'Dragon Age: The Veilguard' to Feature Customizable Top Surgery Scars for Characters

Trans illustration isn’t a completely new idea within the Dragon Age universe, as gamers met the transmasc character Krem in 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition, voiced by Mass Effect’s Jennifer Hale. Veilguard is poised to put that illustration in gamers’ fingers, although, with a set of character customization choices that may persist into the sport itself. Players can independently select major character Rook’s gender (male, feminine, or nonbinary) and pronouns (she/her, he/him, or they/them), as studio heads confirmed in a Discord Q&A earlier this yr, additionally revealing that gamers can select to come out as trans in dialogue decisions later within the recreation. Rook can also be portrayed by 4 completely different voice actors, which will be chosen based mostly on participant choice — together with genderfluid voice actor and comic Erika Ishii, who previously voiced Valkyrie, the primary confirmed lesbian character within the fashionable on-line shooter Apex Legends.

“I am both terrified and thrilled to have the Dragon Age community hear me in Thedas,” Ishii mentioned in an Instagram video asserting their position in July. “Additionally, as someone who identifies as genderfluid, it means the world to me to have the option to play as a trans or nonbinary character in a Dragon Age game. I can look the way that I want, and I can speak with my voice in a world that sees me for who I am: Rook.”

Veilguard gained’t be the primary main studio title to function optionally available prime surgical procedure scars — The Sims 4, additionally an EA recreation, added that choice final yr, and gamers have been in a position to give characters pectoral scars lately in collection as far afield as Dragon’s Dogma II and WWE 2K. (And, after all, there are dozens of mods for including prime surgical procedure scars to pc video games, whether or not you’re a easy Skyrim fan or a transmasc Link truther.) But between the vary of choices for trans Rooks and the potential inclusion of a nonbinary companion character, BioWare appears to be making a bid for probably the most transgender-coded online game of the yr.

There are, nonetheless, some notable limitations to Veilguard’s character creation. While its direct competitor Baldur’s Gate 3 allowed full nudity and let gamers select from a lineup of genital choices, Veilguard gamers gained’t give you the chance to take off their decrease underwear in any respect, as Uni Fadewalker famous in his video. The solely trace as to what’s down Rook’s stairs can be old style customizable bulge measurement.

As some video games journalists have additionally identified, Veilguard’s character creator nonetheless disappoints in its vary of accessible physique varieties. BioWare’s choices for pores and skin pigmentation have improved through the years, mentioned Kenneth Shepard and Kate Sánchez for Kotaku this week, however in Shepard’s phrases, “I have to put the glute sliders to the very end just to make it look like my character has an ass to begin with.” As Sánchez noticed, the studio’s default Eurocentrism permits the typical white participant of any gender to really feel embodied of their character, however doesn’t prolong the identical welcome to Black and brown gamers with completely different physique proportions.

“I think that that’s why it kind of hurts a lot, because they did show intent and care for something,” Sánchez defined. “And I think that that’s actually what makes me feel worse about not including body types that brown and Black women have, because like it’s almost like there was intent for everything but that.”

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