After years of holding out hope, 2024 was the year I finally gave up on BioWare
After years of holding out hope, 2024 was the year I finally gave up on BioWare
The Veilguard was the very shiny, very pretty nail in the coffin.
I really tried to enjoy myself. God, I tried so hard. I attempted to find nuggets of joy within its hamfisted dialogue, one-note companions and the flashy but soulless fights. But I just couldn't do it. Every time there was a glimmer of hope, it was dashed against the rocks of infinite disappointment.
Honestly, I'm amazed I finished it. There was certainly a point where I was starting to feel like I'd rather do anything else than listen to a hot Grey Warden talk about his big dumb bird for the hundredth time, or play therapist to a giant dragon slayer who just wants to moan about how their mum doesn't understand them. These should have been great characters. A veteran knight reclaiming his order's lost legacy, a proud warrior wrestling with their cultural and gender identity—there's so much good stuff to mine here. But nope, they're just plain boring. All of them.
I'm beating a dead horse, I know. I've already said my piece. But it's just a real shame. When I got to the final cutscene that teased what we can expect from the next Dragon Age, it really sealed the deal. I'm out. BioWare just isn't telling stories I care about anymore. Instead of moping around, I'm moving on. BioWare had an exceptional run, but that developer is long gone. What's left is just an EA studio that makes middling games I'm not really interested in.
Seriously this sentiment is old as hell. This comic is old as hell.
The BioWare of today is not the one that made the original Baldur's Gate. Shit, it's not even the BioWare that made the original Dragon Age.
They've been a hollowed out shell chasing whatever "AAA" style sells the most for a long time now. If Baldur's Gate 3 had come out before Witcher 3, you can bet your ass Veilguard would look and play a hell of a lot more like BG3, because it's painfully clear they did everything they could to crib the speed of the combat in Witcher 3, which was the hot shit when they started development. Similar to how Inquisition was chasing the Open World fad. If Baldurs Gate 3 had been the hot shit when they began development? Veilguard would have played like that instead.
It is what it is, and this has been this way since at least Dragon Age 2/Mass Effect 2.
They're just so risk-adverse. It's the same as Andromeda, and Ubisoft is another great example. They're so worried about getting the most players that they're afraid to take risks. What if players don't like this, what if the audience is smaller? Everything is done by committee and it becomes a fairly flat game.
Just as an FYI, "averse" is what you want there, rather than "adverse". Likely an autocorrect thing, but figured I'd mention it just in case.
Strange that that's the case. The thing that made the Witcher 3 good was the writing of the side quests, not the combat.
Not sure if I've played a game that's pivoted to be more like the Witcher that has met that standard in that regard.
The Witcher games have all had terrible combat, just getting slightly better each game. The folklore and universe are really what sells the Witcher games. Though the first one was still real bad.
I hated the combat in Witcher 3. The combat in Veilguard does not feel the same to me, so if it is biting the Witcher, it also improved it. I get they were probably chasing trends, but Veilguard is a solid action game. The author clearly has a bias to CRPGs, and a soft spot for Origins (as do I), but that does not make Veilguard a bad game. Just different
Bioware is (was) actually many studios in a trenchcoat - Bioware Edmonton ("old" Bioware, ME trilogy, Anthem), Bioware Austin (Sw:TOR, DA: I) and formerly Bioware Montreal (ME: Andromeda) and a bunch of other smaller teams.
Though almost all of the veterans have left, so it's now kinda a Ship of Thesius type situation, Bioware only in name.
I've been playing it and enjoying it. It could be better. Most games could. I had kind of low expectations, honestly. I'm glad it's a single player game with no live-service and no season-pass. I'll probably play it a second time. Runs kind of like crap, so I might play it again in the distant future where I have better hardware.
I imagine a lot of internet duds are mad about how there's a queer subplot, but they can go fuck themselves. Unfortunately, this creates a problem where if some random guy is bashing it I have to try to suss out if they're really just mad about queer stuff. It's hard to tell. And because we're all just emotional idiots, some people might be mad about the queer stuff and not realize it, and the words that come out of their mouth will be "boring characters".
But also a lot of their games have problems. Mass Effect 3's ending is so bad it has its own wikipedia page.
I think this is an important and distinctive point to be made, and I think it needs some background.
Who else remembers when EA won The Consumerists "Worst Company in America" two years running?
Well, I remember, but I also remember that EA actually placed the blame for winning Worst Company on something else entirely, and we have to be honest with ourselves and question whether this sentiment was real and we ignored it to our detriment.
This is part of what EA CEO Peter Moore had to say when EA won "Worst Company" a second year in a row:
In the past year, we have received thousands of emails and postcards protesting against EA for allowing players to create LGBT characters in our games. This week, we’re seeing posts on conservative web sites urging people to protest our LGBT policy by voting EA the Worst Company in America.
I remember at the time thinking this was pure deflection. Now I'm not so sure.
I mean, they won the awards in 2012 and 2013 and then Gamergate happened in 2014/2015. Seems pretty tied together, to me.
Bioware was dead 10 years prior...good morning.
Once EA came into the picture, things went downhill quick.
Did they? Mass Effect and Dragon Age began under EA, which a lot of people would argue are pretty good.
Also, what does EA do, that's so bad? As far as I know, they're really hands-off, so they don't really meddle in the development, like what we've heard from Bobby Kotick.
At least for Dragon Age (2009) was in development since at least November 2002, 5 years before EA purchased Bioware.
You could also look at DICE, and the absolute shitshow every Battlefield has been since they were purchased by EA.
Destroyed Sim City franchise, made The Sims 4 a DLC hellhole, made Mass Effect 3's shitty ending, maybe the mishandling of Battlefield 2042 and Battlefield 5?
Other things I could think of is releasing Origin and pulling their games from the Steam store. Other than that, I don't really follow gaming news enough to list more, nor know enough to determine if everything I already listed are caused by EA.
Edit: I forgot Mass Effect Andromeda.
So, one thing that's funny is the one instance that popped into my head was when an EA exec actually recommended a feature that ended up making Anthem better (but also possibly worse?). There's a famous story of how they were requested to add flying to the game, which added tons and tons of work and a good portion of dev time. But arguably was the best part of anthem. Unfortunately, they were unable to salvage it as we saw.
I can't say this for the author since they seemed to have finished the game, but Veilguard starts real rough, but got really fun to play. The story isn't anything to write home about, but it suits the more action oriented combat well. I get it is not the DA CRPG everyone seemed to want, but it is a damn fun 3rd person action game. Besides, we still have Baldurs Gate 3.
Agreed on all points. I decided to do a full series playthrough after I finished, and aside from how action oriented the combat is, it really reminds me of DA2. It feels more like you're playing the character of Rook, just like how you're playing the character of Hawke. You don't really have "evil" options, and are more railroaded because why the fuck would Varric recruit someone to be his number 2 that has evil tendencies? You're not a blank slate nobody like your character in 1 and 3.
My biggest complaint is it feels like a lot of your companions don't really talk to you that much. You get to know 1 part about them and that's it, we needed more dialogue with them!
jesus christ he executed them