Publication Dragon Age: Veilguard has been overshadowed by drama and controversy, as a certain group of particularly toxic fans have embraced the game.
The latest installment in BioWare’s beloved fantasy RPG series debuted on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on October 31st, making a big comeback after a decade.
The game received largely positive reviews from critics, who praised it for its epic fantasy story, amazingly detailed world, and fast-paced, action-packed combat.
The Dragon Age: Veilguard Drama Explained
Toxicity has taken over like in BioWare Dragon Age: Veilguardthere has been controversy surrounding the publication.
The RPG, which at the time of writing has achieved a solid 84/100 on Metacritic, is just the latest game to be embroiled in drama among fans for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons.
Veilguard has been the target of a venomous smear campaign from a certain sect of gamers known for progressive gaming that they see as coercive liberalism, and it carries over to the art they enjoy.
This has caused widespread review bombardment of the title, dropping its user review scores on platforms such as Metacritic (3.8/10) and Steam.
Dragon Age’s anti-Woke controversy
Some legitimate concerns have been expressed about it Veilguard. Some long-time fans have taken the position that the franchise is pulling away from its traditional strategy-heavy RPG roots in favor of something more akin to what BioWare is doing. Mass Effect 2.
However, most of where the controversy comes from seems to stem from a group of fans who dislike the game for its diverse gender politics, openness to queer characters, and other (what some call) “woke” storylines. game decisions.
The most notable point of contention among these detractors seems to be the game’s prominent use of non-binary, transgender, and queer characters.
Without spoiling anything too specific, one of the game’s main questlines deals with these various gender politics directly, causing those who normally balk at such things to be up in arms.
The game also allows the player to create a hero character that can look as androgynous as they want, include any number of pronouns, and even be openly trans (including top surgery scars).
This, along with the player’s ability to romance any of the companion characters regardless of their gender identity, has given the quote/unquote Anti-Awakened crowd several talking points about the game.
Things can be confusing for fans on the outside as the most vocal of these toxic players who have expressed their disdain Veilguard have used some legitimate criticism of the game to cover up their controversial opinions.
This has gone so far that some particularly prominent members of this “anti-revival” gamer community are sharing fake documents about the game’s review practices (via X). According to that, critics were forced to praise the game “DEI Compliant Features” and use phrases like “getting back into shape”.
The message has turned out to be inauthentic and has apparently tried to discredit those who have left a positive review Veilguard.
Has the Dragon Age drama affected sales?
Despite the drama surrounding the game, it has still managed to find success. In the first weekend on the market Dragon Age: Veilguard set the Electronic Arts (EA) and BioWare player volume record on Steam, with over 89,000 concurrent players on the platform (per SteamDB).
It also retained the top spot on the Steam sales chart after its first four days of release, overtaking the recently released Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (read more on the subject Black Ops 6).
So while this controversy seems to be loud online, it doesn’t seem to have stopped the publication Dragon Age in any way and hasn’t leaked into the mainstream as much as it would seem on social media.
Such diversity efforts are not new Dragon Age franchise. Although Veilguard Pushing the series even further in gender identity, queerness has always been a big part of BioWare games.
BioWare fans have long been able to pursue non-heteronormative relationships in the studio’s games. Veilguard just takes it a step further to better reflect the open and amazingly more diverse world the game will be released into in 2024.
This particular controversy is just another example of backward-thinking, closed-minded bad actors making a fuss about anything they find distasteful.
This year games like Hades 2 saw an equally toxic anti-awakening backlash, despite the game being widely heralded as a critical victory.
Dragon Age: Veilguard is available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
