive was like - "yo, that's gonna increase the cost of every piece of merchandise by at least 30 cents! Make their heads bigger and less detailed!" Sorry, but for me, this game has unveiled an unexpected and unknown ick - a distaste for heads bigger than normal. Always wondered why i never got into minecraft or other lego-like games. Head Size Matters! HSM!

im so glad you mentioed Bellaras bow looks quite techy / futuristic though i was losing my mind haha

mm, I think you are a bit biased and hasty to excuse BioWare, which I think does an injustice to the game. There is something off with the graphics; I just can't understand what it is. At moments, they are beautiful, and at others, they look so fake... For example, in a battle video, there was a scene showing a sofa with a cylindrical cushion, but I can't find it at the moment. I kind of feel it’s part of a compromise they made during development-to get through the project with what was available and prioritize the story, writing, and smooth gameplay. It seems like that's where they're vocal, a bit acknowledging the complaints or even anticipating them. However, I do hope they ditch this cartoonish style in the future. It's not a question of whether such a style can convey dark or adult content-I’m an anime fan after all. I just truly believe it doesn’t fit Dragon Age. That Darkspawn shot you saw-it’s ridiculous though, I mean, come on! The other Darkspawn are fine, I don’t get the complaint. But that specific shot, along with Belara's bow... gave me chills in the first few hours. It was Luke Stephen who calmed me down, and I pre-ordered. Also the UI elements - don't throw me guilt. OFC I am happy there are options for everyone and arachnophobia triggers etc. But in the videos it looks like you won some casino game - and they have not specified how much and many you can turn off. But they listen and adapt... so I am ok with them. I am sort of annoyed you downplayed it thoug :P Mainly because it seems like an unapologetic creation, just being themselves. I don’t know how much I’ll like that, but I think it’ll be more than fine. I have a trillion more complaints, but they don’t matter. This is why I think you're not giving them justice by excusing what seems to me like conscious decisions. They worked within their budget and prioritized with the resources they had. They don't blush at the complaints and believe they did something they like. That sounds very promising and not at all like the BS during Anthem and Andromeda. P.S. All I wanted was a blonde freaking Prince Charming to romance, finally. Cullen and Alistair were straight. LIKE WTF! And it's a Fantasy thing, in Mass effect I dont' give a shit the colors of the people .

Emerald graves was my favorite place too. The music was beautiful and matched the environment perfectly. Nice to hear someone else mention that

I’m what’s described as a “chud” whatever that means. I’m coming at this from the view that I’m not a “fan” I tried the first DA but didn’t like the combat, I loved the world but that was it. As they had changed up the mechanics I was hopeful and interested, then I seen the art style and immediately thought this just isn’t “dark” enough now. I felt that the art style (characters) more than anything was too “Disney” it felt like a safe Sunday afternoon movie, whatever that means. That was the first nail in the coffin. The second and final nail was the immersion breaking, present day gender ideology slapped right in your face at the start and then again early in game. I have no issue with different sexuality’s in game but according to leaks there is a part where one of the characters introduces themselves as “I identify as” To me, in a fantasy setting far from our reality this stood out like a sore thumb, and it just didn’t feel organic. It’s very much like reading a poorly written book, it takes you out of the world. So for those two reasons I won’t be spending my money, I expected better from a studio like BioWare, larion comes to mind as a better example. I’m sorry if that makes me a Chud, but that’s how I feel.

everyone in veilgard have a huge head like they have hydrocephalus.

So basically your main argument about every point is that art is subjective and opinions are subjective. So is yours. You are deconstructing each element point by point, and end up not seeing the forest for the trees. The vibe check in this art style for this particular series is off. There is nothing wrong with each element separately, they could have gotten away with implementing one or two, but put them together and in conjunction it reaches a critical mass making the style a misfit for this particular series. You know how you can see an unattractive face and separately there is nothing too wrong with the features, but put them together in this particular combination and proportion and the face is completely unappealing? Same here.

I am confused, most of us followed the development of DA 4. So we know this is not what they wanted in the first place. We also know that many left, cause it took an unpleasant direction, and some got fired. with a 39 minutes video,i'd expect at least screenshots of the leaks, interviews, letters, posts, imagery etc!

I think people are forgetting that this was originally supposed to be a live service game. They pivoted (thankfully) to take it back to its roots of being a single player rpg.I think the art style is reminiscent of these hero shooters is because it was meant to tread along the same roads in the live service industry and i believe the art style was meant to mimic its competitors. I think as a live service game, this toonishly looking art would have been acceptable. But it's harder to accept that for a serious single plyer rpg.

I woulnd´t as much look into character aesthetic stylization, as to the portrayal of the abilities. I do believe that the biggest DMG to this game has been done by its first trailer, which did start spiralling the whole thing into the culture war corner very fast. While the character stylization doesn´t realy click with me, there is something in ability design that I realy dislike. There are some abilities with classes like warrior and rogue, that seems to be the natural evolution of previous games, but then there are some that seems to be more akin to MMORPGs or MOBAs (mainly AOE abilities that I´ve seen so far). To the UI color I have only one thing to add, a customization. Why they have not added that option for UI color scheme, so it fits the personal preference. I suppose that at the end there will be some mad modder that is gonna add few different color options.

Game looks and feels like a TikTok ad. If you like it, go play it. I don't care about the game not taking previous choices into consideration. We've been conditioned to expect choices to not matter since Mass Effect.

While Im not a fan of the art style, Im still gonna play the game. I know that I will be able to create my male OC pretty well in the CC, and thats more than enough motivation to play it. Im not buying the game day 1 tho. Gonna sail the high seas and if I like the game, I'll grab it when its on a big sale eventually.

Not sure why this came up in my algo, but watched about half of it. I wrote off DA4 a while ago as it stinks of SBI and forced diversity, but I'll comment here to boost your engagement for a well made and thoughtful video.

feels like im going crazy fr because i love the new style. really appreciated this take!

It's almost as if the talented people have left the company.

Fantastic Video , I feel like you were able to articulate alot of the issues i do have with the game art/ previews that i couldnt quite put my finger on. Despite my criticism of some of the changes being made in Veilguard im 100% on board and hyped for it. Can't wait for the 31st it wont come fast enough.Keep up the good work i really enjoyed your video it was very thoughtful and put well put together you earned a sub from me today . Have a great one and i look forward to more content from you!

What an amazing video!! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us. ‪I would say though that for me, I associate purple with Pride, and seeing that Veilguard does focus heavily on Solas and his motivations, and is as much a story of his mistakes and regrets; and with him literally being Pride (a la the meaning of his name), the purple makes sense to me 😂‬. I know the devs said the story is a lot about regret, and I agree. But I also think it’s a story about how our Pride leads us to certain decisions and moments that leave an eternity of regrets in their wake. But yeah, great video all around ❤

Good video! I'm not a big fan of the art style but I'm a lot more worried about the writing as I haven't been very impressed with it from the previews so far. Among other issues I won't bore you with, I've detected some of that overly jokey tone (like Marvel as you mentioned) I've really come to dislike more and more. I want to take the characters and the story seriously but the game seems to be fighting me on that. I hope I'm wrong but that's my (admittedly very limited) impression so far. There's also this disconnect I've felt between the voice performances, which can be quite expressive, and the somewhat stilted character animations, but that's not too big of an issue for me if the story and the writing are good. To be fair, I've not played Origins (my favorite) or Inquisition for an age (never actually played 2) but I don't recall having similar issues with the writing in them (or not to the same extent, at least, especially in Origins) but it could be I just don't remember and my tastes have changed over the years. Either way, this is probably a game I'll have to wait for a sale on.

Lets talk artstyle in Dragon Age... Look at Origins trailer, look at DA2 trailer.... Inquisition trailer. Hek! Even look at the earlyerst teaser for "Dreadwolf" that came like 5 years ago...Even if you look at the 2020 trailer. Basically anything before rebranding Dreadwolf to Veilguard looks in tone with the previous Dragon Age games. And then came the companion trailer for the already renamed "Veilguard"... Harding's tavern fight looks like taken from a Shrek movie. Neve looks like Wynne froze her face, Lucanis's head reminds me of those Bobblehead figures, the Veiljumper looks like a copy-paste character from Fortnite, Emmrich is your typical Disney villain... also is Davrin a Dark elf or something? Taash is basically Peebee (ME: Andromeda) but with horns... and less blue... And i dont even want to touch the enemy designs

What a well made video. Well spoken and articulate. Bravo, i subscribed

Great video. Pointed things out properly. Hope the game will be great!

Loved the analysis, looking forward to more videos from you!

I love Dragon Age, the three of them already since each one of them had their qualities and issues ^^ and I already love Veilguard's designs. I like to remember that games are made to be entertaining and fun, and that fun can come in many forms, I play gachas, I play Elden Ring, I play strategy games and of course my all times favorites : Dragon Age, games I discovered as a kid alongside TES IV Oblivion. Games I talked about a lots in school with my friends ^^ I remember talking about about how the Broodmother looked like at school and her ... special features and seeing people reactions to it, its a vivid memory. I have a lots of good memories about Dragon Age games, for each of them. I was 12 when Origins came out, then 14 for the II and 17 for Inquisition ... Veilguard will be the first I will play as an adult with my whole gaming experience behind me. I also love the companions. A reason I loved Dragon Age as a whole is the same than why I love gacha games : the characters, the design, their uniqueness and originality. I like that characters seems weird and different, out of place in their world. It make my teams feel more vivid, memorable and unique ^^ I am so ready to play this game for 100 of hours and there is no haters out there that could convince me to not play this game.

The reason why u see a lot of purple is because of prince because bio ware is a purple rain fans and a prince fan I knew that when bungie had a purple in there game destiny 2 iam also myself is a prince fan and bio ware is honored prince and his art and his music sooo that’s why u see purple in the game. Sooo there u goo now u know why there’s purple in the game.

I came from the dragon age group post i'm at 14:16 minute and so far it has been a very great video! Lots of information , interconnecting your opinions to exemple!

Very informative video, great voice, hope to see more from this creator.

This video is incredible. And my apologies but I decided to be an unpaid shill for your video. Just spamming it wherever I can. Cheers!

I'm so glad I watched it until the end. I'm like you and will enjoy the game regardless because - hey - it's Dragon Age! But it was so interesting to see an artist's take on it. Thank you for putting this together!

32:42 yeah, sadly the series lost me at Origins, because the NPC AI made battles a chore, and World of Warcraft was at its peak. the story was fairly engaging at the time, but later entries in the series were gatekept by the draconian EA DRM. it's also the reason why i never got into Mass Effect at the time.

The Veilguard environment doesn’t look to bad (I loved the Frostbite engine effects on the Inquisition landscapes) but the big headed plastic faced character look is just too much uncanny valley with a leaning towards being made deliberately ugly? I won’t be touching the game unless I hear great things from real game players who haven’t had lunch at Bioware. But I’m not expecting anything as I got burned once with Mass Effect: Andromeda and that weird facial freak show. I prefer the semi realism art style of Inquisition or an outright eastern anime styling. But something got super deformed and uglified here. PS. I’m afraid the good looking hair in this game came from the FIFA football game devs who made it for the football stars and Dragon Age Bioware imported it. But yeah, that purple magenta colour is absolutely EVERYWHERE these days and I’m frankly sick of seeing it! Just take notice from now on and you will see it in everything and I mean everything!😅

I’ve pre-ordered the game. I just want to see for myself. I agree with most everything you said. I don’t mind a “cartoony” game. I liked Tales of Arise and it was an anime game so it was a cartoon. My two complaints are that *everything* is over saturated. I agree they made more purposeful use of saturation in DAI. I also think they overused soft focus. That’s also something that should be used sparingly. I think the soft focus contributes to the “smoothness” thing. I can get past all these, and who knows. Maybe the graphics settings will be robust enough that I can adjust it a little. Like you, I spend a lot of time in graphics settings before I ever start a game. Sorry, I’m all out or rude comments atm. I appear to have used them elsewhere.

i`m ready to say goodbye to DA and Bioware

Great job! Loved this video so much.

This whole video is so much cope. Half of your defense is that these are mostly minor issues. But ffs, acknowledge that there are many of these “minor” issues. You didn’t even mention how they were grossed out by Blood magic. Which is the first thing I expected with the title. Also comparing to ten year old plus games is weak. This whole video is bad, you should know that and feel bad.

This is the 1st balleced take I've seen from the other side great video....I will say I think you rely on the word subjective a bit 2 much everything in video games Is subjective and if we can't determine if something is good or not based on its subjectivity then nothing would be good or bad

There's rumours that the mid gradient of the purple is the original colour derived from mixing the colours of the trans flag. Then they just added hue to lighten or darken it as needed.

You know, I've never had problems with epilepsy and seizures associated with it, but when I watched the gameplay video, my eyes really hurt and my head hurt. I have a slight intolerance to bright light, which causes some inconvenience in real life. When I played the previous parts of this game, I did not have bad visual sensations, but this... I really hope that all these bells and whistles, and explosions like from Genshin can be turned off. Not only does it spoil the atmosphere, but it also brings discomfort in the process.... :(

it is purple because it is gay.

I love inquisition but the artstyle didnt age well. Its all very static. Nothing flows, if that makes sense. It goes for realism and lighting but movements and abilities are so stiff it almost feels a bit uncanny. I think veilguard has a more stylized look with a drop of a drop of pixar. And I think it'll age very well.

its nothing controversial, it shows a lack of talent and artistic vision, went for generic fortnite look that nobody likes really and the purple hue is so overused in all of these woke turd creations.

So. if I make a game and then think, hmm I want colour blind people to enjoy it as well, then I make the entire game in hues one type of colour blind people can see, but not the others, and then complain that people didn't like how inclusive I was, did I then make the right game? Should I have put in the normal option of letting you choose which type of colour blind you are, and a setting for people with normal colour perception? Help me out here, are you saying that DATV is made for vision impaired, slow witted, colour blind amputees? I am really at a loss here.

This is the difference between a 30 year old and a 54 year old: Ever since I played pong in the mid-70s, games in the arcade and fired up Atari for the first time I've been imagining and waiting for the future of hyper realistic gaming. Waiting a long time. When I played Intelevision, Coleco Vision and Star wars on the Adam computer, yeah that thing, and Super NES I was getting evermore hyped for the future of gaming. Then personal computers came out and could do more and more over time. From 1990 to 1998 I stopped gaming all together except for pinball machines simply because I was caught up in work all the time and survival. I did see my friends playing on console here and there and some resident evil games. Fast forward to 1998 I was looking at PCs again and decided I was going to buy a computer and put the necessary parts in there to play the latest games. Boy was I surprised. I got a 3dfx card, I got a pretty decent processor, whatever that was, and a good sound card to use with the surround speaker set I bought. By the time I got everything together my first two games were Half-Life and Unreal Tournament. But I did play a Wolfenstein game my friend had on his computer before I did all this. That's what kind of sparked me to get back into gaming. When I play Half-life and moved around the world and got 3D surround sound. I was in awe. I was amazed. Then I fired up Unreal Tournament not knowing what to expect at all. Remember, I was out of gaming all together for a while. Back then 9 years was a long time. I jumped in UT campaign and was running around not really knowing what to do and I was getting hurt by something. After I got my bearings this thing, this person, this computer generated character was running around shooting me and jumping all over the place. I ran away and it chased me. That was like,"WTF is this?". That was the moment that I was never going to look back. Forget about pixel games, text games, platformers, side scrollers, and point and click. I was eager for more. I was eager for more immersion. More realistic environments and sound. I made it a point to upgrade my computer every year after that point. Then VR came and I was blown away again. Some people criticize it but I think it's the best form of gaming ever if you're physically able to do it. Unfortunately, there isn't hardly any AAA investment. But I still love it and want more. For some reason there's this small group of cynical people who are bashing nice graphics. I understand if people like old pixel games and side scrollers but there is nothing wrong with nice graphics and beautiful characters. Recent modern graphical games have been disappointing not because of the fact that game companies are trying to make nice graphics. It's because they're focusing too much energy on injecting identity politics into the games, and creating environments that are not very interesting can the storytelling really isn't that great. I'm not going to buy Veilguard because of the graphical style, because of the funky looking characters, because of the uninteresting dialogue implementation, and because the combat to me didn't look like something I would like, etc. Those are all valid reasons for me not to buy the game. A nice looking game with nice looking characters, with beautiful environments whether fantastical or rustic, with intriguing dialogue where you actually have a choice to change the path of the game in a major way, with enemies that trigger emotions and strike the heart are all things that make up a good game. It's really the same things that make up a good movie. You can argue that games have become too advanced. That they have gotten away from the original arcade feel. And you would be right. But that's what true progression is when it comes to creating art on a modern computer. Some areas where there have been regression is story, AI, and I could say environments. The games that actually had decent-looking environments were tainted by things that nobody wanted. There are a few exceptions so don't get on me about the few. So, yeah, I don't want a game that looks like Fortnite or OverWatch when I'm playing a 3d RPG. There were other games that came out the past few years that were RPG type games. There were also some survival type games as well. And I didn't buy them for that very reason. I can see a strict adventure game/walking simulator that would be good with those type of graphics. I might buy a game in that context. Anyway, that's as much of the discussion here that I'm going to have because this is getting long and I can't really tell everything I want in detail. Peace.