Ignore the hate, more games should use Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Stylized Look

Dragon Age: The Veil Guard received some negative reviews in the press when it was first announced, thanks to its new art direction. Whereas the previous games were all quite dark and gritty – with each entry getting less and less gritty – The Veil Guard It feels more like a Disney movie, with each character having buttery-smooth skin and cartoonish faces. Naturally, those who were expecting something similar to the original games were a little disappointed and began to express their opinions loudly online.

Naturally, The Veilguard The best features were highly praised in reviews, but these visuals, even after release, continue to be talked about negatively. However, Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s visuals don’t deserve all the hate. In fact, not only do they look great, but they are also a step in the right direction for the gaming industry as a whole and a return to a better time for video games.

More games should use artistic design like Veilguard

There are some impressive character designs

Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s the artistic design is a surprising breath of fresh airespecially when compared to other modern fantasy releases. While other games have leaned more towards gothic or dark fantasy, The Veil Guard It embraces its lighter tone with its Disney aesthetic, trading any sense of realism for a more wonderful and magical atmosphere. It’s not much different from the previous entry, Inquisitionalthough it’s certainly a lot less gritty in comparison, but that’s not inherently a bad thing.

The lighter tone may surprise you when compared to others Elden Ring, Dragon’s Dogma 2and Devil 4but harks back to a time when not everything had to be a blood-soaked nightmare. It’s an alternative to these darker worlds, which still has a lot of grit, but feels much cozier and happier. Variety is the spice of life, so Dragon Age: The Veil Guard attacking and doing something that really hasn’t been seen since 2012 Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning It’s a great thing.

Of course, Bioware has firmly stated that Mass Effect I won’t use The Veilguard aesthetic, and that is absolutely good. Your series should feel distinct from each other, and it makes sense that your military sci-fi would maintain a darker, more realistic visual style. However, it would be great to see more fantasy RPGs adopting Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s art direction to provide more options for high fantasy fans. The era of dark and depressing fantasy games like The wizard, Dark Soulsand Devil can absolutely continue, but every now and then it would be nice to create Disney fantasy games.

More Games Should Use Stylized Visuals

It’s better than looking like everyone else

Stylized visuals were all the rage when 3D visuals were slowly becoming a more popular and realistic option for developers to adopt. The Dreamcast, GameCube, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and even the original Xbox had many games with beautiful, stylized visuals that hold up today. Games like Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Magic Pengel: the search for color, Boku no Natsuyasumi, Okami, Sonic Adventure 2and Klonoa 2: Veil of Lunatea They’re still amazing-looking games to this day and have inspired a number of future titles, especially in the indie space.

There’s a reason why indie games started mining the PlayStation library for inspiration, like the incredible PS1-style horror game Crow Country. Of course, it’s partly for nostalgic reasons, but also because a lot of that aesthetic still holds up. Triple-A games failed to see the value in this, with developers aiming to re-release classic games with a more realistic coat of paint, such as silent Hill and Resident Evil games. These remakes have obvious value beyond the change in visual style, but It’s a shame to see developers move away from stylized visuals.

There is definitely a danger of going too far in one direction and, to some extent, Dragon Age: The Veil Guard is guilty of this. One of the biggest mistakes The Veil Guard All players can do is choose the Qunari race, as it simply doesn’t fit with the new art style. However, at least Bioware tried something new and made The Veil Guard It doesn’t look like any other game before it. It’s always more interesting to see developers try something new and not necessarily get it completely right than a developer continuing to make the same game well.

Stylized design makes the game more timeless

Realistic graphics typically don’t age well

Of course, The biggest benefit of stylized looks is that they simply don’t age as badly. Games that pursued realism in the Xbox 360 era now look awful, and those in the Xbox One and PS4 era seemingly demand endless remakes. Horizon Zero Dawn had a remastering that brought its visual quality closer to that of the sequel, despite having only been released in 2016. The Last of Us Part 1 and 2 both have been remastered and Grand theft auto 5 It’s been remastered so many times it’s pointless trying to count.

That’s not to say the original games look bad, but it The drive for realistic visuals means that every now and then games need to be remastered to bring their visuals closer to what the latest technology can offer. Of course, stylized games don’t need to do this, as their visual identity shouldn’t look realistic and therefore glitches are acceptable. Whenever a game with stylized visuals is remastered – like Okami – it’s more about increasing the resolution and putting it on modern hardware than fundamentally changing the visual quality, as with Sony’s endless remasters.

Furthermore, and it goes without saying, stylized games are much more memorable. Realistic visuals without any discernible visual style end up blending together to the point where it becomes difficult to distinguish entire franchises. THE Call to action and Battlefield Both franchises are at risk of this happening, especially as both continue to follow the trap of realistic graphics in similar environments.

A single environment, although useful, is also not enough. All third-person games are starting to share similar visual characteristics with each other, such as Past days, Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Zero Dawnand Stranding of Death. This does not mean that they look identical, but rather that the more they pursue the goal of looking realistic, the less identity they will have as an individual product. If people love or hate Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s visuals, it’s hard to argue that it’s not at least something different, unexpected and memorable.

Source: Dragon Age/YouTube, 10min game/YouTube