Mirror, mirror, on the table: Give me gender, if you’re able.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is coming out and, being one of the big RPG releases this year, quite a few of us have been sinking our teeth into it—we’ve got a wide smattering of opinions, ranging from withering to, well, our Dragon Age: The Veilguard review score of 79, which isn’t half-bad for a game with so much expectation riding it. If you’ve been following the wider response and hubbub, though, you might’ve noticed a few disjointed screenshots discussing the trans and non-binary options available to you in the game.
I’m here to shed some light and clear up some confusion, given I’ve played 41 hours of the thing while leaning into these options—and, hopefully, I’ll be able to tell you that they aren’t a big deal if you don’t want to engage with them. Here’s the skinny on exactly how they work:
First up, in a move that I think is actually pretty neat for roleplay purposes, your identity and pronouns are completely separate on character creation. I say “neat for roleplay purposes” because half of the reason I’ve been going for these in the first place is that, due to the qunari’s binary perception of gender in the Qun, I thought it’d be interesting to see how the game reacts to my character using a single set of pronouns, but having a non-binary view of himself.
