I'm a 3D artist. The models look just like the static sculpts made for printing or high-detail rendering. Not much detail texture-wise but high polygons even on lesser LODs gives me the feeling that these are more for show than for performance during gameplay. When the character creator of your RPG is designed to be a dress-up simulator, you can bet the facial animation is going to look rough, and so far the dev's have yet to convince me it's not. Not mad. Just very, very disappointed here.
@@spellandshield thank you. I appreciate it. you know what's sad? if Bioware kept the animation of DAO or even DA2, it would be leagues better than DAI, not to mention DAV. I do agree with you on the environment in DAV. I love the environment animation in DAO, DAI, & what I've seen in DAV so far. It should be said I like the character animations in DA2, not the environment.
Looks too human, needs some grey skin and red eyes or something... might look better without the horns, but there might be some cool horns we haven't seen yet.
@@TheZealo there's a character creator, someone made an ugly character. Get over it. I do wish they would figure out what qunari are supposed to look like, it's been all over the place for the entire series. If da:O qunari was just a big regular dude, and da2 qunari was goat man, is "big regular goat dude" a valid option? We've never really seen enough of them at once to get a good feel for "normal variance"
Inquisition's skin textures looked WAYYYYY better than what it looks like in Veilguard. I don't know what they've done... I mean, WTF is that Qunari Rook???
The art style is definitely at fault here, idk why the director chose to go the full pixar route but it really doesn't blend well with what's supposed to be a gritty dark fantasy. Even the darkspawn and demons look like fortnite characters now.
@@Dedhaventhis. I am not a fan of the art direction in this one. They look way too Fortnite like to me. I’m mainly here for the story so I hope that at least wins out. Very nervous about this.🤨
I don't think the problem here is the engine, even if it makes some things harder to do, they could have done a lot better. Unfortunately they just focused on other points instead of the animations
the problem with this Qunari model is that it's just the normal model with horns glued up, old Qunari had the texture of the horn base under the skin, in the formation of the skull.
I feel the same about elves, they look like humans with pointy ears. Sadge. They had it all, concept arts for old games were amazing. it's 2024 and they downgrade their own character models to the point where DAI and DA2 had better stuff.
Game's an amalgamation of all the directions it could have went at. It's match and missmatch of bunch of things. Some stuff is gonna stick out more than others.
Yeah, i agree completely. I hated the original companion reveal trailer, then that first 15 min gameplay trailer with that black guy as Rook had me cautiously optimistic again. However, the last 2 videos showing the warrior and mage gameplay have really put me off the game again. The combat looks just way too fast, flashy and lacking any sort of strategy, and the character models in this video look a bit odd, as s&s mentioned. Apart from the great looking environments, it certainly doesn't look like anything remotely resembling a game of the year contender.....
@@rb98769 Despite everything I dislike about Veilguard which are gameplay and aesthetic, Bioware "seems" to be following the same lines of Inquisition. Story and lore are the only things they haven't messed up yet, though I am very concerned about the companions. None of them look appealing to me, even doubly so if I take into account romance. Worse case my Rook is a loner like my Inquisitor.
@@Jrockk999 Inquisition companions were pretty solid - I didn't care for Sera or Cole, and Vivienne was well written but not a personality I would get along with. The rest I enjoyed having around. I don't see who that is this time around.
Same. It's one of the strongest examples I've ever seen of "one step forward, two steps back". I really WANT to love this game. I really do. But... every time I find one thing that excites me, I find 5 that make me cringe. 😞
@@Jrockk999 I feel the same about the companions, honestly I'm kinda glad that I'll have to bring only 2 to battle, I don't even want to recruit any of them based on what they showed us.
Thanks for your thoughts as always. I do not always agree with your takes, but, I must say I had exactly the same feeling/reaction to this as you. It felt so stale and the fetch quest was mind boggling. It also felt like unending combat against Sponges and constant Spawns, Like an MMO, just to get from one place to the other and I feel that the next time you need to go that direction...All the enemies will be there again. Hope I am wrong about my feelings, but that is where they stand after seeing that. Peace
With each iteration the Qunari look more and more like humans with severe headtrauma :) Apart from that it felt like those showcases where the devs try to show their "diverse" and "tactical" combat system but all I see is "pause game, click on combo-opportunity" over and over again. As long as I can keybind everything (including companions) and get rid of that horrible UI or resize it I think it will be okay enough. It looks like a simplified version of DA2 with less combos, no companion tactics but better gear options.
As someone who is excited about Veilguard after seeing the first couple gameplay trailers and the release date trailer, this recent showing of gameplay sucked so much ass. Whoever was playing was just absolutely awful and has clearly never played a difficulty higher than Casual. This specific Qunari looks like a tiktok twink, basically just a human with horns. And the companions barely did a damn thing in terms of aggro and damage. Bioware needs to fix that IMMEDIATELY, unless they want companions to be completely obsolete.
The only thing I look forward to with Veilguard is the ability to romance Harding. There's a saying that goes "you can sprinkle glitter on a cow patty and make it shiny, but it's still just a pile of s***"
Party makeup seems to be less of a concern this time around because in the latest Q&A they revealed that because apparently players hate to leave companions they like behind they made sure all of them can be viable together. Which, isn't all that unheard of because even since the days of Origins there have been unusual character builds and party makeups but every class still had its own unique role to play. As in, you could never make a warrior play as a mage but in the recent warrior combat showcase we had a character that was able to tank and use elemental AOE at the same time. So what's the purpose of a mage now?
The only excuse they had with andromeda was that i was a new engine for them so they had to get use to it. And that was really in a short time because EA forced it on BioWare and they had to learn really quick to hit the release date. But now they have no excuse at all.
And that’s actually weird because they used Frostbyte in Inquisition and animations were and it came before Andromeda with less bugs and better animations.
@@Clever_viper they were working on both games in tandem in different locations, however the original vision for Andromeda got scrapped and they had to slap it together in a rush job. By then, everyone who had fundamental knowledge had left the studio (Inquisiton shipped years before Andromeda)
It was not a new engine. Inquisition had frostbite 3. Andromeda had frostbite 3. So did Anthem. And we know what happened with it. And this game has frostbite 3. Supposedly if they do ME that game will use ureal.
@@Clever_viper With Andromeda, they started out on Unreal Engine but between early/mid development they were forced to use Frostbite by EA, causing a lot of major development issues. Most of their animations they had made were incompatible with Frostbite and the only RPG that had been made was Inquisition which didn't fit well for Mass Effect. With a looming deadline, they did a lot of generating basic animations to handle conversations but they never got a chance to go back and touch them up like they wanted due to the suits in EA pushing the game out the door. Though a lot of issues still stems with frostbite being a bad engine since it was made for FPS which is why environments look great but struggles with characters.
I want to be excited about this. But lot of things worry me, i don't like being unable to control other characters and strategize with them, it feels like yet another downgrade, the artstyle feels somehow off, and design of characters feels uninspired. I will reserve my final judgement, but doesn't seem good.
This game is beyond cooked. I'm still completely mystified by the downfall in quality with Bioware. Honestly depressing, been a slow decent into mediocrity since SWTOR launch/Mass effect 3 ending ,and losing all their talent in that cluster F of a mess. The brain drain is on full display for all too see, losing key talent for the past decade.
anyone notice how the companions don't hit very hard.. It would appear that you have to do all the damage vs. DA:I i could use casandra and clear out all the minions
I've been getting the impression lately that they want this game to cater to people who have never cared for the party based combat in Dragon Age and would rather just let their main character do everything. Seems like every class can do anything now. Melee, ranged, tank, AOE, you name it.
You are so right about it looking like a AA ( at best) - it reminds me heavily of Kingdoms of Amalur in it's overall presentation and that's not a good thing considering how old that game is. The gameplay also looks awful and barebones, it was so sad to see the guy playing knock off a darkspawn from a 1.5m ledge and act like it's some smart tactical choice he made and as if that added some complexity to the game when it reality it did sweet FA.
I’m a Dragon Age fan, but watching your commentary on this game is pure entertainment. It cracks me up how polite you are about it all. My respect to you. My face is just as tired as those NPCs' faces!
I can forgive some poorer facial animations and even the more outdated graphics. Those arent deal breakers for me, BUT if the NARRATIVE and PLOT are not up to par with how fantastic Inquisitions Descent DLC and Tresspassers DLC indicated with the Titans awakening and the Evanuris in a full blown conflict WORTHY of the epic storyline it set up!.... Yea that will be a deal breaker if they drop the ball on those fronts. In fact I can give them a pass on most everything EXCEPT the plot and narrative writing. If they f'ck that up, bioware is dead to me and my headcannon will be Solas won and deserved to win.
TBH it wouldn't be a dragon age game if something about the characters wasn't utterly terrible. Origin: Skin 2: Stiff models Inquisition: Hair Veilguard: Weird playdough people.
I was already pessimistic about the future of this game and it is looking worse, as far as the gameplay is. Furthermore, I'm not optimistic about the story. With the release of Mass Effect Andromeda, it's become clear that BioWare has seen a loss in ability to write a good story. Perhaps the loss of key talent was something that BioWare has not recovered from.
This is definitely the one game I’d highly recommend avoiding mage. Just watching the trailer I can tell that it’s the worst mage gameplay out of the four games by far.
Everything about this game pisses me off. Its cartoony. Its hack and slash. They made the demons less individualized. The leveling system is still just a skill tree. When will they stop getting further and further away from origins.
It literally looks like they didnt progress beyond Andromeda facial animations. Still stuck in 2017. and i just cant get past that weird polymer clay looking charactes and the goofy, juvenile creature designs
All my concerns are back at the top after this gameplay. I can get over some of the issues but these faces... it's weird bc Varric had much better expression from the first gameplay, from what I remember
I like the locomotion of the action combat, but it's so ridiculously colorful it's hard to follow. And what is up with the qunari looking so smooth??? Sten had more face texture in DAO than Tash or this Rook does. I will admit I can't help but be excited for it, but I am 110% with you on the character models. They are not my favorite. You can see what was leftover from the live service direction they were going to take the game, and what trends they were chasing. I hope it feels better when I have hands on the game and can make my own character and fight my own way.
It's clear they had no idea what they were doing with this game. No clear art direction, no clear gameplay direction, no clear technology direction, it's just a mess. It's no wonder they went through directors like k-cups.
The Qunari MC looks a bit derpy, everything else I just chalk up to art style. I don't mind the art style in general, but I do agree that it is a little Uncanny Valley; like maybe it would have worked better if they'd leaned just a skosh closer to EITHER realism OR cartoon-style. It's too middle-ground. Should have committed to one or the other IMO.
Environments look OK but kind of bland to me. The characters however, indeed, they don't look very good... plastic playdough models is a good description of it. The HUD also doesn't appeal to me on first glance, but in gameplay that might work OK. Let's see when the game is released what it really will be like and how it will be reviewed! But I have to admit, I'm not really excited.
I think it might just be the Qunari Character tbh, They peaked in Da2. I bet the human and elves look better. Also it's Frostbite so you can blame EA for making Bioware use it.
This could be a player character issue rather than just the Qunari to be honest, as more customization often comes at the expense of facial animation quality. Larian distinctively avoided sliders and had us pick face presets in BG3 so that the character expressions would be smoother, which is harder to do with more detailed character customization systems.
I would be shocked if this sells well...but you never know? If it flops it would not surprise me; if it does well it would not surprise me but I doubt I will end up playing it until reviews come in and even then...
@@apres-lachute8718 Honestly, it's probably for the best if the game flops and BioWare just dies. This isn't the studio that made ME2, let alone KOTOR, NWN, or BG 1 even, it's just a recognizable name EA uses. The sooner they lose it the better.
Dragon age inquisition came out 10 years ago and the characters and facial animations was monumentally better than anything showcased for the veilguard. Also, I still can't get over how weird the qunari look in this game... well they all look goofy actually.
BUT THE FACIAL ANIMATIONS WERE ACTUALLY GOOD IN THE CUTSCENE WE GOT FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME WITH SOLAS AND VARRIC SO WHAT HAPPENED????? WHY DOES IT LOOK SO BAD HERE
Overall, I did like the IGN coverage video for the game. It is a bit of a shame this Qunari Rook doesn't have the rough & strong look they had in Dragon Age II, though hopefully there will be options for that in the character creator. However one thing in particular I'm sick of is the developers just casually dropping spoilers from their own mouths. Why!? Save it until it's released! Please stop taking the wind out of the story BioWare.
Yep. Totally agree. There have been a couple of features that I think look really cool... the upgradable vendor/workshop for example... but for every feature I get hopeful for, there are half a dozen where I go "ooooh... That's awkward...". It's freaking heartbreaking given how long we've all been looking forward to this game. I didn't have high expectations, but somehow my expectations are STILL not even being MET, let alone exceeded. It's really sad.
The biggest red flag for me is that Bioware thought the qunari Rook with a enormous forehead and the awful looking combat was something to promote the game with. I have to really question Bioware's self awareness.
They made every playable race in this game look human. Qunari, Elves, Dwarves ... everyone looks human. They are different races! I get and support putting diversity in humans but why humanize alien races ? Whats the point of a different race like the Elves looking asian or Quanari looking like Rupaul? You look at a Half Orc in BG3 or any other race and you can see them as an alien species ... that's far more diverse that what I see in these videos. And they can't blame the engine ... that is a massive character design failure. So far, no blood mages, no magic builds, no Evil origin story or arc ... can I at least choose my stats in this RPG ?
It's also funny because it goes against the supposed body diversity that seems to be so "in" right now in videogames. Davrin looks like a black man with pointy ears. Has Bioware forgotten that elves are supposed to be much slimmer and with sharper, more angular faces?
BioWare is supposed to be THE developer of RPG games, it's a huge studio with one of the biggest publishers behind it and some of the most critically and commercially successful games in it's gallery. And yet ... Larian, an indie studio, even if a big one, manages to create facial animations LEAGUES better than this game and that's on top of amazing visuals and gameplay with no prior experience of making cinematic RPGs like these. Just let that sink in ...
Its finny because the warrior gameplay actually looked kinda fun. Like what I'd expect from a warrior class basically, with spartan kicks and badass posey finishers and moves. The mage gameplay... Yeah I had to click off the video. It convinced me to never even attempt a mage build because of how bad it looks. Also, more and more I'm just not liking the character models. It takes me out of it completely. Like I'm trying tl get used to it, but it feels and looks unnatural. Gonna play the game anyway - but its gonna be an uphill battle to finish one campaign run, also might be the first time I don't romance anybody.
I don't really have issues with the combat. It wasn't a good showing but I think that was more down to bad planning on the side of the devs and IGN: the director was juggling playing and providing commentary and the build and party comp seemed very ill equipped for these sorts of encounters. They should have at least given the controller to a silent player so everyone could do a single thing properly. What I did have a real issue with is the characters. I've tried to stay positive about the art direction they picked for this but the airbrushed faces are making it very difficult. The facial animations seem lifted straight out of late Andromeda. They're certainly better than release Andromeda but that's not a high bar to clear.
I'm extremely disappointed by this. I'll play it eventually but only once it's 90% off. I can't justify spending money day one for this. I would feel like I'm rewarding them for mediocrity.
Starfield's facial expressions and animations look better than this at least for the NPC's you can speak to. Lip synch, facial expressions etc. Dragon Age: Ingame, the lips move - and nothing else. Is Veilguardcbuilt in Frostbite like Inquisition and Andromeda? If so, it would explain the stiff facial animations and how characters look like they're using a lot of botox.
I think we're on the same wavelength. I just mentioned something similar on a Luke Stevens video recently and your thoughts are quite similar to mine. What I'd said, copy/pasted from that other video: "The thing that gets me visually is that the environments look amazing. The textures and colours and abience. The characters though.... they seem...smooth? They've no pores, dimples or differing complexion types. They remind me of going to Hero Forge and creating a mini, if that makes sense. There's just something slightly off about them to me. Maybe that'll change when the game releases and I'm able to get my hands on it and begin actual gameplay, but for now, it's the thing that keeps me with one raised eyebrow."
Like nearly every 'AAA' release from the big corpos nowadays, expect smoke and mirrors until launch when everything they lied about and what they 'made to look better than it is' gets revealed for what it is.
I'm pretty confident that BW used all their animation budget on Solas, because the stark difference with facial features compared to all Rooks shown so far, is quite noticeable 😅🤔
It's the base of the horns. The base of the horns is covered with skin and creates an illusion of giant hydrocephalic head lol. Skin and other surfaces need more texture but it's a stylistic choice unfortunately. Not the best in my opinion. If the horns stuff is fixed I might give game a chance lol, because I wanted to play as qunari. I'll just wait and see how character creator looks like and then decide if I should buy. I'm not sure though because Taash has the same problem with her horns. *sigh*
For me personally Bioware died a while ago. They lost their spark and just riding the fame of their IP's. Thanks for the vid. Just confirmed that this is a def skip for me.
Well of course it is, this game is literally a modified Mass Effect andromeda, just like how all recent fallout games was made by the same engine and just the same thing over and over again with some surface level modification And that is the exact reason why in this game, we cant control companion anymore because the framework from andromeda simply doesnt have such function
I think that the combat has also big problems, all classes are played the same as a mage you play the same the rogue, phase = dodge, while those pirouettes are hilarious, there is not logical explanation for casting spells like you throwing them with a sling or what is that. They are showing each time worse and worse examples, like those models suck and they should fire the character designer immediately, it is travesty show so far. The character and monster models suck, combat seems to suck too, environment is excelent, so I hope story will be worth to play the game.
I think it is somewhat tied to the specific charcacters. This Convo looked goofy escpecially with our Horn Guy but then again i think the big part is his Weird Face in general 😅 The Facial Animations in the previous Trailers looked fine to me though.
hi S&S. I was thinking uncanny valley too before you said it in your video. please don't be sorry about your opinion, especially since I'm pretty sure there are a lot of us out there who agree with you. this is the 1st time that I will be going solely on what you, Wolfheartfps & a few other youtubers think about this game. I loved the 1st 2 DA games & their animation, despite DA2 using the same settings over again. I rage quit DAI although I love Solas. I was really looking forward to DAV, but now, I don't know.
Expressionless faces, craptacular lip-sync, 2010 textures, clunky combat, the lamest of darkspawn retcons... all from the perspective of a horned Handsome Squidward. This one will finally send BioWare to uthenera.
I'm a 3D artist. The models look just like the static sculpts made for printing or high-detail rendering. Not much detail texture-wise but high polygons even on lesser LODs gives me the feeling that these are more for show than for performance during gameplay. When the character creator of your RPG is designed to be a dress-up simulator, you can bet the facial animation is going to look rough, and so far the dev's have yet to convince me it's not. Not mad. Just very, very disappointed here.
hi. what are lod's?
@@Suzanne_sf Level of Detail(s).
@@spellandshield thank you. I appreciate it. you know what's sad? if Bioware kept the animation of DAO or even DA2, it would be leagues better than DAI, not to mention DAV. I do agree with you on the environment in DAV. I love the environment animation in DAO, DAI, & what I've seen in DAV so far. It should be said I like the character animations in DA2, not the environment.
@MaiitsohZ if I didn't rage quit DAI, I don't think I would be as harsh with my criticism with DAV, but I will give DAV a chance.
if you're a 3d artist why don't you have any of your stuff posted?
Jesus Christ, DA2 had badass looking Qunari. What is that thing they created???
So true, I think of Iron Bull, hell, even Sten, and then I see... this PC? Baby faced qunari? What is going on?
Yeah, this Qunari looks more like Megamind with horns or something. I'd be more than happy if we could keep the Inquisition look.
Looks too human, needs some grey skin and red eyes or something... might look better without the horns, but there might be some cool horns we haven't seen yet.
@@rb98769 lmao Megamind with horns is so on point, and yeah I agree. Dunno, maybe there's better options in the CC? /sigh lol
@@TheZealo there's a character creator, someone made an ugly character. Get over it.
I do wish they would figure out what qunari are supposed to look like, it's been all over the place for the entire series.
If da:O qunari was just a big regular dude, and da2 qunari was goat man, is "big regular goat dude" a valid option?
We've never really seen enough of them at once to get a good feel for "normal variance"
Inquisition's skin textures looked WAYYYYY better than what it looks like in Veilguard. I don't know what they've done... I mean, WTF is that Qunari Rook???
This is what happens when a game takes 10 years of " supposed development" they arrive late to the time it was originally meant to.
At this point I'm just hoping there will be someone making a character retexture mod 🥲
The art style is definitely at fault here, idk why the director chose to go the full pixar route but it really doesn't blend well with what's supposed to be a gritty dark fantasy. Even the darkspawn and demons look like fortnite characters now.
@@Dedhaventhis. I am not a fan of the art direction in this one. They look way too Fortnite like to me. I’m mainly here for the story so I hope that at least wins out. Very nervous about this.🤨
@@SeventhheavenDKGame hasn’t been 10 years in development😂 Been in development 4-5 years, after Anthem and the restructuring
I wish EA would give up on frostbite. This engine isn't good. Wallace and Gromit had better facial animations.
I don't think the problem here is the engine, even if it makes some things harder to do, they could have done a lot better. Unfortunately they just focused on other points instead of the animations
EA gave up on Frostbite some years ago. Mass Effect 5 is on Unreal.
the problem with this Qunari model is that it's just the normal model with horns glued up, old Qunari had the texture of the horn base under the skin, in the formation of the skull.
DA2 qunari still looks awesome
I feel the same about elves, they look like humans with pointy ears. Sadge. They had it all, concept arts for old games were amazing. it's 2024 and they downgrade their own character models to the point where DAI and DA2 had better stuff.
@mammozdzierzwdupie Sera had ones of the most memorable features I've seen among elves in all media really.
@@laniakeas92 no, she was cringe. I hated sera
@@KarlKapo haha
I'm talking about her face not the personality
The fact that you can see the original multiplayer skeleton in the UI, companions choice menu and the faces.
This isn’t the first time, this was rampant in Inquisition as well. You can blame EA for that!
Game's an amalgamation of all the directions it could have went at. It's match and missmatch of bunch of things. Some stuff is gonna stick out more than others.
Oh my goodness, the inconsequential dialogues of Andromeda are back.
1. Yes.
2. Yup.
3 Okay.
@@thesorrow7499 but careless representation so great nonetheless
Yeah, i agree completely. I hated the original companion reveal trailer, then that first 15 min gameplay trailer with that black guy as Rook had me cautiously optimistic again. However, the last 2 videos showing the warrior and mage gameplay have really put me off the game again. The combat looks just way too fast, flashy and lacking any sort of strategy, and the character models in this video look a bit odd, as s&s mentioned. Apart from the great looking environments, it certainly doesn't look like anything remotely resembling a game of the year contender.....
Now we know why they keep hiding mage gameplay for so long
I originally wasn’t bothered by the faces but this showcase really made these character faces look awful
Honestly they could use the potato faces from Oblivion and I wouldn’t care if the voice actors didn’t sound so bored out their mind lol
Their faces are just tired, that's all 🤣
Everytime this game shows something I find interesting that bring it up, there is also something that drags it down.
Yeah that's pretty much how I'm feeling about it. I'm hoping it will be enjoyable even if quite flawed.
@@rb98769 Despite everything I dislike about Veilguard which are gameplay and aesthetic, Bioware "seems" to be following the same lines of Inquisition. Story and lore are the only things they haven't messed up yet, though I am very concerned about the companions. None of them look appealing to me, even doubly so if I take into account romance. Worse case my Rook is a loner like my Inquisitor.
@@Jrockk999 Inquisition companions were pretty solid - I didn't care for Sera or Cole, and Vivienne was well written but not a personality I would get along with. The rest I enjoyed having around. I don't see who that is this time around.
Same. It's one of the strongest examples I've ever seen of "one step forward, two steps back". I really WANT to love this game. I really do. But... every time I find one thing that excites me, I find 5 that make me cringe. 😞
@@Jrockk999 I feel the same about the companions, honestly I'm kinda glad that I'll have to bring only 2 to battle, I don't even want to recruit any of them based on what they showed us.
Mr. SpellandShield, I don't feel so good...
The one positive thing I can say about the character models compared to Inquisition is that the hair is so much better.
There's that I guess?
@@spellandshield Lol it’s something, I agree with you about the main issues.
Thanks for your thoughts as always. I do not always agree with your takes, but, I must say I had exactly the same feeling/reaction to this as you. It felt so stale and the fetch quest was mind boggling. It also felt like unending combat against Sponges and constant Spawns, Like an MMO, just to get from one place to the other and I feel that the next time you need to go that direction...All the enemies will be there again. Hope I am wrong about my feelings, but that is where they stand after seeing that. Peace
holy shit this "new" qunari design looks terrible
Man this looks like MMO combat
🤣 I'm crying
Unfortunately they're not proving any of the pessimists wrong.
With each iteration the Qunari look more and more like humans with severe headtrauma :)
Apart from that it felt like those showcases where the devs try to show their "diverse" and "tactical" combat system but all I see is "pause game, click on combo-opportunity" over and over again.
As long as I can keybind everything (including companions) and get rid of that horrible UI or resize it I think it will be okay enough.
It looks like a simplified version of DA2 with less combos, no companion tactics but better gear options.
As someone who is excited about Veilguard after seeing the first couple gameplay trailers and the release date trailer, this recent showing of gameplay sucked so much ass.
Whoever was playing was just absolutely awful and has clearly never played a difficulty higher than Casual. This specific Qunari looks like a tiktok twink, basically just a human with horns. And the companions barely did a damn thing in terms of aggro and damage. Bioware needs to fix that IMMEDIATELY, unless they want companions to be completely obsolete.
The only thing I look forward to with Veilguard is the ability to romance Harding. There's a saying that goes "you can sprinkle glitter on a cow patty and make it shiny, but it's still just a pile of s***"
Party makeup seems to be less of a concern this time around because in the latest Q&A they revealed that because apparently players hate to leave companions they like behind they made sure all of them can be viable together.
Which, isn't all that unheard of because even since the days of Origins there have been unusual character builds and party makeups but every class still had its own unique role to play. As in, you could never make a warrior play as a mage but in the recent warrior combat showcase we had a character that was able to tank and use elemental AOE at the same time. So what's the purpose of a mage now?
@@TheSoggyGoblin So like BG3, game for coomers huh? lol
The only excuse they had with andromeda was that i was a new engine for them so they had to get use to it. And that was really in a short time because EA forced it on BioWare and they had to learn really quick to hit the release date. But now they have no excuse at all.
And that’s actually weird because they used Frostbyte in Inquisition and animations were and it came before Andromeda with less bugs and better animations.
@@Clever_viper they were working on both games in tandem in different locations, however the original vision for Andromeda got scrapped and they had to slap it together in a rush job. By then, everyone who had fundamental knowledge had left the studio (Inquisiton shipped years before Andromeda)
It was not a new engine. Inquisition had frostbite 3. Andromeda had frostbite 3. So did Anthem. And we know what happened with it. And this game has frostbite 3. Supposedly if they do ME that game will use ureal.
@@Clever_viper With Andromeda, they started out on Unreal Engine but between early/mid development they were forced to use Frostbite by EA, causing a lot of major development issues. Most of their animations they had made were incompatible with Frostbite and the only RPG that had been made was Inquisition which didn't fit well for Mass Effect. With a looming deadline, they did a lot of generating basic animations to handle conversations but they never got a chance to go back and touch them up like they wanted due to the suits in EA pushing the game out the door. Though a lot of issues still stems with frostbite being a bad engine since it was made for FPS which is why environments look great but struggles with characters.
@@Clever_viper Animations in Inquisitoon haven't aged all that well to be honest. Characters move and stand in weird ways in cutscenes.
I love the way you say "The Veilguard"! The sheer contempt in your voice is golden! 😂
🤣🤣
Cut out the 'the'. That may help some. Somebody should start a petition.
I want to be excited about this. But lot of things worry me, i don't like being unable to control other characters and strategize with them, it feels like yet another downgrade, the artstyle feels somehow off, and design of characters feels uninspired.
I will reserve my final judgement, but doesn't seem good.
Face is definitely getting tired...
Necrotic damage is apparentally the new nature damage too, so 90% of enemies eill be resistant to it.
This game just doesn't look 2024 at all...
This game is beyond cooked. I'm still completely mystified by the downfall in quality with Bioware. Honestly depressing, been a slow decent into mediocrity since SWTOR launch/Mass effect 3 ending ,and losing all their talent in that cluster F of a mess. The brain drain is on full display for all too see, losing key talent for the past decade.
Prepare to add a tombstone in the EA graveyard of dead game studios.
anyone notice how the companions don't hit very hard.. It would appear that you have to do all the damage vs. DA:I i could use casandra and clear out all the minions
I've been getting the impression lately that they want this game to cater to people who have never cared for the party based combat in Dragon Age and would rather just let their main character do everything. Seems like every class can do anything now. Melee, ranged, tank, AOE, you name it.
You are so right about it looking like a AA ( at best) - it reminds me heavily of Kingdoms of Amalur in it's overall presentation and that's not a good thing considering how old that game is. The gameplay also looks awful and barebones, it was so sad to see the guy playing knock off a darkspawn from a 1.5m ledge and act like it's some smart tactical choice he made and as if that added some complexity to the game when it reality it did sweet FA.
DEI , ,, , IT'S IN THE GAME!
*PTSD of unpatched Andromeda kicks in*
oh god ! oh no.. not again !
I’m a Dragon Age fan, but watching your commentary on this game is pure entertainment. It cracks me up how polite you are about it all. My respect to you. My face is just as tired as those NPCs' faces!
I appreciate the comment; I think many people struggle to distinguish between negativity for the sake of it and legitimate concerns about the game.
@@spellandshield Indeed. Keep making your videos. We'll be supporting you.
Each reveal they put out does nothing to disprove the pessimists
I can forgive some poorer facial animations and even the more outdated graphics. Those arent deal breakers for me, BUT if the NARRATIVE and PLOT are not up to par with how fantastic Inquisitions Descent DLC and Tresspassers DLC indicated with the Titans awakening and the Evanuris in a full blown conflict WORTHY of the epic storyline it set up!.... Yea that will be a deal breaker if they drop the ball on those fronts.
In fact I can give them a pass on most everything EXCEPT the plot and narrative writing. If they f'ck that up, bioware is dead to me and my headcannon will be Solas won and deserved to win.
TBH it wouldn't be a dragon age game if something about the characters wasn't utterly terrible.
Origin: Skin
2: Stiff models
Inquisition: Hair
Veilguard: Weird playdough people.
Yeah they just cannot seem too get the characters right. Inquisition would have been great if the hair didn't suck so badly
@@mayacarraway8953 it really was just so so bad. First they take healing magic then they give me 1985 movie cgi hair
Yup. And I'm so here for it.
I was already pessimistic about the future of this game and it is looking worse, as far as the gameplay is.
Furthermore, I'm not optimistic about the story. With the release of Mass Effect Andromeda, it's become clear that BioWare has seen a loss in ability to write a good story. Perhaps the loss of key talent was something that BioWare has not recovered from.
Those horns are really unsettling. I think this will be a "watch on RUclips" kind of game
Yeah, the Qunari aren't looking great in this game so far. I'd rather have Inquisition ones again at this point.
This gameplay made people more worried 😂
Indeed.
DA:VG looks like mobile game from last decade.
This is definitely the one game I’d highly recommend avoiding mage. Just watching the trailer I can tell that it’s the worst mage gameplay out of the four games by far.
The character creator better have a forehead slider 🤧
Everything about this game pisses me off. Its cartoony. Its hack and slash. They made the demons less individualized. The leveling system is still just a skill tree. When will they stop getting further and further away from origins.
It literally looks like they didnt progress beyond Andromeda facial animations. Still stuck in 2017. and i just cant get past that weird polymer clay looking charactes and the goofy, juvenile creature designs
All my concerns are back at the top after this gameplay. I can get over some of the issues but these faces... it's weird bc Varric had much better expression from the first gameplay, from what I remember
I really really really want to like this game. I love the Lore of dragon age but I feel like I'm going to be extremely disappointed.
As a huge dragon age fan this is looking terrible 😢🤣
Bioware is dead.
I like the locomotion of the action combat, but it's so ridiculously colorful it's hard to follow. And what is up with the qunari looking so smooth??? Sten had more face texture in DAO than Tash or this Rook does. I will admit I can't help but be excited for it, but I am 110% with you on the character models. They are not my favorite. You can see what was leftover from the live service direction they were going to take the game, and what trends they were chasing. I hope it feels better when I have hands on the game and can make my own character and fight my own way.
It's clear they had no idea what they were doing with this game. No clear art direction, no clear gameplay direction, no clear technology direction, it's just a mess. It's no wonder they went through directors like k-cups.
The Qunari MC looks a bit derpy, everything else I just chalk up to art style. I don't mind the art style in general, but I do agree that it is a little Uncanny Valley; like maybe it would have worked better if they'd leaned just a skosh closer to EITHER realism OR cartoon-style. It's too middle-ground. Should have committed to one or the other IMO.
For as hyped as the character creator is for this game, the idea that this is the best they could make is quite telling lol
This reeks of DEI.
Oh yes.
100% agree with everything said here!
Environments look OK but kind of bland to me.
The characters however, indeed, they don't look very good... plastic playdough models is a good description of it.
The HUD also doesn't appeal to me on first glance, but in gameplay that might work OK.
Let's see when the game is released what it really will be like and how it will be reviewed!
But I have to admit, I'm not really excited.
I think it might just be the Qunari Character tbh, They peaked in Da2. I bet the human and elves look better. Also it's Frostbite so you can blame EA for making Bioware use it.
This could be a player character issue rather than just the Qunari to be honest, as more customization often comes at the expense of facial animation quality. Larian distinctively avoided sliders and had us pick face presets in BG3 so that the character expressions would be smoother, which is harder to do with more detailed character customization systems.
This: EA MADE THEM DO IT has been debunked so many times by Bioware themselves. They wanted to use Frostbyte.
I would be shocked if this sells well...but you never know? If it flops it would not surprise me; if it does well it would not surprise me but I doubt I will end up playing it until reviews come in and even then...
@@apres-lachute8718 Honestly, it's probably for the best if the game flops and BioWare just dies. This isn't the studio that made ME2, let alone KOTOR, NWN, or BG 1 even, it's just a recognizable name EA uses. The sooner they lose it the better.
If it flops, bioware is probably gone.
@@Sister_Friede3105 For the best really, it's just a name at this point.
@@thedude5294 indeed. All those og nerd devs moved to the exodus project. Can't wait for it actually.
Dragon age inquisition came out 10 years ago and the characters and facial animations was monumentally better than anything showcased for the veilguard. Also, I still can't get over how weird the qunari look in this game... well they all look goofy actually.
I miss the DA2 qunari
BUT THE FACIAL ANIMATIONS WERE ACTUALLY GOOD IN THE CUTSCENE WE GOT FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME WITH SOLAS AND VARRIC SO WHAT HAPPENED????? WHY DOES IT LOOK SO BAD HERE
Overall, I did like the IGN coverage video for the game. It is a bit of a shame this Qunari Rook doesn't have the rough & strong look they had in Dragon Age II, though hopefully there will be options for that in the character creator. However one thing in particular I'm sick of is the developers just casually dropping spoilers from their own mouths. Why!? Save it until it's released! Please stop taking the wind out of the story BioWare.
Yep. Totally agree. There have been a couple of features that I think look really cool... the upgradable vendor/workshop for example... but for every feature I get hopeful for, there are half a dozen where I go "ooooh... That's awkward...". It's freaking heartbreaking given how long we've all been looking forward to this game. I didn't have high expectations, but somehow my expectations are STILL not even being MET, let alone exceeded. It's really sad.
Bioware is actually dead, the Qunari in DA2 and Inquisition were so badass and they were my favorite race. I can't believe they did this...
The biggest red flag for me is that Bioware thought the qunari Rook with a enormous forehead and the awful looking combat was something to promote the game with. I have to really question Bioware's self awareness.
It looks like my kid going as a Quanri for Halloween.
They made every playable race in this game look human. Qunari, Elves, Dwarves ... everyone looks human. They are different races! I get and support putting diversity in humans but why humanize alien races ? Whats the point of a different race like the Elves looking asian or Quanari looking like Rupaul? You look at a Half Orc in BG3 or any other race and you can see them as an alien species ... that's far more diverse that what I see in these videos. And they can't blame the engine ... that is a massive character design failure. So far, no blood mages, no magic builds, no Evil origin story or arc ... can I at least choose my stats in this RPG ?
It's also funny because it goes against the supposed body diversity that seems to be so "in" right now in videogames. Davrin looks like a black man with pointy ears. Has Bioware forgotten that elves are supposed to be much slimmer and with sharper, more angular faces?
BioWare is supposed to be THE developer of RPG games, it's a huge studio with one of the biggest publishers behind it and some of the most critically and commercially successful games in it's gallery. And yet ... Larian, an indie studio, even if a big one, manages to create facial animations LEAGUES better than this game and that's on top of amazing visuals and gameplay with no prior experience of making cinematic RPGs like these.
Just let that sink in ...
But it's not FAIR to compare other games to BG3, don't you rememeber?
Well, the others should step up their game, then. 😆
I couldn't believe this game could look even worse, yet here we are.
Its finny because the warrior gameplay actually looked kinda fun. Like what I'd expect from a warrior class basically, with spartan kicks and badass posey finishers and moves.
The mage gameplay... Yeah I had to click off the video. It convinced me to never even attempt a mage build because of how bad it looks.
Also, more and more I'm just not liking the character models. It takes me out of it completely. Like I'm trying tl get used to it, but it feels and looks unnatural.
Gonna play the game anyway - but its gonna be an uphill battle to finish one campaign run, also might be the first time I don't romance anybody.
A very relatable sentiment.
Lamentably, it does not look good. But yes, I guess we will have to wait and see.
I don't really have issues with the combat. It wasn't a good showing but I think that was more down to bad planning on the side of the devs and IGN: the director was juggling playing and providing commentary and the build and party comp seemed very ill equipped for these sorts of encounters. They should have at least given the controller to a silent player so everyone could do a single thing properly.
What I did have a real issue with is the characters. I've tried to stay positive about the art direction they picked for this but the airbrushed faces are making it very difficult. The facial animations seem lifted straight out of late Andromeda. They're certainly better than release Andromeda but that's not a high bar to clear.
I for one am excited for this new phone game
I'm surprised (sort of) that much of the UI and graphics don't appear to advanced much beyond the 2014 Inquisition
The dead gray colors and the flashing combat effects are headache-inducing.
Your comment on AA game feels spot on. I share your disappointment - but I agree we gotta wait and see.
I'm extremely disappointed by this. I'll play it eventually but only once it's 90% off. I can't justify spending money day one for this. I would feel like I'm rewarding them for mediocrity.
This game is nothing like Dragon Age origins
No thanks!
I hope this game will fail enough for BW to drop frostbite engine for good but not fail too much for EA to pull the plug on them.
I just moved from gtx 660 to rtx 4070.
I played cyberpunk 2077 and ghost of Tsushima.
This game looks like it could run on 660
My face is tired, yeah, well my wallet is tired.
Starfield's facial expressions and animations look better than this at least for the NPC's you can speak to. Lip synch, facial expressions etc.
Dragon Age: Ingame, the lips move - and nothing else.
Is Veilguardcbuilt in Frostbite like Inquisition and Andromeda? If so, it would explain the stiff facial animations and how characters look like they're using a lot of botox.
I think we're on the same wavelength. I just mentioned something similar on a Luke Stevens video recently and your thoughts are quite similar to mine.
What I'd said, copy/pasted from that other video:
"The thing that gets me visually is that the environments look amazing. The textures and colours and abience. The characters though.... they seem...smooth? They've no pores, dimples or differing complexion types. They remind me of going to Hero Forge and creating a mini, if that makes sense. There's just something slightly off about them to me. Maybe that'll change when the game releases and I'm able to get my hands on it and begin actual gameplay, but for now, it's the thing that keeps me with one raised eyebrow."
😂😂😂😂 It's Concord 2😂😂😂😂 Nice Qunari women I. I don't know but this looks like it really came from Concord.
Like nearly every 'AAA' release from the big corpos nowadays, expect smoke and mirrors until launch when everything they lied about and what they 'made to look better than it is' gets revealed for what it is.
I'm pretty confident that BW used all their animation budget on Solas, because the stark difference with facial features compared to all Rooks shown so far, is quite noticeable 😅🤔
This was the showcase that convinced me they are not getting a penny
It's the base of the horns. The base of the horns is covered with skin and creates an illusion of giant hydrocephalic head lol.
Skin and other surfaces need more texture but it's a stylistic choice unfortunately. Not the best in my opinion.
If the horns stuff is fixed I might give game a chance lol, because I wanted to play as qunari.
I'll just wait and see how character creator looks like and then decide if I should buy.
I'm not sure though because Taash has the same problem with her horns. *sigh*
The Qunari peaked in Da2... has been downhill ever since...
For me personally Bioware died a while ago. They lost their spark and just riding the fame of their IP's. Thanks for the vid. Just confirmed that this is a def skip for me.
Well of course it is, this game is literally a modified Mass Effect andromeda, just like how all recent fallout games was made by the same engine and just the same thing over and over again with some surface level modification
And that is the exact reason why in this game, we cant control companion anymore
because the framework from andromeda simply doesnt have such function
I get the mass effect andromeda faces... they still have time to try and make things better looking.... lets hope they do that.
This has all the creativity bankrupt feelings of AAA with the worst type of jank of AA.
I think that the combat has also big problems, all classes are played the same as a mage you play the same the rogue, phase = dodge, while those pirouettes are hilarious, there is not logical explanation for casting spells like you throwing them with a sling or what is that. They are showing each time worse and worse examples, like those models suck and they should fire the character designer immediately, it is travesty show so far. The character and monster models suck, combat seems to suck too, environment is excelent, so I hope story will be worth to play the game.
I will wait for the launch and see the story, if the story too lets me down, I will cry.
I think it is somewhat tied to the specific charcacters. This Convo looked goofy escpecially with our Horn Guy but then again i think the big part is his Weird Face in general 😅 The Facial Animations in the previous Trailers looked fine to me though.
Atleast Andromeda had good gameplay, this looks like a mess...
hi S&S. I was thinking uncanny valley too before you said it in your video. please don't be sorry about your opinion, especially since I'm pretty sure there are a lot of us out there who agree with you. this is the 1st time that I will be going solely on what you, Wolfheartfps & a few other youtubers think about this game. I loved the 1st 2 DA games & their animation, despite DA2 using the same settings over again. I rage quit DAI although I love Solas. I was really looking forward to DAV, but now, I don't know.
Somebody needs to tell them it's 2024.
Expressionless faces, craptacular lip-sync, 2010 textures, clunky combat, the lamest of darkspawn retcons... all from the perspective of a horned Handsome Squidward.
This one will finally send BioWare to uthenera.
Magic looks terrible, faces look dead and creepy, and 'THE Veilguard' so annoyingly awkward to say. Why not Dragon Age: Veilguard?
THANK. YOU. 😁
if the word purple was a game
Only thing i find boring was the mage combat. I like the warrrior combat style but hey thats just me.
don't you think it looks too floaty?
I feel like the game just screams "live service" to me.
@@MrSilz-jb4ik there probally elements of it left over. Im not as critical as most people. Which is why i dont review things.
Warriors 4 LIFE.
It looks like it's an MMO. Imo MMO's are always like 5 steps below single-player games in quality.