Dragon Age is a strange game franchise. It’s wonderful, but it can be labeled ‘inconsistent’ as so many things have changed about it over the years. The first in the series, “Dragon Age Origins” (DAO), was an edgy dark fantasy from 2009, complete with overt violence and horrifying social injustices that are handled kind of recklessly.

Despite its quirks and age, it’s the most beloved of the series and has a stubborn fanbase. Its sequel, “Dragon Age 2”, is not so lucky. It is widely regarded as the black sheep of the franchise and was largely criticized at release. Ironically, though the story differs from its predecessor, “Dragon Age 2” plays almost the same as DAO, but is more fluid.

For those who’re unfamiliar with why this is so important, the last Dragon Age game came out in 2014, with its previous downloadable content released in 2015. That’s ten years of no new Dragon Age content (on the video game side at least). The game was officially announced in 2018 under a different name: Dreadwolf. The name was suddenly changed to The Veilguard two months before its first trailer.

Moving forward, “Dragon Age: Inquisition” is the third installment of the series. Though it is a slight departure from its predecessors, Inquisition retains the spirit of the series while improving the technology. Most importantly, it went from dark to high fantasy.

Now, the high fantasy setting is here to stay–as evidenced in the promotional material of the upcoming game, “Dragon Age: The Veilguard”. This is a point of contention in the community and is one of the reasons said promotional material has been met with…disdain. Despite its loving fanbase, Dragon Age is often criticized for the lack of consistency in its releases.

This has led to a phrase appearing all over Dragon Age media: cautious optimism. If you’ve followed anything on the internet, you’ve probably heard this phrase before. It has become popular in the wake of Cyberpunk 2077’s disappointing release.

The phrase is simple, “We have hope for this release, but we don’t expect much.” This is a fairly normal opinion as not everyone enjoys the same thing. This was once a less popular opinion as people typically dreaded or were extremely excited about releases, but recently that has changed.

There’s nothing wrong with this, but it says a lot about how people view media releases now. With the dramatic rise of social media, people can consistently track the media they like. The problem is that too many people have become obsessed with constantly following every piece of media out there. Just look at “Velma” and the hate-watching fiasco.

Now, a question arises: What exactly does this have to do with Dragon Age? That is a good question and the answer is simple. If you look at any discussion involving “Dragon Age: The Veilguard”, you’ll see the phrase ‘cautious optimism’ pop up almost everywhere. Just one glance at the game’s reveal trailers and most top comments also have the phrase.

It should be noted that there’s nothing wrong with this opinion, but as mentioned before, it is an indicator of how lackluster releases have become in general. Media releases have become increasingly mediocre across the board, like Marvel’s Phase 4 or the entirety of the DC Extended Universe, also known as the DCEU, (sorry Snyder fans).

In other words, many fear The Veilguard will be mediocre, and it’s hard to fault them for that. Quite a few things about the game doesn’t inspire confidence in its fanbase. On top of a controversial first trailer, The Veilguard is fighting an uphill battle.

The fanbase became understandably worried about the game’s future, so things are at a precipice. If The Veilguard fails, Dragon Age fails. So seeing the general fanbase react with cautious optimism, is a tad worrying. Hopefully, the game hits it out of the park as anything less means another year of mediocre and unfinished triple AAA releases.

Bioware, the developers of Dragon Age, need to show something impactful if they’re going to win over their fans again.