Ever since Dragon Age trailers have been coupled with Marilyn Manson, it’s been a downhill ride and E3 was rock bottom. Here we have a demo as a Dragon Age developer guides us through the choices and consequences that exist in the game’s plentiful romancing options.
It was a joke. A bad one.
It all came down to the PC juggling two relationships on the precipice of complete implosion, until the PC’s sly choice of dialogue options ultimately gave him the ability to make a ruckus with one and somehow save face with the other.
Of all the things to show, of all the things to display, BioWare had to show the most embarrassing part of their game. Romancing in RPGs can be good, but Dragon Age: Origins displayed how it can just make you turn around, and just mutter “What the hell?” around an overeager crowd. True, The Witcher can get raunchy, but that’s just how Geralt is. He’s sort of a misogynist to begin with. Here, it’s just so wrong and misplaced.
Currently, Dragon Age’s mature and dark setting is nothing more than gratuitous gore and sex with Marilyn Mason screaming in the background. At least the very first videos displayed some level of narrative maturity in its setting and characters, even if all of it looked woefully generic, but now it’s hard to say where this game sits. Maybe it’s just an unfortunate marketing ploy and maybe the final product will have none of this nonsense. Maybe it’ll be the bland, homogenous D&D-like world with some tweaks to the lore. I’d rather have something forgettable and faceless than what I’ve seen of Dragon Age: Origins these last few months. The worst part might be how some people are eating this up. It’s not nice to call people idiots, but… come on, really look at what you’re seeing, guys.
