The Hilarious History of Horrible Dragon Age Trailers

A few weeks ago during Summer Game Fest, Dragon Age: The Veilguard (newly renamed from Dragon Age: Dreadwolf) was formally unveiled by a trailer that was…well, let’s call it “unexpected.” I must admit, I was despondent upon my initial look at this trailer for what is unquestionably my favorite video game franchise. So, in my grief, I did what any self-respecting Millennial does: I dove deeply into the internet to see if I was alone in my perspective. As it turns out, I was not. This trailer was criticized by many as being “cartoony” and reminiscent of Fortnite, with a drastic shift in tone and subject to what has become more widely known as “Marvelification” (when something trades a serious or otherwise not comedic tone for one full of action and jokes, one-liners, etc.).

Then, in the depths of my despair, I noticed some people (apologies, I cannot remember specifically who the ones were that pointed this out; I looked at a lot of Twitter posts) pointing out that maybe we were all being a little unnecessarily concerned, as Dragon Age trailers are almost always, even notoriously so, awful. They are completely unrepresentative of what the games actually are, be it in art style, tone, or gameplay. They are almost always overladen with some sort of nonsensical song choice. And, of course, I always end up loving the game, no matter what horror was displayed in the trailer. So, with that in mind, I calmed myself down, took the words of former Dragon Age Executive Producer and current consultant on The Veilguard, Mark Darrah, to heart, and decided to wait until the gameplay reveal an excruciating 48 hours or so later.

And it was incredible. I absolutely loved it. It wasn’t perfect; I am disappointed in the lack of direct control of party members, the reduction in party size from 4 to 3 was surprising but not the end of the world, and the removal of the tactical camera (which had been re-added in Inquisition, the third game in the series), was a letdown but not a shock. That said, as I was sitting there in total awe at how amazing everything looked, how gorgeous it was, how the tone was serious and grounded but not dire, and how the art style was an evolution of Inquisition rather than a departure, I was contented. My soul was at ease, and I could happily live my life until the release in the fall of 2024.

But, while I was enduring that excruciating 48 hours of waiting, I had decided to look back at some of the old trailers for past Dragon Age games, just to verify that they were as bad as I remembered. So, I looked at a couple of Inquisition trailers, and then I thought back to the Origins (the first game) and 2 (the second game) trailers. And that’s what helped me through.

Now, a few weeks or so removed from that dark and depressing period, I thought it would be fun to discuss the nightmarish trailers released for the prior Dragon Age games. And maybe, if you haven’t seen the gameplay or are not comforted by what you saw, I can remind you: if you love Dragon Age, no matter what they show, it’s still the series you and I love.

Origins

Dragon Age: Origins released in 2009. This late aughts period is well known for its gritty, gray and brown period, where everything in games was dark and serious. BioWare (the franchise’s developer, recently purchased by Electronic Arts at this time) decided to release a trailer for Origins titled “Sacred Ashes.” This trailer opens up in a snowstorm on a climb up a mountain to find the Sacred Ashes of Andraste when, suddenly, the team gets attacked by Darkspawn and an amazing, action-packed battle ensues. Dragon Age: Origins is a tactical cRPG. I don’t know if you’ve ever played a cRPG, but cRPGs, especially those from the late aughts and earlier, aren’t exactly known for their action-packed gameplay. Additionally, the characters featured: Morrigan, Leliana, Sten, and, of course, the Warden, look completely different from the final models in the game. Just about the only accurate thing in this trailer are the voice actors (and the Warden is an unvoiced protagonist in the game, so even that’s not fully accurate!).

The second noteworthy Origins trailer, titled “Warden’s Calling,” features similarly mis-representative action combat. However, the most amusing part of this trailer is a certain Marilyn Manson excrement-titled song that plays at the very end. On re-viewing, this is reminiscent of the use of David Bowie’s “Heroes” that played in last week’s The Veilguard “Official Reveal” trailer. Of course, I can’t speak for The Veilguard’s final product yet, but I can say with absolute certainty that the tone of Origins’ trailer song is not remotely close to the actual feelings the game evokes, ever.

Dragon Age 2

Dragon Age 2 released in 2011, a mere 16 months after Origins, and less than a year after Origins’ fantastic expansion, Awakening. Due to this extremely abbreviated development time, the scale of 2 was much tighter than that of Origins. But BioWare managed to achieve some noticeable changes to the combat system, moving away from the cRPG nature of Origins and into a more action-oriented game. The primary trailer for this game, “Destiny,” was very similar to that of the Origins trailers in style, with very little representation of the gameplay, but at least this time they had accurate character designs (and no ridiculous song!).

The problem with this trailer is it gives a sense of an intimate battle centering on the main character, named Hawke, and the Arishok (a war leader for an invading race colloquially known as the “Qunari”), and…that’s it. Yes, a fight like that does occur, but, in-game, it doesn’t look like that at all. In fact, they demonstrate one of the most difficult outcomes of that relationship: the one-on-one duel. You need to earn the Arishok’s respect in order to have that as an option (or bring Fenris as party member, but I digress), otherwise it breaks out into an all-out brawl. Except for that one outcome, you’re fighting a bunch of enemies, and even if you do manage to earn his respect (I did on my first playthrough [sunglasses emoji]), you’re more likely to run around in a circle dodging his attacks and freezing him in place, if you play a mage, than experience that trailer. All that aside, that trailer demonstrates one, tiny portion of the game: the end of Act 2, but it’s hardly representative of the game as whole. I will give it credit; it’s a huge step up from Origins’ trailers.

Inquisition

Dragon Age: Inquisition released in 2014 and was unveiled, similar to The Veilguard, in the middle of a press conference back in 2013. This 2013 trailer, titled “The Fires Above,” opens on a very grim, nighttime scene of beloved character Varric closing the eyes of the dead on a battlefield, and it closes with one of the most horrifying depictions of fan-favorite (and my personal favorite) character, Morrigan, to ever grace the internet. Of course, she looks nothing like this in the game; she looks like Morrigan in the game and not this twisted monstrosity. And, of course, Inquisition goes on to be, generally speaking, a very bright, colorful, mostly daytime-set adventure, with no battlefield littered with corpses. Sure, there are dark moments, but if we were to believe this trailer’s tone, the game was going to be bloody and dire. It’s not; it’s just another example of bad tone and bad character design in the franchise’s trailer history.

Just prior to Inquisition’s launch, the trailer titled “The Breach” was released and continued another now storied tradition: the weird musical choice. This time, Into The Darkness by The Phantoms was the selection. Once more, this emphasized a very “serious story” with desolate battlefields, demons everywhere, and the whole group of companions fighting. Except for Varric, who was clearly replaced by a Varric impersonator who stole real Varric’s crossbow because the character on screen doesn’t look anything like our favorite crossbow-wielding Dwarf. I say that last sentence partially in jest as it’s absolutely Varric in this trailer, but once again, as with Morrigan in the prior trailer, he looks nothing like he does in the actual game.

What’s all the more interesting is, in that press conference trailer, Varric looks like Varric. They changed him for this trailer, and since this was much closer to release, it would be very understandable to be very concerned that his look was overhauled so drastically. The trailer’s musical choice, and its change in Varric’s appearance, throws off any casual viewer’s impression of what game they’re going to get. But it’s par for the course with Dragon Age trailers at this point.

The Veilguard

And so, that brings us to June of 2024, a painstaking 9 years, 6 months, and 22 days since Inquisition graced us with its GotY glory (yes, it was GotY that year for many outlets and overall, so I don’t care if you want to say it was a “weak year” or anything else; you’re wrong, shut up, it won, let’s leave it alone). Dragon Age: The Veilguard premiered at the Microsoft Showcase with its companions trailer (officially titled “Official Reveal”).

With all that time, with one hard reset of the game’s development, one soft reset, and nearly 10 years in development, what does BioWare give us? A cartoon bar brawl with jokes flying faster than you can laugh at them (if they were even worth laughing at) and a David Bowie song. Varric, the famously beardless Dwarf, is now bearded for some reason, Harding, the adored Inquisition scout, looks like she spent an hour in the bar’s bathroom doing her hair and makeup, and newly introduced character Taash looks like she was taken out of a badly animated Saturday morning 3D children’s cartoon.

This trailer is a complete 180-degree shift from every other Dragon Age trailer’s tone. Rather than a soft correction from the overly serious and grimdark tone from the other games’ trailers, they overcorrected and made it a cartoon. Because of course they did.

Revisiting all of these awful and/or unrepresentative trailers on the eve of the fourth game’s release (and 15th anniversary of the first game’s launch!), I cannot help but laugh. Despite marketing campaigns that seem like they were designed by business executives who, at every single turn, looked at the market and said “what’s popular right now? Let’s do that!” no matter what the actual games themselves were like, despite a gameplay style that has shifted from game to game in the series with nary a consistent bone in its body sometimes, despite the near decade-long wait for a sequel, this franchise has wormed its way into my heart and stayed there. I read all the books, all the comics, and all the short stories. I listen to a BioWare-focused podcast (shout out to Split the Veil!), I own a Morrigan statue, and I own vinyl records for the whole series’ soundtrack (and I don’t even own or have access to a record player!); I was never not going to play this game.

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I think back to how I felt after the Official Reveal trailer, how I felt diving deep into the internet, talking on Twitter, in Discord, about my concerns and my fears, and I feel like a fool. I should have known better that this was just another in a long line of hilariously horrible Dragon Age trailers. I guess, in the end, the joke was on me. Well played, BioWare, well played.