EA fucks things up with monetization and unrealistic sales goals. The enshitification of BioWare was the result of an internal feedback loop that started with catering to the “in-game romance” crowd and was completed with diversity hiring.

This new dragon age is a perfect example of the latter. This tranny doesn’t have the skill to code or game design on a ground level, so he gets to slide into a management position instead. That’s how “holistic” diversity works. So his lack of qualifications combined with his diversity score jumped him up to game director, and now he gets to steer the ship into degenerate incompetence. All he had to do at the interview was talk up microtransactions, and the suits were on board.

The biggest bummer to me was Origins sets up a pretty interesting world and overarching story that immediately went straight into the garbage after release. It was like they couldn't throw the darkspawn plotline away fast enough. What did they replace it with? Muh racism (DA2) trite 'fight the demon invasion' (Inquisition) and now apparently 'moar demons' (but without the sexy topless succubus demons of course.) Instead of the darkspawn as a persistent ever-looming threat we just get dumb stories about waring old crone and a gay elf.

The games are called DRAGON age. Not Demon Age or Racism age. They were clearly setting up a story for the Arch-dragons to emerge and devastate the world along with the ancient magisters and whoever else. The whole underdark world where people are dragged off and fed into horrors was pretty cool and unsettling, it was way more effective than "the gays no wait I mean the mages should have equal rights". All that set up and lore from Origins down the tubes. It's the biggest other waste of a good plot since ME3. Which figures.