Dragon Age: The Veilguard Hit With “Anti-Woke” Review Bombing

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is out now, met with mostly positive reviews. It also seems to be performing well, placing high in the sales charts on Steam and PS5.

However, even before its launch, the game found itself as the latest target for online discourse amongst the ‘anti-woke’ crowd. Now, this group is spamming negative user reviews on Metacritic, with many complaining that the game contains LGBTQ+ characters and themes.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Is The Latest Game To Be Targetted By ‘Anti-Woke’ Crowds Online

On Metacritic, Dragon Age: The Veilguard currently sits at a 3.9 out of then for user scores, against a critic score of 84 (on PS5 at least, which most reviewers played on). Many of these negative user reviews give the game a zero, complaining about ‘wokeness’ and ‘DEI’.

This is, unfortunately, not very surprising. Before release, the Steam discussions page for The Veilguard was flooded by people complaining about wokeness in Dragon Age – even though this is hardly new. Anyone who’s been around long enough will remember that many took issue with Dragon Age: Origins including bisexual love interests.

Of course, some legitimate discussions are floating around about how The Veilguard handles certain topics, particularly gender identity, but these reviews are clearly not being left in good faith. For many, the very inclusion of a non-binary character is too much, despite the series previously featuring trans characters and establishing that gender is something that’s explored in Thedas.

While this debate rages on, it’s worth noting that the review bombing doesn’t seem to have taken off on Steam. Right now, The Veilguard is sitting at mostly positive reviews on the platform, with many finding the game enjoyable. There’s some criticism over how it feels less like a Dragon Age game than previous entries, but many still seem to feel that it’s a good game regardless.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.