And yet, I could get more roleplay value out of Hawke ꧂than I can out of R🎃ook. There is no roleplay element in this game. Player choice has been removed. Making it firmly not a roleplay game. It's an action game with roleplay elements. Very much not what one could call Bioware going back to the basics.

I think that Epler really doesn't understand what made DAO and DA2 as g🐭reat as they were, from a story perspective. The story direction of Veilguard purposely took away choice from players. Despite Solas explicitly stating in Inquisition that blood magic wasn't any more evil than any other kind of magic, in Veilguard, blood magic (literally the only thing separating Dragon Age from D&D) is hard "evil" and you aren't allowed to make choices or personal decisions like that as Rook.

By that same token, they also chose to sanitize the plight of racial relations in Veilguard. The races are all pretty much fine with each other now, which isn't realistic in the slightest. Not after the way elves have been treated for generations. ಞEspecia𓆉lly not with their treatment within the Imperium.

Glossing over the world building does a disservice, especially since they want to toot their own horns about their inclusivity. I loved the idea of being more inclusive, but the execution ignored the world's realities built up since Origins and it ignores the realities of the real wo💜rld. Experiencing horrors and choosing to rise ♊above them is always going to feel better for players than pretending the problems don't exist at all and that's why I feel the narrative and storytelling in this game has fallen so hard.