I am normal about Dragon Age, which is a normal thing for normal people to say about a video game RPG franchise. I've played and loved every entry that developer BioWare has put out, compiled a critical compilation on the popularly maligned Dragon Age 2, and run – present tense – a completely normal number (three, in a shared setting, with the longest having started nearly a decade ago) of concurrent tabletop campaigns using Green Ronin's Dragon Age system.
But to say that my expectations of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, set to release almost 10 years after Inquisition, were high when heading into an on-site preview event earlier this month is technically inaccurate. Between Inquisition and Veilguard, BioWare ultimately produced Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda, both of which failed to live up to expectations, and various reports over the years, even taken with several grains of salt, have not reflected kindly on Veilguard's own production. And that's not even getting into my own more personal wounds and disappointments – though it does feel important to admit that I texted a group of four other people, "They let Mary Kirby go??" in August 2023.
