Honestly the identity politics put me off.
That gave me a negative impression of the game...  If that wasn't in there at all, my impression would have been better from the start.

Then watching someone like Asmongold play it, would have hit harder.

That said, 70,000+ people isn't bad for a peak.
Sure its not BG3 numbers (but that game probably sold like 15-20 million copies).
Dragon Age: The veilguard is unlikely to reach those numbers.


That 6hour or so video of Asmongold playthrough, put me back in the, if theres a sale, I'll pick it up catagory.

I should have a been a long single movie, or a two part 100 movie at best.

This christmas I will do something I was waiting a long time to do, which is to look for some fan edit of the hobbit trilogy to watch, I always wanted to know how it would be removing most of the fat, which is probably 40% of the trilogy. 

I watched Wolfheart stream the game. It looks so so. The bulk of my issues with Veilguard have nothing to do with the "culture war" stuff. As usual, people with an indefensible position latch onto the culture war in attempt to dismiss legitmate criticism. 

• I don't like the combat and the stream just confirmed it.
• After watching the whole stream, the art style is still a sore point. The environments look fine. The characters don't. In fact the style of the two conflict
• The presentation, the cluttered UI, despite having a smaller party with more limited skills, the UI seems to take up more of the screen
• The dialogue was so so thus far. It could get better, could get worse. However the dialogue spoken not matching the text you choose is a common occurence.
• The claims that you really can't be mean with your party members holds true.
• The game is direct sequel to Inquistion that ignores most of it's choices
• The game apparently sidelines Solas, after such an interestng build for two boring mustache twirling villains achetypes

The game seems to be standard fare action RPG with a Dragon Age coat of paint, that wasn't color matched, thrown on top. If it weren't titled "Dragon Age". I'd likely have a more positive opinion of it.

Agree. And simply being dragon age without any of the dark setting/lore is a bit strange.

That'ss basically what I did.... I just looked the combat and skill tree's and thought, this doesn't look terrible.
I'd kinda like to be doing that right now.  I'm huge on turn based, but I don't mind senseless button mashing if needed.

So yeah, ignore the name, and the game itself is good enough that I wouldn't mind.

Your concerns are all valid though.
Its such a stark contrast to BG3.
I bought that day1 full price, because I knew looking at it, that it was something special.
Also I wanted to support them, and their efforts (for BG3, and future ones).

Dragon Age - The veilguard isn't that.
I'm not going to full price this, or feel like I especially want to support bioWare or EA.

60-70k is ok for a multiplat release, maybe it will reach close to 100k in the weekend (games tend to peak in saturday or sunday)

BG3 was PC exclusive for a month

Warhammer is a fairer comparison, it did 225k 

Yeah despite the variances in how they played, the previous Dragon Age games were clearly dark fantasy. The title screen for Inquisition is darker than anything I've seen in Veilguard thus far. You boot up Inquistion and you see a legion of mages and templars obliterated by an explosion.

It's an animated adaptation that condenses the events of the first two books into just two hours. I watched it as a kid and hated it because I found the animation dull and the story confusing especially compared to Peter Jackson's movies, which streamlined the plot enough for even the seven-year-old myself to understand

As a teenager, I read the books and realized this adaptation was actually faithful to Tolkien's original texts, but it still felt flawed because it only captured a few key story points while leaving out the worldbuilding and character depth that give context to the plot. I believe the whole plotline of Rohan to be the one the suffers the most, it's almost incomprehensible in the 1978's adaptation 

Watching it again as an adult, I think I finally see other issues: it lacks the artistic qualities that make animation a great medium. It’s as if someone decided to make a film that simply retells the story, without embracing any of the strengths unique to animation. Imagine putting on a play of Hamlet, a great story right? But a play requires good dialogue (and monologues), acting, and stage direction to bring it to life. That's the problem with the 1978 adaptation imo, its primary goal seems to be delivering a two-hour summary for people who want to know the story without the commitment of reading the books, sacrificing depth and artistry along the way. I think it was a mostly conscious choice of the director (still don't get why didn't adapt only the first book), but still dragged his movie 

There is quite the discrepancy between mainstream reviews and user reviews,

Most mainstream reviews, "Return to form and BioWare is back! GOTY contender"

User reviews, "It's alright. Not really dragon age, kinda fun action RPG sort of mid thing worth a play, maybe on sale."

I'm seeing a lot of positive user reviews that are using terms like they're conflicted about giving the game a positive review, or that they're just leaning towards leaving a positive review over a negative one.

So the game isn't bad, but nothing really of note. Basically a Ubisoft game at least the game is incredibly polished! The consensus overall is definitely fun combat, okay to middling writing/characters. Which is ironic because throughout BioWare's history, those descriptions would've been reversed lol. I'll pick up the game when it's on sale.

I think one of the main reasons is that there's a service aspect to professional reviews where it's not necessarily about your personal preferences but whether it's an enjoyable experience. I felt this about FFXVI where the RPG mechanics were pretty much dead on arrival which really irked me, it was nowhere near as unique a world compared to past FFs as well... But put that aside its a fantastic action game with light RPG aspects, and really great world building/lore, amongst the best voice acting of the series too.

The other thing is critics are incredibly soft when it comes to critiquing story, meanwhile users vary a lot in terms of what standards they need. Reminds me a bit of my flatmate who watches any series as long as its solid & has drama, whereas I need the characters or plot to be genuinely standout in order to get me past a few episodes. My threshold for entertainment now is pretty high and unless something artistically/tonally just hits a personal sweetspot