UNVEILING THE MONSTER WITHIN: NAVIGATING THE RICH TAPESTRY OF GAMING WORLDS

Video gaming, with its relentless creativity, innovation, and storytelling, is an ever-changing, ever-evolving monster of its own, full of titanic releases that create and tell new stories for millions of gamers worldwide. But one of those releases, the upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard, has caused a certain amount of mania in the gaming community, revealing an intriguing relationship that fans have to an industry and to franchises that they love.

THE MYSTERY OF MIXED REACTIONS: A DRAGON AGE DILEMMA

The Spark of Controversy

The video on Vine. Some screenshots released as teasers. Then, an announcement of an announcement. It promised a full reveal the next day for fans of Bioware’s Dragon Age: the Veilguard, an embedded dummy corp in the fictional world of Thedas. For the game’s legions of players, the announcement by Bioware and its owner Electronic Arts, teasing a big reveal about a very big game, precipitated a firestorm of reactions that were as heated as they were divided. Why do people feel such contradictory impulses toward this monster of a game?

A New Color Palette

The criticisms range from purple people-eaters (Blizzard made Fortnite! So did everyone else!), to an indication of a franchise turning its back on itself. Always, Dragon Age has been a chameleon, and as its palette changed with each installment, so too did its monsters. The Veilguard promises a trip through brighter colours than we’ve seen before, all of them a part of the new evolution in its monster mythology.

A GLIMMER OF HOPE: THE MAGIC OF BIOWARE

Crafting Emotional Legacies

So the good news, despite the kerfuffle, remains that Bioware has a long history of creating morally and emotionally complex narratives, allowing players to grow a deep, intimate bond with the characters it crafts. The Veilguard could be a 10th iteration of a formula that has worked well for them in the past. The beats hinted at in this gameplay showcase might, in fact, be the monster’s heart.

WHAT TO PLAY WHILE YOU WAIT

Diving into a Pool of Monsters

While we wait for the release of The Veilguard, there’s plenty of monster-filled worlds to explore in games such as Monster Hunter Stories and its sequel, Wings of Ruin. But there are also richer, more complex and more satisfying ‘monster games’ such as Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance and Psychroma.

NEW MONSTERS ON THE HORIZON

Subscription Services Unleash Their Beasts

As long as Xbox Game Pass and Prime Gaming always have new games on their rosters, as they do, the next ridiculous monster is always a few clicks away, from the nightmare worlds of The Callisto Protocol to the unicorn hell of Everdream Valley, and everywhere in between.

STEPPING INTO A WORLD OF MONSTERS

Your Next Adventure Awaits

It’s that we are all travelling these digital paths, taking down monsters both literal and metaphorical, together. And the never-ending anticipation of Dragon Age: The Veilguard is much the same. Of course, the spirit of the quest is alive and well in the series, like the Monster Hunter Stories questlines or Brave Frontier’s own Zenkai mission. These games call out to the monsters inside, to the player to jump off the cliff knowing that in every shadow there’s a story.

Understanding "Monster" in Gaming

The word ‘monster’ in the context of this gigantic cosmos is not just the literal creatures lurking in the shadows, nor even the bosses waiting for the player at the end of the dungeon: it is the challenges the player faces, the enemies with which he or she engages, and the struggles taking place inside themselves as they play. From the secret histories of The Veilguard to the unique ecosystems of Monster Hunter, each of these collections of players and monsters encourages us to ‘slay’ the monsters, teaching us that every monster carries a lesson, a story, a world in itself.

That behemoth of culture and creativity that is the gaming industry is still forging these encounters, still ensuring that every monster you defeat – and yes, you will defeat them – marks another step into a universe richer and denser with the world’s certainly; each one offering us an opportunity to reach even loftier heights. Welcome, then, as we lean in and say: ‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard, please. We’ll take two.