Yesterday, during the Xbox showcase, we got our first proper look at Dragon Age: The Veilguard — a game that's reportedly survived a nightmarish development cycle over the last decade or so. While it was only a CG trailer, it prompted immediate reactions from both fans and curious onlookers because of its tone and art direction (and its horrifically bad, blown-out cover of David Bowie's Heroes, but that's a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things).
Basically, the trailer has completely divided opinion. There's no denying that Dragon Age was once a dark fantasy adventure that harkened back BioWare's classic CRPG roots, but The Veilguard looks like a Saturday morning cartoon by comparison. The bouncy, colourful new art style has really rubbed some people the wrong way, and plenty of references to games like Fortnite and Overwatch can be found in posts and comments across the internet.
The brunt of the criticism can be found on YouTube, where said trailer is being utterly slaughtered. The video on the official Dragon Age channel has over 1 million views, but the dislikes far outweigh the likes, at around 140,000 to 29,000 — and this is reflected in the comments. You have to scroll a long way down to find anything particularly positive; it's absolutely brutal.
But look, change rarely goes down well at first glance, and ultimately this is just a CG trailer. Actual gameplay footage is coming our way tomorrow (at the time of writing), with BioWare hosting a 13-minute deep dive on YouTube. There's every chance that the RPG looks much more appealing when it isn't being presented in such a stylised fashion.
There are more positive takes on the Dragon Age Reddit, where fans seem to have calmed down a bit after the initial sh*tstorm. A lot of more hardcore Dragon Age fans are willing to give The Veilguard a fair shake.