Dragon Age Veilguard: ROMANCE & Nudity?!

Sorry I don't have pictures of the article or music, I made this video with 1 hand and I'm in a lot of pain 😭

ALSO I FORGOT SOMETHING IMPORTANT
THE DEVS IMPLIED SOME KIND OF SKELETON ROMANCE

This trailer was ass. Hopefully the game doesn’t disappoint

I actually like that the companions are all pansexual. I mean, it makes sense. Most pans are a hot mess & totally chaotic LOL So what other type of people would actually voluntarily go on this epic quest to save the world besides people who are a hot mess & chaotic?

Don't come at me. I'm pansexual myself LOL I KNOW. (also enby so I LOVE the enby option)

No one’s ever locked out of a romance. You want to romance someone that your character can’t? Play a second time and play the type of character that can romance them. I wanted to romance Sera, so I did another playthrough where I played as a female Dwarf instead of my usual male Human.

I loved the way they did DAI with the different sexualities at the time. But playing the game again after realising I'm a trans man was really weird for me because choosing a male Inquisitor meant I could no longer romance Sera and I could now romance Dorian. So I think having the romance options open for everyone is best. Because other people could transition and find themselves unable to romance their preferred LI, if they had done what they did in DAI. And what about genderfluid people? What if sometimes they want to play as a man and others a woman in DAI? That means they can't always romance the same person.

I respectfully disagree regarding the romance. Mainly for 2 reasons.
1.I think dao and dai did it best with each character having a set sexuality. It made them more "real" like a real person with set views, a set personality and sexuality. It is also a great way to ensure replayability. Imho i think that people tend to forget these are RPG; role playing games not self insert games. We are meant to play different roles and experience the world through different characters' perspectives, eyes and views. The fact that I couldn't romance solas wih my human inky made me go back and play as an elf, the fact that Cullen did not want my qunari inky made me play as a human mage (because of his background with mages).

2.If everyone wants literally anyone, then what is the point of me creating different characters with different personalities etc? Also, if my rook romancing a chracter means another character will be single because I am "stealing" away their partner (ie romancing harding and leaving taash single) then why would I want to do that? That is mean😢

Imho I think Bioware did not make the right choice here 😕

It’s definitely a tough and nuanced thing. I think people getting more options is better, even if making everyone pansexual isn’t quite realistic. It helps you tell the story YOU want to tell, not to mention that giving the rest of the party the opportunity to develop relationships with each other is so freaking cool

For any game, at the end of the day it IS meant to please the player. Maximizing options as much as possible only makes sense. However, I am a hardliner on Solas for elves/Cullen for mages. For Cullen, he had a giant crush on a mage in Origins, and his whole redemption arc makes MORE sense with a mage than with any other class. If anything, mage-only makes more sense, both as his type and because it forces him to face himself. (Admittedly dwarves and qunari aren't usually Chantry fanatics, but neither are Dalish so wtf?) Solas, I view as an elven-and-spirit supremacist. He's putting his race before all others, and he has a special significance to the Dalish. I think only a dead Inquisitor of another race would have a chance with him.

I totally agree with you what you said in the video.Thanks for your hard work i know that is not easy for you

For me, it has never bothered me when certain characters are gender locked in terms of romance. If I really want to romance that character, I create a character that they will romance. I love having every playthrough be different and experiencing those differences keeps me coming back. It’s why I have played all the DA games and BG3 so much. So, if I am playing as a female human mage, and I want to romance Dorian, I’ll make sure to play as a male character the next go around. It’s never bothered me. That’s just me, though. I love experiencing as much of the games as I can!

With the “all the companions are pansexual” debate, I also don’t have a problem with it at all. But I’m a straight lady, so my opinion probably doesn’t or shouldn’t count for much. I can understand the camp saying how they wish there was more of a variety in sexualities, though. Representation is so important and it’s always fulfilling to see oneself reflected in the media we love. I think, however, we should wait to make judgments until we play the game and see how everything shakes out.

Hopefully Bioware figured out how to make truly black hair which was always an issue in the DA games.

Not me wishing I was able to romance Sera in Inquisition, but finding their friendship that spawned much more wholesome and sweet

I don't mind pansexual or even player sexual companions if they write it well. BG3 is the best example for this. You just need to focus on writing good characters who have meaningful relevance to the storyline, then a good and believable romance can then follow.

Personally I prefer the "everyone is bi" route, mostly because Dragon Age has, historically, been unable to make a queer male romance that doesn't rely on stereotypes. Case in point:

Zevran: a sassy, slutty bisexual who was abused as a child and can betray you.
Iron Bull: a slutty bisexual who betrays you if you don't make the right choice, will only get with you if you become his sub, and seems annoyed with the fact that he's in "a committed relationship" to begin with in banter with Cassandra. Him even being queer seems to come out of nowhere; he only talks about finding women attractive until Dorian or m!Inquisitor.
Dorian: a sassy, snobbish, fashionable gay with daddy issues who only tells you he loves you at the very end of Tresspasser.

To be clear, I love all these characters. They're great. But come *on*. Why couldn't Blackwall have been bi? Or Solas? BW said they decided against Solas's male romance because they didn't want to lean on the "depraved bisexual" stereotype... and then made Iron Bull a traitor.

I like the change. Gaming is about escapism for me, and a game letting me escape the limits of physics to use magic but NOT letting me escape the pain and embarrassment of being in love with someone of an incompatible sexuality feels FAR more anti-queer to me (a gay man) than the potential erasure of stories like Dorian's by making everyone pansexual.

i total agree with you about the relationships locking/unlocking, its complicated. like Dorian's story was perfect even if i never got to romance him, but also, it is an RPG and it just seems like it should have the most options. i am worried about the skeleton romance, like, i don't get it, maybe just me. curious if any romance options that aren't companions like Cullen and Josie in Inquisition, i guess the skeleton would count.

I think this is definitely a step in the right direction for these types of RPG games.

As a gay dude who has to deal with either shitty gay romance options in most games or none at all, I’m all for the player sexual approach. I couldn’t care less about representation, just let me bang who I want. Garrus is hands down the best romance option in all of ME, not being able to romance him as male shep without mods sucked.

I appreciate your perspective on this—honestly, you put into words a lot of what I was feeling and thinking about it. I do get people's frustrations with this, but like you said, without a larger cast size, it's difficult to do that and provide enough options for everyone to be able to have a significant choice.

Great video (and I hope your hand heals quickly, Kala.) Although I love knowing there will be so many options, I do get how set sexualities for companions can add to their backstories. Interesting conversation. I’m really looking forward to Dragon Age Veilguard. It will be my first DA game - and sadly I don’t have time to go back and play all the previous games. The character creator and romance options in this game look to be really varied and amazing.

We have to find out if we can edit genitals? That probably means yes, but I don't think there is much to do with it, because it's not important for the rest of the game. I mean, Sera mentioning the shape of the main character pubic hair in Dragon Age 3 shows that such a setting might influence a single line of the game, but similar to Cyberpunk 2077 I assume it's not really important. I care more about what my companions will wear instead about nudity. Still, I like that I have more options than ever to create a nice daelish elf that matches my taste and of course I want to experience how everything works together with my companions ... and maybe Bellara will start to like me 😄

I prefer to remember BioWare as it used to be, not an abomination it became.

I feel like the more we hear about this game, the worse it gets. Weve heard more about romance,nudity, pansexual characters and being thirsty then we have about anything else. It feels like a fanfiction written by a horny teenager. Very little gameplay shown, less skills, less travel companions. But we know so much about romance and if we can be super gay.

I’m open to pan romance options. If done right, that will be more immersive than “player sexual”

As a trans bi guy myself, I am very satisfied with what I've been hearing about the romances. I think that it gets into a very weird grey zone to start to define character preferences when you have trans and nonbinary people to consider for. The actually truth of the matter is that real people's sexuality isn't a strict thing, even if they're monosexual. Plenty of people have had long term relationships with partners who come out as trans later, and they still are romantically attracted to them even if they were straight or gay before. It's almost impossible to effectively program this kind of organic sexuality, so this is truly the best solution imo.

And you can still get into the topic of queer struggles with pansexual people. There's a lot to say about being polysexual. Such as imposter syndrome in queer spaces being seen as flaky or duplicitous. I hope for some of that to be mentioned. That would really sell me on these characters' sexualities.

Why not give us a choice at the charaxter creator, ask me what is my preference, my answer would be straight male (only men and woman couples is what i like) then the game could make my playthrough to my preference, that way everyone can be pleased with they preference, thats to hard for them to figure out though. They solution was to make every person on the planet gay.

I think you are on point with your opinion. I mean in Inquisition people were disappointed they couldn't romance who they wanted because they had their own preferences, now they doing the opposite so that the we have more options to play the game the way we want to and again people are disappointed. I also think there is no right way to do this, to satisfy everyone and what they are doing now at least gives everyone a chance to create the Rook they want and choose the romance we desire.

That said I do think because of the way they made Inquistion, the romancable NPCs felt more real and it gave them more depth, Dorian for example with his storyline was so very well writen so I get why people are a bit disappointed with their choice now but this is really a loose loose situation for Bioware. I mean with only 7 companions, how do you divide this fairly so that no one feels left out and that it still feels like a choice an not like your only option?

With the nature of romances being very personal to everyone, I think they are on the right track with this. This gives players the most freedom, which I feel a lot of players look for in an RPG. While also adding interesting dynamics with your companions.

I do understand the criticsm with all pansexual characters. Having just one sexuality, in any case, can be very limitting to see and participate in. However, that doesn’t mean these options wont still have very personal stories and preferences. The only thing I can really add to this is, if they continue in this direction maybe adding different takes on the same relationships for different genders (or simlarly Masc/Fem/Non Binary versions). That way theres some differece and personalization to the romance itself outside of gender/pronoun swaps.

Love the video, but I very very heavily disagree with the take that Dragon Age 2s companions are "player sexual". Romanceing Fenris or Anders as a male character has some specific dialogue that you don't get with a female Hawke. You straight up even have the option to be homophobic to Anders when he mentions that he's had relationships with men before. I always really appreciated the male Hawke and Fenris romance because of this!

I love the idea of the found family vibe, especially after playing Dawntrail where that has just been the major theme all the way through!

Not all romances are Zevran or Sera or even Iron Bull. Some are deep as Cassandra, Josephine and Leliana or angsty as Alistair, Fenris or even Blackwall. Few are as well written as Solas romance. For everyone else who's put off by the options hopefully there are brothels. The unparalleled game when it comes to romances even if not as well written is Dragons Dogma.

I look at it like this, I as a pansexual, don't want a character story that revolves around their sexuality. We are far more than our sexuality and by taking that out of the equation the writers and developers have to focus on other aspects of a character's personality.

Very balanced approach and I think you shared your opinion well, and strongly, while being respectful of other opinions.

I have no problems with them making all the characters pan. I usually play multiple characters of both genders to romance all the options. I just want to see how they wrote the relationship. I'm just going to have to put in more thought into figuring out what character I want to make to romance each one now.

I storngly prefer bisexual. I don't understand why people think that it would make the characters less unique or speak like bi people can't face homophobia.

Bioware has had varied sexualities in its game for a decade and the only one that actually has impacted is Dorian.

In a companions focused game, it should allow players to discover the stories about them without restrictions. What makes them unique are their morals, goals, outlook in life, not just sexualities. You can't tell me romancing Gale and Lae'zel feels the same even if they are both bisexual.

I dont think Solas being race/gender locked for romance matters. The friendship with Solas was deep and meaningful. And having befriended him as a human and elf, seeing the difference between those, it was incredible. As a human its harder to win his trust, and being human (when he has never liked humans) conflicts him about tearing down the vale.

A lot of stupid takes about Dorian's storyline in the comments here. No, Dorian isn't "just a great character who happened to be gay". Dorian being gay IN CONTEXT OF the homophobic society that is Tevinter's upper crust in absolutely integral to him as a character. If he were not challenged at every point in his life by homophobia, he could have never left the easy cushy life of a pampered slave owner, worshipping his father unquestioningly and taking over his place and his politics. He talks about how when he was a teen he thought he'd manage living stealthily, but it was too suffocating, and he came to understand that just conforming and existing is not truly living, which he later extrapolates on other oppressed people, those that are oppressed in different ways than him. Dorian's decision to improve Tevinter and to never buckle against the pressure of being a pariah are informed by his identity as a gay man, even though that's not all there is to his identity.

And yeah, perhaps his story seems a bit heavy handed by today's standard, but it was pretty damn important when the game came out that he wasn't "just a dude who happened to be gay" but a character that explicitly discussed what it is like to be a gay man, to have stealth hookups, to practice plausible deniability with family, to have a disastrous coming out. Do people not remember all the reddit threads of straight men discussing Dorian? And not in the context of "oh Dorian is such a good buddy, it literally doesn't even matter that he's gay, I love him in my party" but thoughtful essays on how Dorian helped them actually understand and empathize with gay men?

All and all I always prefer a variety of sexualities in characters, because
1. I don't care about self-inserting or role-playing thru an avatar. It's not like, DEVASTATING to me that Cassandra gently let down my fem Inquisitor, and it didn't diminish her character in any way. The main character for me is primarily a camera through which I experience other, more in-depth characters with actual storylines. This is why Hawke is my favorite DA protag -- I love how bold and uncompromising the story is with them. That's why Act 3 when Hawke ends up all alone in an empty house devoid of family, it hits so hard.
2. Romance doesn't constitute end all be all of my immersion or my fantasy. It's not like a godly romance storyline can improve a shitty overall plot, or inconsistent characterization, or tonal whiplash of the main game. Those are the dealbreakers in a big epic narrative RPG, romance really isn't. Like, did the quality and mystery of Solas' romance storyline improve the fact that Corypheus is a really underwhelming villain of the main game? Or the fact that the open world is mismanaged and frustrating? Hell, in the much praised BG3 most people reach Act 3, finish the romance storyline, and start a different character, because the main battle finale is boooooooooring.
3. I say this as a stereotypical slutty bisexual -- most games really don't write multisexuality well. They're not interested in exploring it as they are exploring monosexual identities. The Veilguard promises to have in-depth detailed takes on every character, with their "preferences and temperament" informing their approach to romance, but that remains to be seen, and I remain skeptical. You simply cannot tell me that Neve getting hit on by a woman wouldn't raise some questions/feelings/concerns/flashbacks for her that getting hit on by a man wouldn't. But would BioWare go there? I guess we'll have to see.

I'm kind of tired of bioware trying to assure us that "don't worry! the friendship paths are just as fulfilling and important as the romances!" while making a huge deal about how all the companions are romanceable and pansexual. No, they didn't include any ace characters after being asked by ace fans to show meaningful ace representation in the same way they've done other LGBTQ+ groups...but look, they let you be FRIENDS with the characters! please applaud! Seems fake af to pretend you care about platonic relationships while excluding ace fans outright with trite platitudes about how it's "not time" to include even ONE ace character, but we needed 7 pansexual romances. Not an ace person in sight after 4 games, but don't worry...they tooootally care about platonic relationships...in their fantasy dating sim. Right, sure. I'm tired of people calling this series "inclusive". It's very clear who they think is worthy of including from the LGBTQIA+ community, and it's not ace people.

I’m excited to create a male and female character for this game. Depending on how each character comes out, will depend which one is my first play through. TBH I would be pissed if my desired romance was locked behind a character’s sexuality. I get that there’s been story beats in the past that tie in.. but we know so little about the game that it seems too early to assume they haven’t figured out a solution to make those impactful

I think the option of more romances compatibility in video games is great. I'm pretty old school and old fashioned. I'm not against people's choices in life and in video games. I you know it's role-playing. You know I played Mass effect male and female course. I'll always stick to liara whether I'm male or female in a video game, but I'll probably go with my first playthrough the veilguard. I'll probably be human male and have a female romance but I like the idea of you know replayability and Mass effect I had to do multiple saves. I had to go back hours because I chose a romance that I didn't seem to like so I went back and tried it again when I did my first playthrough so it's going to be difficult choice lol for me so I'll have to figure it out as I play the game and get to know the characters

I'm glad the companions are player sexual. The last thing I wanna see is another Cassandra weirdo meltdown about stereotypes and appearances.

I disagree on Solas being into everyone, he should be a fem elf Inky’s only romance as that gives him a ton more character and fits far more with his love for the Elven people.

What I do agree on is that he should’ve had more reveal with an either gender Elf Inky as I feel he is the type to value friendship highly.

I thought the bisexual party in DA 2 was a cop out. However my stance on that changed when I was rejected by Sam Traynor in ME 3. I say let players romance who they want.

This is preferred honestly. Despite my hours in inquisition i only ever romanced the same person. its nice to know theres multiple romances ill be able to replay and enjoy in Veilguard

I think restricing access is good, it increases the value and specialty of the romance with solas and encourages multiple playthroughs.

It would be cool if there were multiple kinds of romances you could have with the same character kinda like with the alien girl in andromeda. You could have a fling or do something more serious. I think if you can make a robust and fully realized version of that you could get more and more immersive such as a character vibes with you, but because of your roleplaying or even character creation options they could find you unattractive or attractive. Imagine someone commenting on your cauliflower ear and asking you how you got it, or about the scars you put across your face. Maybe if you pull that buldge slider all the way to massive, your love interest looks down and is like "Uh I think i found the dragon we were tracking".

Im ambitious, but i like when characters have agency at maximum. Imagine AI being used in the game to adapt to your choices down to the minute details of your character creator.
"Oh darling, I have a thing for red heads." From a villager hitting on you. Stuff would be wild.

I hope we get same good looking NPC to romance because all the womens companies ugly as hell.

Will my Rook always look angry like the trailer one no matter how happy I make them in character creation? Neve walks like Maya Brooks when she tries to act sassy. It's so cringy it makes Neve un-romanceable for me. Make it stop, BioWare! As for other romances, we shall see how ridiculous things get. Let's just say that if Leliana becomes an option I'm 100% romancing her again. Unless, by some miracle, BioWare decides my Cousland and her can ride off into the sunset happily ever after. Come to think of it, I'm kinda sad the Chantry isn't a faction :D...