A week before the premiere of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Electronic Arts published official information Dragon Age: Guardian of the Veil launch trailer, an action-packed, sonic and furious extravaganza that means the video game is definitely coming soon.
Soon, as seen in the trailer, a pair of elven gods will also appear, and this is generally bad news. They were “terrible tyrants,” as the story goes, and “the worst is yet to come.” Unless we stop them“
I’m not fully up to date with the history of Dragon Age, but the last time I checked, the elves in Thedas had almost come to an end, mired in poverty, enslavement, and human abuse after losing their homeland in the war with the Tevinter Empire. In this light, I can’t help but feel that perhaps revenge in the form of a little elven tyranny is just. To paraphrase the great Michael Madsen, they deserve theirs revengeand we deserve to die.
(Yes, I chose Iorweth path in The Witcher 3 and no, it wasn’t a difficult decision.)
But the obvious consequence is that this pair of pointy-headed rulers will be evil alland that’s why we’re creating a team to put the brakes on the whole thing. Everything is very dramatic and gloomy, and the approach to cinema is reminiscent of a “summer blockbuster”, 100% focused on generating buzz, not on saying anything substantive. I suppose this was to be expected, considering that by now everyone had already made up their mind whether or not The Veilguard was something they cared about, but I was still tempted to delve into it a bit due to its superficiality about high volume. But then I started wondering: Is it really that unusual?
A throwback to the original Baldur’s Gate game’s E3 trailer from 1998 suggests that no, that’s not the case. (Sorry for the quality of the video – it was a long time ago.)
They really aren’t that different, are they? Cinematics, dramatic music, gameplay fragments here and there, and a flash in the title card.
Comments on the Dragon Age: The Veilguard launch trailer on YouTube seem largely positive. Several people argue that Electronic Arts should have spearheaded this project in the first place, rather than the widely disliked one reveal trailer we have, i.e. a the sentiment we shared before too.
Still, there may be some catching up to do. The launch trailer currently has 12,000 likes on YouTube, but also 5,000 dislikes, and while that doesn’t mean much in itself – it’s easy to hit the “dislike” button just for fun – it’s not a particularly encouraging ratio. Baldur’s Gate 3 launch trailerby comparison, it has 50,000 likes and just 517 dislikes, which is probably a comment on the benefits of early access as much as anything else, but the bottom line is that as goodwill is expressed as soon as the launch trailer is released, it’s a pretty sure bet a sign that you still have some convincing to do.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be released on October 31. A preliminary version will be available for download on PC will not be available due to our unfortunate tendency to pirate video games: you can start downloading once the game goes live on launch day at 9am PT/11pm EST.
