Polygon: Dragon Age was snubbed from the Game Awards

John Elden Ring

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5 Jul 2022
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via Polygon

Dragon Age: The Veilguard, a game engineered to succeed at The Game Awards, did not

The Game Awards’ voting jury snubbed BioWare’s latest game in a series of key categories where it would have been expected to compete. It secured just one nomination, for Innovation in Accessibility, which is decided by a specialist jury.

This is a surprise; as a narrative-led blockbuster in a famous series with slick production values, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is exactly the kind of game that tends to do well at The Game Awards. Its predecessor, Dragon Age: Inquisition, won Game of the Year in TGA’s inaugural year, 2014.

Granted, the reception to The Veilguard has been mixed — and with its Metacritic rating settling at 82, a nomination for Game of the Year seemed beyond its reach (even though that is one point higher than Black Myth: Wukong, which did make the cut).

In the end, though, there’s not much in this set of nominees to ruffle any feathers — outside of BioWare’s offices, that is.
 
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Say1nMan

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Nah it wasn't snubbed it's the fact that there's more competition this year than there were back in 2014 with Dragon Age Inquisition. What is funny though is outlets were using wording like Bioware is back, a return to form, GOTY contender only for Veilguard to receive one nomination meanwhile Star Wars Outlaws which outlets made no bones about it being disappointing received more noms than Veilguard and even got in for its genre category of Best Action/Adventure.
 

peter42O

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Haven't played Outlaws yet but with all the issues that game has, how it received any nominations at all is beyond me and how Dragon Age got snubbed is also beyond me. 75 hours into Dragon Age and this game is freaking great. Are there some crappy writing/dialogue scenes with Taash? Absolutely but even if that's been an hour, it's nothing compared to how great the rest of the game is. The people shitting on Dragon Age are from those who haven't played it or are going based on those who didn't like the game because they somehow believe that BioWare still has all the same people working there as they did when the made the first Dragon Age game when the vast majority of them are long gone. Side note with Taash, she's awesome combat wise. Reminds me of Abby in TLOUP2. Mediocre character, shit writing/dialogue for her but combat wise, she's a beast. As of now, Dragon Age is an easy 9.0/10 minimum for me and is looking more and more like my 2024 game of the year. Granted, a weak year for me personally but seriously, this game is great.
 

Explosive Zombie

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Haven't played Outlaws yet but with all the issues that game has, how it received any nominations at all is beyond me and how Dragon Age got snubbed is also beyond me. 75 hours into Dragon Age and this game is freaking great. Are there some crappy writing/dialogue scenes with Taash? Absolutely but even if that's been an hour, it's nothing compared to how great the rest of the game is. The people shitting on Dragon Age are from those who haven't played it or are going based on those who didn't like the game because they somehow believe that BioWare still has all the same people working there as they did when the made the first Dragon Age game when the vast majority of them are long gone. Side note with Taash, she's awesome combat wise. Reminds me of Abby in TLOUP2. Mediocre character, shit writing/dialogue for her but combat wise, she's a beast. As of now, Dragon Age is an easy 9.0/10 minimum for me and is looking more and more like my 2024 game of the year. Granted, a weak year for me personally but seriously, this game is great.

Why do you have a Starfield avatar?
 

Yurinka

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Dragon Age the Wokeguard didn't deserve to be nominated.

These awards are voted by the media, and the media reviewed better many other games. So it's normal to don't see it there.
 
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DarkLordOtaku

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This was a tough year to be in the running for any category. We had so many great selections across the board, and for fans of many different genres. It's no doubt disappointing for DA fans that it did not receive more nominations, but I hope they can continue to enjoy the game without this dappening their spirits.

I cross my fingers that we will continue to have such a competive landscape for quality in future years as well!
 
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peter42O

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I played it for 130 hours. One of the worst games I've ever played. Definitely not listening to you on Veilguard.

It's one of the worst games you've ever played yet played it for 130 hours??? I don't know man. If a game is bad/not clicking with me, it's lucky if it even hits 10 hours before I drop the game. For me, Starfield is superb. The soundtrack is God tier, voice acting is great, story and characters are excellent, the main story quest line, faction quests and some (not all) side quests are the best I have played in any game since The Witcher 3. The on foot combat and ship combat is excellent. Visuals aren't the greatest but they're still excellent and the interiors are the best I have seen in any game this generation because there's so much detail and little things that stand out. Is the game too freaking massive? Absolutely. No argument there. Are there issues? Sure but for me personally, wanting a great sci-fi RPG with space ship combat, Starfield gave me exactly what I wanted. To each their own though. Not everyone is going to like Starfield. :)
 
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Explosive Zombie

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It's one of the worst games you've ever played yet played it for 130 hours??? I don't know man. If a game is bad/not clicking with me, it's lucky if it even hits 10 hours before I drop the game. For me, Starfield is superb. The soundtrack is God tier, voice acting is great, story and characters are excellent, the main story quest line, faction quests and some (not all) side quests are the best I have played in any game since The Witcher 3. The on foot combat and ship combat is excellent. Visuals aren't the greatest but they're still excellent and the interiors are the best I have seen in any game this generation because there's so much detail and little things that stand out. Is the game too freaking massive? Absolutely. No argument there. Are there issues? Sure but for me personally, wanting a great sci-fi RPG with space ship combat, Starfield gave me exactly what I wanted. To each their own though. Not everyone is going to like Starfield. :)

I'm a Bethesda fan. I beat it multiple times to do things differently and tried seeing the NG+ differences. The game is a shallow turd, their most shallow effort ever.
 

peter42O

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I'm a Bethesda fan. I beat it multiple times to do things differently and tried seeing the NG+ differences. The game is a shallow turd, their most shallow effort ever.

Fair enough but the first part where you say that you're a Bethesda fan is the difference between us (and possibly for Dragon Age too) is that I was never a fan of Bethesda Game Studios. Never cared about The Elder Scrolls and while I played a few hours of Fallout 4, I thought it played like shit and traded it in the next day. Starfield is what has made me a Bethesda Game Studios fan going forward.

I do believe that those who don't like Starfield is because they love The Elder Scrolls and/or Fallout and just can't accept that it's not those games. Even I know it's a very different type of game compared to those two other franchises. A perfect example is my friend who shit on Starfield for eight months, finally played through it before the May update, completed it, put almost 100 hours into the game and would rate it a 9.0/10 for himself. It made him a Bethesda Game Studios fan to where he went and played Fallout 4. Couldn't beat it because he said there's some kind of base building requirement in order to advance the story or something like that but he put over 50 hours into the game, would rate and rank it above Starfield. Point being is that he understood why BGS fans (like yourself) don't like Starfield when compared to at least Fallout 4 which I would assume also applies to The Elder Scrolls and other Fallout games.

With Dragon Age, outside of the few hours I put into Origins back then, I only ever played Anthem which was also only for a few hours so like with Starfield and BGS, I had no opinion of the studio going into the game. I'm also a combat/gameplay first guy and if I love and enjoy the combat in the game, I'll take a weaker story or weaker graphics or whatever because it's all about if im enjoying the combat and gameplay loop to where I want to keep playing the game.

On a side note, I never played Halo until Infinite. Loved it. Campaign is freaking great. Went back this past August and played through every Halo campaign. Combat Evolved is a great foundation, Halo 2 is better, Halo 3 was mediocre as I hated that Gravemind aspect if im getting it right. That fucking creature or whatever that was in the game. Hated it. Halo 3 ODST is the worst in my opinion followed by Halo 5. Halo Reach is the second best Halo game in the series for me after Infinite and Bungie's best fucking Halo game. And Halo 4 is third best. Love how it continues after Halo 3 and does something different instead of just following the same damn thing as the previous games.

Point being is that if you start a series/franchise from the beginning or a development studios games from early on and they do something different, chances are that you're not going to like it because it's no longer familiar to you and isn't what you were expecting it to be. For me, a lot of series, I skipped back then and have only started them now with the newest entry (like Dragon Age) or with certain studios, only started with their most recent game (Starfield from BGS and Infinite from 343) and because I never played the older games, the nostalgia, love or whatever it maybe simply doesn't apply to me because none of that exists.

Does Dragon Age: The Veilguard have issues? Absolutely but every game does. The strongest aspect is the combat/gameplay and as I said, this is the most important aspect for me in any game. If you win me over here, you'll most likely win me over with the game overall unless everything else is total shit or the game is a technical mess. The main story quests are great, boss fights are excellent and all the varied environments and locations make the game a joy to play through. Story/character wise, outside of what feels forced in Taash, I have no issues at all. I like the characters, like the overall plot and story and best of all, I have nothing to compare it to because it's basically my first true BioWare game.

To each their own and all that but there's a lot of series/franchises/studios of games that I have never played and like you can see from my experience with Halo, going back to play these old games is never a good decision because no matter how amazing they may have been at that time, years/decades later, they simply pale in comparison now thanks to better tech, better controls, better combat and gameplay and just a better overall presentation of a video game.
 

Airbus

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Dragon age from inquitition 13 million copy sold to veilguard be just around 1 million

The game is failing hard
 

Gediminas

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Haven't played Outlaws yet but with all the issues that game has, how it received any nominations at all is beyond me and how Dragon Age got snubbed is also beyond me. 75 hours into Dragon Age and this game is freaking great. Are there some crappy writing/dialogue scenes with Taash? Absolutely but even if that's been an hour, it's nothing compared to how great the rest of the game is. The people shitting on Dragon Age are from those who haven't played it or are going based on those who didn't like the game because they somehow believe that BioWare still has all the same people working there as they did when the made the first Dragon Age game when the vast majority of them are long gone. Side note with Taash, she's awesome combat wise. Reminds me of Abby in TLOUP2. Mediocre character, shit writing/dialogue for her but combat wise, she's a beast. As of now, Dragon Age is an easy 9.0/10 minimum for me and is looking more and more like my 2024 game of the year. Granted, a weak year for me personally but seriously, this game is great.
Is this some parody account?
 

ToTTenTranz

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I wonder what additional nomination they think Veilguard should get and what game should leave from that nomination for Veilguard to get in.

I guess it should be the nomination for "Games for Impact", assuming it doesn't have to be a positive impact.




Is this some parody account?
Come on, now. Don't be unnecessarily mean.
If we're in favor of free speech and a free society, we must also be in favor of people like Trump enjoying shit food everyday or @peter42O enjoying shit videogames.
 

Explosive Zombie

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I wonder what additional nomination they think Veilguard should get and what game should leave from that nomination for Veilguard to get in.

I guess it should be the nomination for "Games for Impact", assuming it doesn't have to be a positive impact.





Come on, now. Don't be unnecessarily mean.
If we're in favor of free speech and a free society, we must also be in favor of people like Trump enjoying shit food everyday or @peter42O enjoying shit videogames.

McDonald's is quality food!
 
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Zzero

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This was a tough year to be in the running for any category. We had so many great selections across the board, and for fans of many different genres. It's no doubt disappointing for DA fans that it did not receive more nominations, but I hope they can continue to enjoy the game without this dappening their spirits.

I cross my fingers that we will continue to have such a competive landscape for quality in future years as well!
Did they actually say that? Its such a shit year for games any one of the GotY nominees from last year (except Alan Wake 2) would win this year in a walk.