Cyberpunk 2077–First Impressions

Okay – so! Let’s cut to the chase here. 1. I haven’t forgotten this blog, I’ve just been hella busy with the holidays and oh, yeah, the US trying to tear itself apart because of some dumb fucked-up complete waste of fucking space morons decided they no longer liked democracy and would much rather proceed to commit a laughable attempt at a coup that resulted in the death of five people for no fucking reason other than that whole group of people was collectively being dumber than a bag of fucking rocks.

Okay… woooosaaaah. Let’s just… take a moment to relax. Chill. Deep breath. Check out my V before we start. Vega Bakker Wells. Because, to him, a name isn't where you come from, it's who you belong to. 

Alright, now, let’s get to the point of this actual post. Previously, I had been playing Cyberpunk 2077 on ‘current gen’ console (xBox one) and while it was commendable, it honestly wasn’t built for it. It just wasn’t. In my opinion, it really shouldn’t have been released in 2020 at all. I get why they wanted a 20202 release date (Cyberpunk 2020 and Johnny being from 2020 etc). But it really needed to wait. Not because the game itself needed a lot more time, it really didn’t (I’ll explain later) – but because we, the people, needed more time so that more people had next gen consoles in their homes. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an xBox series S. I opted for the S over the X because $$ and because honestly, I don’t use disks anymore. Plus, I have a 4 TB external hard drive that works just fine so problem solved there.

That being said – I’m now playing on next gen. And it’s better. Way better. Like… it’s fine. I haven’t had a single glitch at all and I’m well past where I was on current gen. I’m past Jackie’s memorial and have done some questing after that. I’m sure I’ll run into some glitches down the line because, it’s a game, and games have glitches. It’s impossible to have none. I’ve even had Destiny 2 crash to home-screen on me before. It’s extremely rare, but it still happens. Anyway. My first impressions are thus…

1. The game is huge. It’s packed with so much stuff. There are revolving little quest things (assaults in progress) that just pop up all over the place. They’re apparently never-ending and are a great way to earn street cred (I had V up to 20 street cred before even starting the Heist job). The world is full of NPCs in the city, more densely populated at the city center and thinning out the further away from there you get. Which is a nice touch. All of the NPCs react and are hilarious if you even get near them with a vehicle. The children are even funnier because they’re just little people. No video game has really cracked the code on kids yet, not really. The city itself is just huge, enormous. Maybe not in foot print but in the amount of things happening around you all the time.

2. It’s overwhelming. And no, you don’t get used to it – or at least, I haven’t. There’s stuff happening all the time, all around you. It can be a little… much. Like – okay, when I was in Las Vegas, I heard slot machines so much that I started hearing them in my fucking sleep. It’s like that. Night City is so crowded, so incredibly Night City that it can be a little much. Getting out into the badlands is priority numero uno for my V.

3. I started out with the Corpo life path on my current gen play, but on this one – which I’ll be following through with – I went Nomad. Which is just so much fun. It’s the most interesting. The game incites so many ways for you to build up your own V in your head. Vega Bakker Wells, which is my guy, is complicated but kind of not. He’s kinda mean but kinda not. And after Jackie, he’s hurting. Bad. Right away, you get so many opportunities to build your own story in Night City, or outside of it. That’s the sign of a good world, a good story.

4. Johnny Silverhand is an asshole. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. He’s a fucking dick. But – eventually – he comes around. And you get where he’s coming from on a lot of things but others, he’s just an ass.

5. The combat isn’t as bad as people are saying. Maybe if you use the technical combat modes in games that are optional – then you might not like it. But it’s not that bad. It’s pretty standard. –shrug- People are just bitching.

6. There are some hilarious quests in the game, I’ve been on a few so far that were just too funny. [Flaming Crotch Guy]

7. The romance options? What the fucking fuck, CDPR? Seriously. I’m not even going to go into in depth here because I have quite a bit to say about it. But, we’ll just say, as I’m sure you know by now. That female V gets 2 options, Male V gets 2 options. One gay, one straight. Done. Fin. That’s it. In this world of “choices”, those are your choices.

8. The story is a good one but you can see some plot holes. It’s based on a table top game, so there are intentional holes in the story. So, CDPR couldn’t lean on the table top game for those plot holes, that should be filled by players – and you can tell where those holes are. I’m not dissing the writers at CDPR, but you can tell which is Cyberpunk and which is CDPR, if that makes sense. [Yes, I know V is CDPR].

9. Jackie tore me up, just like I knew he would. But, I wish we could have gone on more quests with him. Really get to know him a lot better. Maybe actually help him pick something out for Misty or something. That would have been nice.

10. As a Nomad V, I’d like to know what happened with their family, why’d they leave? What exactly happened. I don’t know if they explain it in the game and I’m not going to go look for it online.

11. The detail is amazing. The graphics are awesome. And current gen doesn’t hold a candle to what next gen can do with this game. It really doesn’t. Keep that in mind if you’re playing on current gen console. If you’re playing on PC, the higher level the equipment, obviously – the better the game performance will be.

Well, that’s about it for this one. I covered a few things and I’ll be posting about the whole romance option debacle next here, hopefully, in a few days.

A Lull, Glitches, and Twitch

I know it's been awhile since I've posted (aside from the one I just made) and it's not that I've forgotten this blog. Far from it. I've been in a major funk - no it's not "the rona". 

But! I'm getting super excited for Cyberpunk. It's pre-loaded on my tank (six year old xbox one) and it's ready to go! I cannot wait. It's going to be so awesome and honestly, one of the things I'm looking forward to the most... are the glitches. 

Glitches are... hilarious. They are. I haven't seen a glitch yet that wasn't drop-down funny. They make a game... I don't know how to explain it. Take Bioware games. The glitches are part of the games! Just like Bethesda. Not Fallout76, which is just... a nightmare. Ignore that game, pretend it doesn't exist because it shouldn't. No, I mean like Skyrim glitches that send giants careening into the sky never to be seen again. Those kinds of glitches! Bioware glitches that have characters just... sinking. It's too funny. I love it. 

Now, Twitch... I still haven't figured out how to get the mic settings right on console. When I download the few streams I have done, I can barely hear what I'm saying. I'll figure it out eventually but until then - I've taken a hiatus from there but I will stream again soon - I've ordered those little wind-shield foam things for the mic on my Rig because it can pick up the fan in the room and that just sucks. So - that'll be in towards the end of the week. I still have to figure out what I'm going to do with my YT channel. Honestly - I have no idea. I mean, I have some ideas but nothing concrete by any means. 

Well - that's about it for now. See y'all in Night City!

CDPR Hate and Discord... Again

Alright - I get it, some people just... hate. Haters gonna hate, right? But damn... the level of bitching that goes on around new game releases is obscene. And it’s insane - it’s like... Trump-follower-level bitching. You can’t talk to these people. They’re hell-bent on dragging a game through the mud to anyone who will listen, like they have some personal axe to grind against any developer that isn’t their favorite one. Or they think that... games just magically materialize fully formed with zero issues and fairies just dropped them off that way without any hard work put into them at all - that they just... come out of the stars, descending from heaven with no glitches, no issues, and no delays ever. 

Obviously, it’s the Cyberpunk 2077 discord that’s prompted this post. But holy shit. If there was ever an example of the complete and utter horse-shit that goes on for a developer around a game release, this would be it. We’re experiencing a planet wide pandemic. And this game delays it’s launch by one month, not even a whole month. And people lose their god-damned minds. Suddenly, CDPR is evil-incarnate. It doesn’t matter why it was delayed, it really doesn’t. People were going to react the same way. Like a bunch of whining little fucking toddlers. And then there was the crunch thing. Ewww ewww they lieeeed waaaaa. Holy shit. It never entered these people’s tiny little minds that “crunch” does not mean the same thing there as it does here in the US. CDPR is based in Poland, that’s where they do their work. That’s where their employees are. And Poland... even though they have social issues, major social issues, they still have - in comparison to the US - extremely favorable employment laws. They literally can’t overwork their employees, they’re legally not allowed. So “crunch” there? Means quite literally 8 hours extra a week... for five weeks. Five days. Five more days. That was all. Holy shit and people LOST it! Seriously? Another big strike against “crunch” is underpaying people - well, if these people would take a minute to learn anything, then they’d learn that these devs are getting 10% of the sales to split amongst them as a bonus. Not their pay, a bonus. They’re seriously getting paid. I mean... they’re banking hard. Which is good. They put a lot of work into this game. But all people wanted to see or hear was “mandatory crunch”! So, yeah, they didn’t want to know about the fact that it was only five days. They didn’t want to know about the fact that it would end with a serious pay bonus. Nope, none of that because that wouldn’t fit in with their CDPR is evil script. Then, when that bitch-fit didn’t seem to... I don’t know what they hoped to achieve? Shut them down? They moved on to trying to pick apart the game itself. Well, uh, I’m not going to pre-order it because, uh, well, it’s perpetuating steriotyp... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Ugh, get fucked.

There’s a very simple solution to all of this hating.

Don’t like it? Don’t fucking buy it. Done. Simple. Problem solved.

Cyberpunk 2077 Romance Options?

So – of the many things that have been going around the wire lately have been the information dropped during a post-show interview with one of CDPR’s quest designers after the last episode of Night City Wire. Patrick Mills didn’t want to let too much out about the romance options, apparently because some of them are intrinsically tied to the main quest line. I get that, however, he didn’t even give a number – he was asked how many there’d be. But – that’s kind of beside the point. The point is – when he was answering this anticipated question – he said that something he could tell us was that we have already seen all of the romance options for V. As in, literally. We’ve seen all of them – I’m assuming either in trailers, game place footage, or screenshots. Now, this little – seemingly innocent answer – has created an entire whirlwind of guesses going on. And I’ve been seeing a lot of people making a lot of guesses and some of them range from the pretty ordinary to the strange and unusual to the down-right creepy. So, I figured I’d weight in too.

Now, I haven’t read all of the lore available yet but I’m pretty up to date on the basic knowledge, for the most part – I say that because obviously I don’t know if I know all there is to know about these characters. So, keep that in mind.

First, I’ll talk about some of the more common suggestions that I’ve been seeing as possible romance options. Now, these are romance options – not “casual encounters” which are also very much a thing in the game. Fair warning : Certain spoilerish stuff ahead. If you don’t want to know anything about these characters, stop now. Anything I’m posting here, though, can be easily found on the Wiki or YT.

So – firstly, the obvious one has been Jackie. Jackie Wells. The 30 year old former Valentino is V’s first real point of contact and how well you know him from the start of the game, apparently, depends on which life path you choose. Oddly enough, if you choose the Corpo life path – you and he go way back? I would have thought it was if you chose the Street Kid life path but whatever. Now, while a lot of people have been throwing this one around due to Jackie’s little mating bird dance – I think he’s going to become sort of like a Varric character. Unobtainable. See, Jackie’s got himself a girlfriend already and we know he dies fairly early on. Which… sucks. Big time. Because I already know I’m going to adore him. –shimmy shimmy shake-

Next up – we have two some-what “confirmed” romance options. I say “confirmed” like that because they haven’t officially been confirmed but they kind of sort have? It’s weird. Anyway… you’ve got Judy Alvarez. She’s a Moxie at Lizzie’s Bar who helps you do some Brain Dancing and apparently, is who you go to for some extra special BD’s. –A wink, wink-. Anyway – she looks quite young but then again, with immortality kind of being a thing, who knows. Plus – V’s quite young (22). Now she’s rumored to only like women, which is fine by me. Plus, she’s got some kick ass tattoos. And maybe it’s just me… but she looks kind of sad.

 

Then there’s Meredith fucking Stout, the Senior Operations Manager for Militech. Okay, so I still get a slight twitch in my left eye whenever I encounter a female character in a position of authoritative power that is clearly corrupt that is also named Meredith. Pick a different name, my god. But I know a lot of people are apparently looking forward to this one – maybe it’s the whole I will set you ablaze right naowwww look in her eyes or it’s the heels and leather and yes may i have another! Who knows. But – it is what it is. Apparently though, if you don’t pick the Corpo life path – you can kiss that leather-covered ass goodbye because she’s only in it for the game.

I’ve also seen some people suggesting Oleg and Dexter DeShawn. Other than ew – there’s not a lot to go on here. Unless you’re into one word wonders and a Mr. T’esk vibe – that’s about all there is that’s going on there. Just my opinion though – some people may be into that. Of course, Dexter DeShawn is a Fixer, in case you didn’t know, he’s one of the first ones V meets and his bodygaurd / driver is Oleg. This dude. As far as I know, neither are affiliated with anyone other than Dexter DeShawn, as in… they’re both affiliated with… Dexter… De… oh nevermind.

 

Another one I’ve seen is Evelyn Parker. Now, I think this is just wishful thinking and probably more likely to be one of those casual encounters – she’s a character V meets during Dexter’s quest, in fact, it’s her Brain Dance that Judy gives us. Now, right off the bat, apparently, Evelyn is trying to get V to betray Dexter (hindsight 2020 and all that –ahem- anyway). So, she’s got some serious ambition and while we do meet her at Lizzie’s Bar, she actually works at the Doll House. Now, I’m not saying that a sex worker can’t have a relationship – but given her general ambitious / step on anyone to get to the top nature? I’m betting a relationship isn’t in her focus right now. She’s got big plans, after all.

 

And if all of those weren’t even remotely close to your thing – we’ve got the Voodoo Boys. Ah yes, Voodoo Boys. I can’t say that without perking an eyebrow and grinning. I love it. Anyway, both the Head of the gang and the second in command have been suggested as possible romances for V. And while one or neither may be a possibility (see what I did there) – I’m hoping for Placide personally, he’s just… –ahem- look, he’s got presence is what I’m saying here. At 35 and second in command of the Voodoo Boys, Placide is almost an instant enemy of V’s. Yeah, enemy. See the trope I’m hinting at here… see it? Yeah. Okay – apparently, Placide betrays V during a mission or something and knocks V unconscious… probably by hacking us or something and when we wake up, we’re understandably pissed, which leads to a confrontation and voila – tension! –jazz hands- Plus, the dude’s got one hell of an accent on him. –finger kisses- Magnifique.

And then there’s Brigitte. She’s the head of the Voodoo Boys. Otherwise known as Maman Brigitte (Mama Brigitte for those who’ve never set foot anywhere near anything remotely Creole before). She looks pretty damn good for being 41, but who knows her real age, again with immortality being a thing. She’s levvel headed but ruthless, and in the Net? You definitely don’t want to stumble across her there, she’ll fuck you up something fierce. She is the leader of a gang after all, she didn’t get there by baking fucking cookies. She’s a badass to the max and she knows it too. And while some have suggested her… I’m not sure I see this one happening, only because she’s too mature for V. Not too old – age doesn’t matter when it comes to maturity. In fact, I don’t see any of the actual gang leaders being romance options.

And now, one of the big one’s I’ve seen being thrown around is Johnny Silverhand. I lump him up with Jackie. People can dream all day long but I don’t think this is going to happen, for a few small but vitally important reasons. Kind of big spoilers here if you haven’t learned anything about him yet and want to keep him a total mystery – seriously don’t read this next part.

Seriously…

Okay, I’ve done all I could.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, Johnny’s dead. He’s… so very, very dead. Has been for a long ass time. Who we deal with is his consciousness – not the man himself, well… it’s kind of him but… kind of not? It’s weird. So there’s that. But also, on top of that, he’s seriously taken. There’s a whole tragic backstory to him and his girlfriend, Alt Cunningham, but I’m not going to go into it here. So… if there was any kind of relationship there… it’d literally be taking place inside V’s head. So… it’d be a fantasy? I don’t know. Not gonna happen though.

 

Then there’s one that I’ve seen, actually, very little mention of. Emmerick Bronson. He’s the bouncer at the Afterlife – the merc bar that V and Jackie and all the little wild crazy mercs hang out at. Now, he’s a bit of a conundrum. He’s a bouncer right… but he’s also, apparently, affiliated with the Animals gang. I’m not sure if he’s just starting out because he’s not… ya know… –takes in a lot of air like a puffer fish-. I mean, he’s built but no more than some of the other dudes who aren’t in the Animals. But, he’s affiliated with them so I don’t know what’s going on there. But – he’s one of the few dudes that one, V deals with all the time that isn’t butt fucking ugly or crazy ass old and he seems like one of those side characters that shouldn’t be featured as much as he’s been featured. He’s in the center of the Animals promo picture for cryin’ out loud. See? Right in the middle. 

So, for me personally? Just from what I’ve listed here? It’d be Emmerick and Placide. Because Jackie… –shimmy shimmy shake- is beyond our reach.

*Note: All the images are CDPR's and were lifted taken borrowed obtained from the Cyberpunk 2077 Wiki*

HC vs Canon

So, with the D4 announcement that we got – I have been seeing a lot of Solas unrest. It’s with that in mind that I figured that I would make a post about the egg and what I generally think about him and the discord surrounding him. obviously these are my opinions and while there are some things supported by canon material – a lot of it is conjecture. Now, with that out of the way…

First, Solas is a villain. Yes, I know all the bruhaha about people wanting him to have a redemption arc and all of that and while he might in DA4, it’s highly unlikely. See – there are a couple of problems that go on simultaneously when it comes to ol’ egghead. One, he was the first romance option in Bioware that straight up betrays the player and leaves. His betrayal is different, it’s not an immediate result betrayal – it’s got long range consequences. His betrayal is his lie and his infiltration of the Inquisition and of the player’s inner circle. Isabella betrays Hawke but, if played correctly, she has a redemption arc. Solas, doesn’t. And they made an entire DLC to prove that Solas isn’t going to have one. That he is the villain and while he may try to spin it like he doesn’t want to do this – the player isn’t going to stop him. Even a romanced player. And in my opinion, that’s even worse. They’ve already come out and said it, the final discussion with Solas is the final boss battle. Because it says to the player, in no uncertain terms, that Solas is the bad guy here and that he will go through with his plan, no matter what the player says or does, he won’t change his mind. He looks forward to you trying… but he won’t change his mind. Solas is an ends justify the means character and while befriending or romancing him does show him that the elves of Thedas are real people, he still considers everyone else acceptable casualties.

And those are the things that people seem to skip right over when they start defending Solas. Let’s make one thing clear here – you can like Solas as a character, you can appreciate that he’s well written and you can like the romance that he has with Lavellan, but still understand that he is the villain in this part of the story. When he’s with the player in the beginning of the game, in the part that we don’t see, he’s not a nurse maid. He’s trying to figure out how to get the anchor off the Inquisitor’s hand without destroying the anchor. He doesn’t give two shits if the Inquisitor dies, as long as the anchor survives. Then, the only reason he’s with the Inquisition after that is because he wasn’t able to get it off. So, he tries to influence the Inquisition, basically babysit his anchor. Let’s not forget that the whole temple explosion and rift is his fault in the first place – if he’d had the power to do it when he woke up, he would have and yeah, it would have been just as bad. Even if you want to chalk it up by saying well, he didn’t know anyone yet – he just woke up in a strange world etc. Okay… but – he doesn’t change the way he thinks about it. It’s not like he “sees the error of his ways” or anything, no matter what the Inquisitor says or does. Once the foci is broken, he bounces – he has no use for the Inquisition anymore and subsequently the Inquisitor anymore. He has other stuff he’s got to do – including sucking the life out of other old gods to get powered up. He can feel like he’s in between a rock and a hard place all he wants but he’s the one who put himself there. Especially since, if the Inquisitor doesn’t “change everything”, then “the people” aren’t even on his list of people to take care of. Plus, let’s not forget his big plan. Which, we aren’t entirely sure of only that he’s got a huge spy network that he’s been building up for however long he’s been with the Inquisition, using his place in the Inquisition to do so since apparently he just woke up before the temple explosion – and then his plan to tear down the veil which will throw Thedas into chaos, which he’ll have to deal with as will everyone else and maybe the world will… eventually chill out… one day… in the distant future?

To put it extremely simply, Solas is responsible for everyone who died at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, who died due to any rift demons all across Thedas, and he’s okay with that. He barely sees humans, dwarves, and qunari as people, and if not befriended/romanced, he barely sees elves as people. He’s got no problem sacrificing however many are going to die once the veil goes. And all because… he wants to bring back a way of life that he’s responsible for ending in the first place. That’s Solas in a nutshell. And while we can say all day long that he made mistakes and he’s just trying to fix it, that he’s redeemable, that he can be saved… I think there’s an important thing that’s being missed.

It’s been a long time since Inquisition dropped. Six years. Six whole years. That’s six years of head canons running wild and a lot of them have been about Solas. Six years of people writing stories, coming up with hypothesis, and conjectures. And that matters… because a lot of what people are expecting out of DA4 with Solas seems to me, to be leaning heavily on a lot of head canon and not canon-canon. Canon = Solas is a villain with no redemption arc. Head Canon = Solas’ love for Lavellan will make him see the error of his ways because she changed everything. See the difference? The first one is what happened, the second one is what people want to happen and while the second one does seem great – it’s probably not going to happen. Even if you want to weave a lot into his character – which is complex – it probably won’t matter in the game. He’s still going to do what he planned to do and it’s going to be our job to try and stop him. Because, he’s the antagonist. He’s the quintessential villain who doesn’t think he’s a villain, who thinks his cause is worthy, and honestly – he’s got a little martyrdom going on in his head. His “feelings” don’t matter – only the cause. What he “wants” doesn’t matter – only the cause. These are things that are canon and in game. We’ve seen it. But – again – head canon gets in the way, it clouds the issues because six years.

Now, me personally? I don’t mind Solas – I’m not a huge Solas fan but I admit it openly, my first play through, my Lavellan romanced the fuck outta Solas and consequently got her heart broke. It was a jarring moment and it was so well written, it was amazing. I mean, award winning shock because what!? But yeah, it was great. But – I’m more of a Blackwall fan. Cullen’s okay… he’s about equal with Solas for me.

Now – head canon Solas? He’s fucking awesome and yes! Of course he is – everyone’s HC characters are much better than canon, because they’re better for us because we made edited them to our preferences. Which is why you’ll see Solas drawn without a sunken in stomach and a bit beefier – because in game he’s… sickly skinny. Even I do it because yeah – put some weight on that dude, no reason for his stomach to be thinner than his waist. But, I digress.

The point of the matter is – we’ve got six years of head canons to shelf when DA4 drops, and I hope that these preconceived notions that are so heavily influenced by head canons don’t get in the way and cause a lot of negative reactions to the game when it does come out.

Commander Zavala & the Traveler’s Chosen

So, I won’t put any spoilers here since this quest line is still very new to the game and there are still, undoubtedly, many people who are working on it. But, since the lore is very accessible on the Ishtar collective – I’ll kind of talk about it but won’t at the same time, if that makes sense.

First, let me start off by saying that you can get ahold of this lore by either visiting the Ishtar Collective here, or by checking out Byf over on YouTube who goes into a lot of this in-depth. But – cliff’s notes for what I’m going to be talking about here?

With the darkness returning, all of the dark little tid bits all over the place are gearing up – including the Ahmakara bones – like the one that Shaxx keeps netted up over his freaking head. And apparently, according to some lore entries, something… somewhere… is watching the tower through it. We don’t know who or what but it’s got it’s creepy dark little slimy eye dead set on…. well, you can probably guess based upon the title of this post. This may or may not be a spoiler but since this information doesn’t directly pertain to the quest, I’m going to call it easily accessible lore and there for out of the realm of spoilers.

But… we’ve been seeing Zavala kind of… withdraw, ever since Cayde was killed. A lot of fans wanted to think that Zavala didn’t care about Cayde and was basically unaffected by his death simply because he didn’t want revenge against Uldren. Oh, he wanted it. He just simply couldn’t act on it and here’s why.

“We are not an army, we are not conqueres.” That line is actually very important. Think about that for a moment. Guardians are immortal, barring what happened with Ghaul and the red war, and even then – Guardians are hard as hell to kill. Imagine if they all got together and decided they were a legit army? They couldn’t be stopped. Now, people – humans – don’t like strange and different other people. You think the mortal humans of the city look on the guardians kindly and perfectly all the time? No. There are a few neighborhoods in that entire big ass city where Guardians can live alongside normal people. That’s it. Everywhere else? No Guardians allowed. Because people are scared of them, or they straight up have a huge distaste for them (-cough-Hawthorne-cough-). Either way, imagine if Guardians started looking less like a group of beings that kind of did stuff kind of over… there… in small groups… and started looking more like a big ass group with a single mission? Yeah. Because the Red Legion came for the city, right? Nope, they came for the Traveler and the light, and yes, the Guardians. So – Guardians absolutely cannot appear to be an army of any kind. And banding together, even to avenge a fallen friend? That’s a hard no. And Zavala knows this. He knows that if they decide to go off half cocked, which he knows damn near all hunters will at the drop of a hat if given word one to do so – and if they do end up starting some crazy ass war with the Reef and the Awoken? Who, then, is going to suffer their revenge scheme? The people in the city. Not the guardians – they’ll just get rezzed and be fine. But the people? Not so much. So, Zavala doesn’t have the luxury of thinking in terms of right now. So, he literally can’t condone it.

But since that moment… he’s been… noticeably different. He’s been… sadder. Losing his light changed him and then losing Cayde? It was like a reminder that things were never going to be the way they were before. His relationship with Ikora is fractured, the Vanguard is crumbling before his very eyes and it appears he just doesn’t have the will to want to save it at all. Basically speaking, we’ve got a commander that looks like he’s dealing with some serious depression. A crisis of faith. PTSD from losing his light. A strong warrior like him suddenly rendered powerless? That’s a hard thing to deal with for him and yet, he can’t deal with any of it because he’s the Commander. He has to appear strong, still a leader, still right there in the forefront.

And if you go read about that slimy spy in that skull – with its eye on Zavala – you can read about how it sees that gaping hole in him, where his faith used to be. His faith in the Traveler. Because he doesn’t believe the Traveler will save them anymore. Why? Because she didn’t. It’s a classic crisis of faith only he’s not angry about it – I don’t think he has the strength to be angry anymore. I think he’s dead ass tired of it. Something, I’m sure, all guardians go through at some point. And that hole inside of him isn’t going to be left empty for long if that spy has anything to say about it. It’s going to get filled up with darkness. Don’t forget – Zavala’s awoken and that actually matters here. Awoken have the capacity to have both great light and great darkness inside of them and they have to operate on a knife’s edge – not having too much of one or the other. That’s why they’re so damned creepy most of the time and that’s why Uldren was so easy to corrupt. It only takes a nudge. Most of the time, they can balance just fine – because they’re surprisingly strong of mind but when they’re hurt, when they’re struggling (for Uldren, loosing his sister fucked him all up – for Zavala… losing his light, losing Cayde… losing the life he once had…) when they’re like that? It’s so very easy for them to fall to the darkness that’s already inside of them and then? To have more darkness be poured in? Fuck that. It’s usually over. Uldren was oddly lucky, being spit out the way he was. But Zavala’s going to be consumed from within if he’s not careful… but with his depression – will he even notice that he’s being eaten alive? Will he even care?

I’ve got a really bad feeling that he’s going to be the next character we lose and it worries me.

What Will They Call You…

So, I (along with damn near everyone else in the DA fandom) have been thinking a lot about that one line - because of course, we only got like three lines out of the teaser.

They call me the dread wolf. What will they call you, when this is over?

I know there are variances with voice actors and they do multiple takes so we may not even get that particular one in the game or even that line at all.

But, it’s said with a certain amount of... familiarity? If that makes sense. The way he stresses the “me” part, almost incredulously - we know it’s a moniker he doesn’t necessarily like, but one he begrudgingly accepts.

We also know that if it does make it into the game, it could be dialogue in response to choices made during conversation - so some may not get it and others might. Or it might be said differently, who knows.

There is one thing though - that the devs and writers have been pretty clear about, at least in the past when Trespasser dropped. Any relationship with Solas is considered concluded, complete. So, there probably won’t be any of that, even if he romanced the Inquisitor though it’s going to be very interesting to see what dialogue is given from a romanced Solas. And, it would be super sweet, I mean talk about a treat from devs and writers if we could don the mantel of Inquisitor once more and play our Inquisitor for just a moment for a romanced Solas - kind of a meet in shadows kind of thing, even if it’s only for a conversation. That’d be sweet. But - highly unlikely. However, who knows.

And yes, romance is a big part of the discussion because of one simple thing...

We know the game’s going to be good. Game play / fighting / tactics / all of that has never been a problem with Dragon Age (or even Mass Effect, I can’t speak for the other Bioware games outside Baldur’s Gate because I didn’t play the others). But the romance options? That’s something that has always set Dragon Age apart - set Mass Effect apart - the relationships that our characters form with those around them. And I cannot wait.