GamesRPGDragon AgeDragon Age: The Veilguard romances feel like a step back from Inquisition, despite the success of Baldur’s Gate 3When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesRPGDragon AgeDragon Age: The Veilguard romances feel like a step back from Inquisition, despite the success of Baldur’s Gate 3When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: BioWare)
Almost a decade ago, I playedDragon Age: Inquisitionfor the first time and romanced sweet Josephine Montilyet, the quietly naughty ambassador with a scandalous bardic backstory. With every romanceable character, in friendship, flirtation, or uh, other things, the waters run deeper than they first appear. It’s part of what made me come back for multiple playthroughs with male and female Inquisitors, elven, dwarven, Qunari and (ugh, if I have to) human. It’s a needs-must deal, if you want to pull off collecting the full set of paramours.
Make your intentions known as a lady in love however, and he plays the part for a while. That is, until you embark on his companion quest, which forces him to confront his homophobic father. On the verge of tears, he exposes the Pavus patriarch’s attempt to “change” his own son’s sexuality through blood magic, in a bid to maintain the family’s power and influence. A heartbreakingly nuanced story that would have been lost had Dorian not been explicitly written as a gay man. But it’s these same stories we stand to lose inDragon Age: The Veilguard.
Unlucky in love
(Image credit: BioWare)
On its surface and in isolation, this shift isn’t negative, simply a different tack. But as fantasy RPGs follow the stunning success that wasBaldur’s Gate 3, there’s good cause to be wary of a resurgence in playersexual experiences.
Return to Thedas(Image credit: BioWare)Dragon Age: The Veilguard preview: “This first look has, at a minimum, convinced me I could love a BioWare RPG one more time.”
Return to Thedas
(Image credit: BioWare)Dragon Age: The Veilguard preview: “This first look has, at a minimum, convinced me I could love a BioWare RPG one more time.”
(Image credit: BioWare)
Dragon Age: The Veilguard preview: “This first look has, at a minimum, convinced me I could love a BioWare RPG one more time.”
I wonder how queerness will be given space for complex expression outside the player character’s journey in Veilguard. It’s hard not to worry that, in terms of LGBTQ+ representation, this shift marks a step backwards for the series.
Before the term ‘playersexual’ was coined,Dragon Age 2became one of the first in-RPG romance-for-all dating experiences of its kind. That experiment, combined with the explicit sexual preferences at play with theDragon Age: Originscompanions, blossomed into Inquisition’s new higher standard for queer rep in gaming, with fully rounded characters who were gay, bisexual, heterosexual, and even (in some readings of Cole) aromantic and asexual.
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(Image credit: BioWare)
In fact, choosing the ‘Cole-stays-a-spirit’ track of his companion quest sets him free from the pressure to conform to human ideas of being a ‘real’ person. Some characters distrust or disdain how he interacts with others, which can come across cold and detached, or just plain strange. In that way, to this autistic gamer and many others, this Fade spirit in human form also depicts a refreshingly relatable neurodivergent experience.
Cole’s arc is another we could have missed if every possible companion had been hot for Inquisitor. Without fandom-wide sorrow over our inability to romance Scout Harding, would we have been able to enjoy her company in Veilguard? And ironically, not having these relationship boundaries drawn in leads to straight people – who are equally valid – being quantifiably left out. Think of Cassandra Pentaghast, who rebuffs a female Inquisitor’s advances in such an adorably flustered way it’s impossible to feel slighted. Without the need for romantic relationships,Inquisitionstill allowed glimpses into characters' deepest vulnerabilities, the insecurities and embarrassments that made them more loveably human.
This list ofbest RPGshas plenty to keep you busy until The Veilguard launches
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