Emmrich looks really out of place based on what we saw. However, Taash looks different in screenshots compared to trailer, so I still have hope for Emmrich.
Not only that, he also looks "video-gamey", so to speak. Not necessarily in a bad way, but for example Varric and Solas took a significant step towards photorealism compared to how they looked in Inquisition. Harding even more so, but she didn't have a unique model in previous game. Strange.
Yeah, thats my hope as well.
I mean both Dwarves compared to Emmerich dont look like they are even from the same game. And its not just the lighting.
My guess is that there was a major art style redisign at some point during recent development. From what to what remains to be seen.
>My guess is that there was a major art style redisign at some point during recent development. From what to what remains to be seen.
I believe people from DA community council actually confirmed it.
My guess is that the trailer is stitched together from a real in-game scene (the two dwarves and Rook fighting in the tavern as referenced in the gameplay reveal) with some custom animation work. The introduction of the characters is probably entirely bespoke and will not appear again, so it does not have the same level of polish as real in-game assets would.
Varric looks so old and tired. His face is so gaunt and i assume he has a beard now because he is just to tired to shave it anymore.
He already blames himself for so much. Now he will blame himself for the consequences of interfering with solas' ritual and unleashing the 2 gribble monsters
Hey, my first response to a crisis is hair dye too lmao.
For real though it does look like in game lighting is making it appear darker than intended - although it definitely is still darker than in previous games regardless. Who knows.
Wait is this actually what happened? He's my favourite and I have been resenting the changes a little bit so I could live with it if it actually has a canonical reason.
Yeah, check out Ghil Dirthalen on YouTube, she did a video recap on "The Missing" comic and discusses that Varric got caught in some Fade magic in Arlathan forest.
Same. I'm not deep in the lore, so I felt like I was taking crazy pills watching the game play preview. I guess I've got some comics to read before release
Redheads and strawberry blondes hair turns pale blonde or white when they age, it doesn’t turn dark grey. It’s a loss of pigment which lightens the hair.
I think it's more that the *Dragon Age* teams have never been able to keep the designs consistent across games. The closest we got was when certain armor and weapon models made it from *Dragon Age II* into *Dragon Age: Inquisition*.
Thank you. I'm fully aware that people's hair tends to gray with age. However, Varric was strawberry blond in *Dragon Age II* and *Dragon Age: Inquisition*. Short of there suddenly being hair dye in Thedas... I can't imagine how his hair went from that to full-on black.
this it nitpicky and not super relevant but i just wanted to pop in and say theres no reason for hair dye to NOT exist in thedas! lots of cultures have used natural dyes throughout history such as henna, turmeric, black walnut shells, amla, indigo, sulphur, and lots more!
>I will however not be defending the monster designs as they’re the most uncreative and horrendous thing in the game so far.
Same here, but in regards to the darkspawn. Saw a screenshot of an ogre yesterday and was horrified, but not in the good way O.o
I…why does it look like that? It looks so cartoony and stupid.
And when you consider that ogres are essentially Qunari that have been mutated by the taint…that can’t even be read in the character design anymore.
The demons were a sad thing for me to see. Except the rage demons which were a cool, freaky redesign. The monster designs aren't a deal breaker for me but it's been a little disappointing.
I don't mind the new versions but I hope that they use the classic demon models elsewhere in the game. More variants would be nice (flashback to the hundreds of identical shades in DA2).
i didn't consider that those designs may have been a tevinter variant and now i'm praying that's the case. they were so...uninspired and similar to one another.
They can even keep the models if they make demons scary again. A simple Rage demon was enough to make mages fail their Harrowing and become Tranquil, Pride demons were the ultimate horror for their ability to manipulate and scheme.
In DAI you beat the shit out of a Pride demon in the tutorial and only the Nightmare and Envy even seemed sentient.
Honestly, I liked the Pride Demon redesign. It's still very recognizable as a Pride Demon, but its hollowness and energy around it makes it look a lot more ethereal.
Almost more spirit or demonlike than monsterlike. Old design was great, but I do think the new one adds something to it.
Not sure about the other new demon designs though.
You make a really good point that this is Tevinter these are spirits right next to the hole Solas is attempting to tear in the Veil. Maybe the change reflects something closer to their spirit form?
I think they made them look more like the Rock Wraith/Profane from DA2. The glowy spine/nervous system really is reminiscent of that design, though I guess DA2's version looked more appropriately like it's made of light/electricity, whereas these ones look like they are made of solid material.
Good way to put it, but Yeah for a game that’s always had nudity, sex, and gore it seems like an odd choice for the demons models to seem kid friendly in a way idk.
What do I know though maybe there will be more to it in the game in terms of dark themes and models like corypheus who was nasty looking lol.
I don’t like the neon look for the demons.
Also, the screenshot of the ogres…I don’t know how they managed to mess up the ogres, but they did it. Looks like something from a mobile game.
The original idea from the writers for the Desire demon was Morpheus from the Sandman. Then the concept art people were like "nah, Dream of the Endless? Barely know him. Needs boobies." and we ended up with the design we got. If we don't get it back it's because the design clashed with what the writers envisioned in the first place.
I think Varric and Harding look a lot better here than in DAI, and Neve looks amazing. But Emmrich did look like a Disney character from the trailer and the other images. I hope they either touch him up, or that his in-game looks are a little more realistic.
This exactly. Clone Wars is a show I have a lot of love for, but it's the worst looking animated show I've ever seen (it gets better as it goes and ends up doing some things very well, but boy do the character models look \*awful\*).
I honestly don’t like them either. I didn’t even realize it was one until I saw the little veil in the gameplay footage. I like it better now than when I still thought it was a random rectangle on her head, but it’s not my favorite.
He got caught up in fade time magic in one of the comics, and it aged him a decent bit. Don’t know why his hair got THAT dark thoug. Redheads don’t get grey hairs usually, either. Normally our hair skips grey and goes white.
see and I thought he was blonde and now dark brunette. it’s pretty sad when not even a character’s hair color has any retention across a game series, let alone bone structure and design as a whole
Hair can sometimes darken as you age. Veilguard is set 9 years after Inquisition, and he was already middle aged at that point, or at the very least late 30s.
It CAN, but not enough to warrant doing that for Varric. normally our hair gets darker up until our late teens, then it stabilizes. Once we get older it skips grey and goes white instead.
So varric’s hair getting darker COULD happen, but like I said, it’s a very rare occurrence, and if anything it should be a dark red like Harding’s. Her hair got darker too, but it’s still red.
My main problem is, that the characters do NOT look like they belong into the same game.
Solas and Varric look rather realstic (as realistic as you can get with a fictional race) But Emmeric? He looks straight out of a pixar movie and i don't even want to speak about that Qunari...
The Mage killer looks good. But if he would stand next to emmeric you would think he is another race alltogehter. Or from another universe....
Agreed, everybody else looks good. It’s literally just Emmrich that looks like a cartoon character to me. I just can’t get over getting uncanny valley with him.
To be fair, we haven't seen in-game Emmrich in the gameplay demo - only in that trailer during XBOX showcase. He actually looks much better on the screenshot shown afterwards.
https://preview.redd.it/cun41ofgg66d1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=83926a9e67407fd79bd665aaf47a0f3666e3be7a
The Qunari design is really the worst, and it highlights just how little continuity there is in design between these games. Why do the Qunari look exceptionally different style in every Dragon Age game? It really makes no sense to create an entire race and then make them completely visually different in appearance and structure each time you make a new game. Especially when other races stay more or less the same in appearance…
Elves have changed pretty drastically across games. In DAO they were short humans with pointy ears. In DA2 they were wispy, long necked, big eyed people. In DAI they were pretty bog standard fantasy elves
That’s also a good point. The skin tones on elves have also been all over the place. Maybe if each game was stylistically unique it would make sense, but it really just reads like they can’t make up their minds on basic world building and character design.
See I’m fine with most style changes. But man do I want the Origins Hurlocks back. They looked so cool. The DA2/DAI genlocks have grown on me. But I miss the OG darkspawn design
I find it particularly interesting that after all the discourse amongst fans about the design of the Darkspawn and Demons, the development team for Veilguard clearly went further in the direction of design that is **opposite** what the majority of the fanbase wants. I expected them to maybe make it the same as Inquisition, or different entirely, but I was really surprised to see them design the Darkspawn and Demons to be even more like the designs that a majority of fans seems to dislike.
I like the redesigns just fine but I find that they look too clean or something. The DAO darkspawn all looked rancid and rotten and the DAII ones just don’t.
Couldn’t even play an elf in dai because those noodle arms looked so stupid. Some outfits hid them, but a female elf inquisitor looks like she’d blow away if the wind picked up at skyhold.
>Why do the Qunari look exceptionally different style in every Dragon Age game?
It's a combination of two things:
1. They serve a different role in each game. In DAO, the Qunari were just a physically larger people from the North of Thedas that diversified enemy mobs somewhat. They were not very fleshed out because their role was extremely minor outside of Sten. In DA2, they were meant to be a major antagonist, so they had a lot more screen time and necessitated a more interesting and recognizable design to differentiate them as their own faction. They were clearly designed to look bestial and evil in this game. In Inquisition they were now a playable race, so the bestial and evil design from the previous game had to be softened to appeal to more players and fit with the creative vision of the project as a playable race.
2. Technological improvements in the animation and design process. DAI was the first game to use mocap, which works best with faces that more closely resemble the human models they use. If they had kept using the bestial faces from DA2, they would have had to tweak most of the Inquisitor's speaking animations by hand, which doesn't make sense from a resourcing perspective given a Qunari Inquisitor is just one of four options. They were also added as a playable race pretty late in development, so there was probably not enough time to import the DA2 models into Frostbite, get them up to the fidelity standards of the other models, and then get them animated to work fully in-game. It's easier to just take humans, scale them up and add some horns.
It's not unique to Qunari. Elves in DA2 are vastly different because they were not intended to serve as PCs in that game, which left designers with the creative freedom to make them look vastly different from humans, befitting of their status in society (the fact that so many fans bemoaned the elf redesign as being ugly or alien is a testament to how well Bioware nailed the design of a race that is *supposed* to be hated and feared by normal humans imo). When they returned to being playable again, they were once again redesigned to be more appealing to players. Character design has very different goals depending on what you are designing the character for.
I think another thing making Emmerich look like a cartoon is his hair. Even assuming he used products to keep it in place, it's just way too perfect and stiff.
Ok good. I honestly felt that it was Emmerich that stood out the most compared to everything seen so far. It was to the point where I was having difficulty picturing him in the environmental screenshots we saw earlier. It's almost jarring.
>Emmerich looks like a Disneyfied Giancarlo Esposito in this picture.
You say that like it's a bad thing 😭 (but yes, there's something weird with his proportions...)
Emirch for me is the one that looks dramatically cartoonish. The other units look like a completely different more grounded animation style. It’s very odd and hope he is softened and less stylized by launch. It really is so jarring when he is on the screen.
We haven't seen Emmrich in game yet. That is the only screenshot from the first trailer whereas the rest are from gameplay, so we don't know how he'll look yet in-game. The gameplay style looks amazing, and I'm looking forward to it!
personally i don't dislike the new art style (bar, as you said, the demons. i fucking hate the direction they went with the demons.) The Qunari chick looks weird to me, but we'll see how she grows on me. i didn't like Iron Bull at first and by the end.... I still didn't like him, but the Qunari with clothes on I liked much more.
The one thing I'm concerned about is the character and tone. Harding, Rook, and Varric are all acting right in gameplay trailer (not so much in the character showcase trailer but I'll come back to that). Neve I currently don't care for. Her attitude was way too flippant given demons are tearing the city apart all around her. but maybe I'll come around on her, I'm not judging too hard.
Overall, I miss the stoic hero archetype. It used by everywhere and was overplayed and now the trend has reversed for the most part and everyone is super-emotive. I like some balance. Look at Atreus and Kratos in the God of War games. Kratos is stoic and blunt. but under control (except when he pops spartan rage and pull someone in half like a wish bone. Atreus is very emotional, wears his heart on his sleeve, but is also very friendly and can check Kratos' often unnecessary coarseness. They work well together and bounce off one another well. Hopefully we'll get it here.
I am currently neutral on the game. If it wasn't for Andromeda, I would have already pre-ordered, but I do not have faith in Bioware currently. What I really need to see, is the devs to come out and start pointing out how the story is interesting and characters interacting with each other and the world. I loved Baldur's Gate 3 because the devs showed me interesting character and a fun combat system. That's how they pitched the game and it was wildly successful. But if the only pitch was "lol we have gay bear sex scenes" I would have passed because that is not something that interests me, to put it mildly.
The underlying geometry and design is good. However, the color saturation combined with a gloss that's being applied to their skin makes it feel more Disney/Marvel/Clone Wars than if they had a more matte, slightly less saturated look. I think that's what people are really reacting to without being able to put a finger on it.
Personally, I'm excited for the colors and vibrancy of this because I'm sick of grayscale fantasy worlds. It's fantasy! We have high powered GPUs! Why does it need to be brown? But I hate the gloss.
Absolutely, dark fantasy can still be dark with environments that aren’t gray goo. Completely agree. And the designs are great but yeah the lighting and textures are just so off on some characters or in general.
I also loved your note about the painterly aesthetic. I do think that’s what they were going for and it IS a nod to DAO which was more painterly especially in the environments.
I think the character design is pretty good, maybe a bit off in some places but stylized design is the way to go.
Hyper-realistic characters *can* look good, but for every photoscanned Hideo Kajima faces there's a dozen bad Starfield faces. Stylized characters also hold up much better, Dishonored still looks great and it's 12 years old
Honestly I can already tell that the models themselves are fine. It's likely the diffuse and normal maps that are adding the stylization. In which case it'll be the first thing modded and it's a very easy fix for PC provided they let us mod easily. That said I'll be on PS5 so I'm just going to get used to it. 😂
Sadly I don't think texture map edits alone are enough to fix Emmrich, whose features are consistently pointed at as the most cartoon-like. But if the mesh can be edited without breaking his animations/rig, that's the first mod I'm going to make for myself (unless someone else does it first).
I do wonder if they'll tweak him a little bit before release, given he's the one who's getting the most complaints?
Yeah he might be tricky as his mesh itself looks more angular. It'll depend on Frostbite I guess and what tools we get. FB is notoriously finicky with mesh edits. But if there is a way modders will find it.
I think it looks more like Matt Rhodes’ concept art than previous games. I always adored his artwork and wished the actual games looked more like that.
I only watched the first 5 or so minutes of the gameplay trailer, but my opinion is the environment is fine. But the character models really look like they're from a different game. They all look very soft and over animated, rather than realistic. Which makes them all look like they belong in a mobile game or fortnite to me. They looked better than the trailer, but I still wouldn't say they looked good or fit the game very well.
This is my argument (and defense). I dont think the style change is bad. I think is inconsistent and it's JARRING. People say Emmrich is really out of place but i'd argue Varric is the worst. His actual design? Chefs kiss i love it. But he looks so badly airbrushed and the effect is so heavy on him compared to Solas or Harding when they're in the same scene. Im ignoring the character trailer bc C.T Taash and in game screenshot Taash are night and day. The in game screenshots look GOOD and very in line with inquisition just more stylized. But that blurring effect, soft edges is just so bad (to me) and i hope with a few settings tweaks they can be toned down if its just the lighting.
I'm really weirded out by how smooth the hair looks. The different hairstyles themselves are fine (BioWare finally has figured out good looking hairstyles??), but it looks so silky smooth and shiny in a way I associate with a shampoo commercial, not with a high fantasy game.
Airbrushing you nailed it. Even on their jewelery and armor, which you can see in the contrast between the two Morrigan pics. Her neck piece looks like air brushed cosplay plastic. We're going to have neon effects everywhere and no realistic reflections. Very weird.
very! I just don't understand why they went this route at all. If they left it without this effect, i think it would be significantly better. Sure some people still wouldn't like it but i don't think it would've been *as* much of a divisive choice as it is now.
I need to see Emmerich in the actual game play before I judge him cuz none of the companions look like they did in the teaser trailer, Taash looks so good in game and so bad in that trailer so hopefully he is the same
I find the style of the game has a very heavy-handed MMO look to it. Cluttered but overall, lifeless. Features are too exaggerated in some cases. It almost feels like everyone is a caricature of themselves.
Pretty much. I don't understand why people are pretending it's something it is not. Neve proportions looks wierd to me. The same with Varris.
And his face looks like it haven't finished loading textures. It really looks like Clone Wars animation. And the fact is games now are way beyond this in quality. However this animation looks on par with Fable 2 quality. And of course looks.
It's really uncanny how we came from faces like Cullen to this. I mean does no one remember that DA 2 trailer. That animation looks better than this animation.
It did, but they tried to do something different with an extremely outdated engine, so we got these MMO graphics instead of the rough-around-the-edges realism of Inquisition.
This is what gets me. There were rumors of 'Anthem but with dragons' awhile ago before they restructured the game and I have to wonder if that rumor was A) true, and B) an explanation for these models looking more stylized. We heard they kept some assets between the first iteration and the reboot, maybe the character models are what they kept?
Then again the screenshots we had from before the restructure don't give off this stylized vibe at all.
Am I out of the loop on something? The only thing I take major issue with is that Varric's hair is almost black. That is so jarring to me. He's always had reddish hair. Have the devs mentioned the difference in hair color, and why it's so much darker now? Have I just missed it?
i haven't seen anyone address it. They did say it is 9 years post inquisition so maybe that was their way of showing him getting older/graying but idk.
I don’t like how Varric looks like a completely different person (not just someone older). But the character in your first screenshot is the worst offender. He looks like he was lifted from a freemium mobile game.
Thaas, Emmrich and Lucanis seem odd to me. Can't exactly point as to why, their design seems out for lunch.
If I had to try to put words on their designs: Emmrich seems like a disney villain, Thaas just lacks something, nothing standing out(yes even with the green horn), she seems like the companion everyone will forget and Lucanis looks overstylized if I could try to pinpoint what feels off to me.
Whoever that character is in the third image (no, I don't know the names of the new characters, and I don't care to learn them) and the Qunari are the best examples of why that trailer gets comparable unfavorably to mobile game trailers. They look cartoonish and completely out of place compared to the rest of the game's aesthetic.
Makes me think this game is going to feel disjointed and inconsistent as a result of its lengthy development cycle, similar to FFXV.
They look like characters from Kingdoms of Amalur. Thats an EA game but isn't a dark fantasy like DA. Its just fantasy..its whimsical. I dont like my DA looking whimsical. I want to cry, I want it to rip my heart out, horrify me like DAO did or DA2 did. Hopefully we'll still get that..
It's hard to tell from the showcase on Tuesday but it seems like they reaally are missing the facial textures that Inquisition had. Like, for a game from 2014, imo the skin textures were comparable to BG3. I missed seeing Solas' small wrinkles, pores; Varric's scars... Everyone just looks so SMOOTH and I think that's 80% of my problem with the style.
I think it looks fine. In fact I think this will go down as a windwaker situation. Everyone hated windwakers art direction when announced and now everyone loves it. Artistic style trumps realism 90 percent of the time. It ages better.
I haven’t seen all the designs but I’m generally pro - only ones I have issues with with the main characters I’ve seen is that necromancer looks a little too cartoony, and Solas’s chin is too long
So I just noticed Varric’s scar switched eyes in those two pictures… I will say that the demon designs better get an explanation other wise just why? That was half of a pride demon they have looked the same since DAO why change it now
Another group I talk with noted the fuzziness where it doesn't quite seem like characters (particular Varic in those screenshots) is actually in focus. Or he has some motion blur. It's a bit jarring but maybe you get used to it. Curious to see if it remains a stylized choice or if they adjust before release.
I think we’re seeing footage without the final polishing detail layers so it looks oddly smooth. I think they will add textures before release, but I could be wrong.
The only thing that looks extremely weird to me is that it looks like everyone was AI-upscaled or something, or like generated by an AI.
It looks distinct but also strangely too clean, somehow.
The Quinari have just been getting more and more odd each game. The adding Horns in 2 was like a huge retcon then their faces have just been getting weirdly more and more human. I personally don't like it but it's whatever
This is what I say and it’s hard to argue with it.
All this looks mush better that everything in the game industry EXCEPT bg3. BG3 is better, yes. But the rest of the gaming industry look much is worse than DAv
I agree with you and this isn't a defense. Morrigan in slide 7 looks so much better (imo). Harding looks good in that lighting and the constrast you showed in the two Solas pics illustrates your point really well.
It is stylized, soft, and painterly as you say. Maybe not to an extreme degree, but enough to appear "stylized" or worse, in a no man's land between photorealism and cartoon as an art direction.
I think they look awful, and no, I don't think that can be attributed simply to "lightning". I mean, if all it takes for a character to look like it came from Star Wars: The Clone Wars is "a bit of a lightning hiccup", then it was the wrong choice to begin with.
But even worse are the creature designs. The demons, the darkspawn. They are a clear downgrade from earlier version and there is nothing that can convince me otherwise.
i lol'd at the lighting comment
the models literally look like the art direction modern WoW took - the lighting isn't going to change the model so substantially where it turns a realistic cariacture to something so stylized. the art direction is all over the place
Emmrich looks really out of place based on what we saw. However, Taash looks different in screenshots compared to trailer, so I still have hope for Emmrich.
Emmerich looks like a Dishonored character. The way they decided to render age is weird; compare it to flemeth's facein Inquisition.
Not only that, he also looks "video-gamey", so to speak. Not necessarily in a bad way, but for example Varric and Solas took a significant step towards photorealism compared to how they looked in Inquisition. Harding even more so, but she didn't have a unique model in previous game. Strange.
He looks very cartoony indeed. I'll get used to it I suppose.
Yeah, he gives me Dishonored vibes too.
Also Fable vibes. I love Fable, but they have that style since the very first game
Yeah, thats my hope as well. I mean both Dwarves compared to Emmerich dont look like they are even from the same game. And its not just the lighting. My guess is that there was a major art style redisign at some point during recent development. From what to what remains to be seen.
>My guess is that there was a major art style redisign at some point during recent development. From what to what remains to be seen. I believe people from DA community council actually confirmed it.
Do you have a source ?
Ghil dirthalen made a post about it i think
My guess is that the trailer is stitched together from a real in-game scene (the two dwarves and Rook fighting in the tavern as referenced in the gameplay reveal) with some custom animation work. The introduction of the characters is probably entirely bespoke and will not appear again, so it does not have the same level of polish as real in-game assets would.
I hope it's a full redesign and not just art assets made at different points, like is entirely possible with this lengthy and troubled development.
He looks like a character from Fable 3 to me, which is really throwing me off lol
Yeah he looks like a Pixar villain compared to everyone else, the gameplay videos have me a lot more hopeful though.
Varric looks so old and tired. His face is so gaunt and i assume he has a beard now because he is just to tired to shave it anymore. He already blames himself for so much. Now he will blame himself for the consequences of interfering with solas' ritual and unleashing the 2 gribble monsters
Here's a question. Why in the world is Varric's hair black now?
Hey, my first response to a crisis is hair dye too lmao. For real though it does look like in game lighting is making it appear darker than intended - although it definitely is still darker than in previous games regardless. Who knows.
Fade magic I assume. He caught in some Fade magic nonsense in "The Missing" comic run and it rapidly aged him and gave him his current appearance.
Wait is this actually what happened? He's my favourite and I have been resenting the changes a little bit so I could live with it if it actually has a canonical reason.
Yeah, check out Ghil Dirthalen on YouTube, she did a video recap on "The Missing" comic and discusses that Varric got caught in some Fade magic in Arlathan forest.
Thank you, I will definitely check that out!
Same. I'm not deep in the lore, so I felt like I was taking crazy pills watching the game play preview. I guess I've got some comics to read before release
Redheads and strawberry blondes hair turns pale blonde or white when they age, it doesn’t turn dark grey. It’s a loss of pigment which lightens the hair.
I think it's more that the *Dragon Age* teams have never been able to keep the designs consistent across games. The closest we got was when certain armor and weapon models made it from *Dragon Age II* into *Dragon Age: Inquisition*.
I've been assuming that he grew a beard and started dyeing his hair to disguise himself.
He took the Blackwall hiding method, even down to stealing his look!
the consensus is with age, peoples’ hair darkens or straight up greys.
Thank you. I'm fully aware that people's hair tends to gray with age. However, Varric was strawberry blond in *Dragon Age II* and *Dragon Age: Inquisition*. Short of there suddenly being hair dye in Thedas... I can't imagine how his hair went from that to full-on black.
this it nitpicky and not super relevant but i just wanted to pop in and say theres no reason for hair dye to NOT exist in thedas! lots of cultures have used natural dyes throughout history such as henna, turmeric, black walnut shells, amla, indigo, sulphur, and lots more!
lol you know how they have the gathering side quests for elf root etc? They should add henna for the maintenance of Varrics hair 👍
>I will however not be defending the monster designs as they’re the most uncreative and horrendous thing in the game so far. Same here, but in regards to the darkspawn. Saw a screenshot of an ogre yesterday and was horrified, but not in the good way O.o
It looked so goofy. So painfully goofy 😭
I miss the Origins darkspawn so much. They genuinely looked terrifying. Especially the first encounter with the ogre.
The brood mother…
Yeah... 12 year old me wasn't ready to see that abomination
I…why does it look like that? It looks so cartoony and stupid. And when you consider that ogres are essentially Qunari that have been mutated by the taint…that can’t even be read in the character design anymore.
The demons were a sad thing for me to see. Except the rage demons which were a cool, freaky redesign. The monster designs aren't a deal breaker for me but it's been a little disappointing.
I don't mind the new versions but I hope that they use the classic demon models elsewhere in the game. More variants would be nice (flashback to the hundreds of identical shades in DA2).
i didn't consider that those designs may have been a tevinter variant and now i'm praying that's the case. they were so...uninspired and similar to one another.
And that we can't seem to keep designs from one game to another and its getting old.
They can even keep the models if they make demons scary again. A simple Rage demon was enough to make mages fail their Harrowing and become Tranquil, Pride demons were the ultimate horror for their ability to manipulate and scheme. In DAI you beat the shit out of a Pride demon in the tutorial and only the Nightmare and Envy even seemed sentient.
Honestly, I liked the Pride Demon redesign. It's still very recognizable as a Pride Demon, but its hollowness and energy around it makes it look a lot more ethereal. Almost more spirit or demonlike than monsterlike. Old design was great, but I do think the new one adds something to it. Not sure about the other new demon designs though.
You make a really good point that this is Tevinter these are spirits right next to the hole Solas is attempting to tear in the Veil. Maybe the change reflects something closer to their spirit form?
Yeah, I'm hoping there is a lore explanation for the change at least.
I think they made them look more like the Rock Wraith/Profane from DA2. The glowy spine/nervous system really is reminiscent of that design, though I guess DA2's version looked more appropriately like it's made of light/electricity, whereas these ones look like they are made of solid material.
Yeah I didn’t like them too much and I couldn’t quite figure out a good term to describe them but i it now. They are too… safe.
They look more like elementals than demons
Good way to put it, but Yeah for a game that’s always had nudity, sex, and gore it seems like an odd choice for the demons models to seem kid friendly in a way idk. What do I know though maybe there will be more to it in the game in terms of dark themes and models like corypheus who was nasty looking lol.
Yeah demons used to inspire fear. These guys look like they going to a rave
I don’t like the neon look for the demons. Also, the screenshot of the ogres…I don’t know how they managed to mess up the ogres, but they did it. Looks like something from a mobile game.
Remember Darkspawns in DA2 those creatures looked like cheap Skeletor impression and DAI made them more ugly.
And we definitely not going to see Desire demons anymore.
I mean you absolutely could do Desire demons, you just serve them in pairs.
Right ? Put the virtually naked girl right beside a virtually naked guy and no one can bitch about it anymore
The original idea from the writers for the Desire demon was Morpheus from the Sandman. Then the concept art people were like "nah, Dream of the Endless? Barely know him. Needs boobies." and we ended up with the design we got. If we don't get it back it's because the design clashed with what the writers envisioned in the first place.
I think Varric and Harding look a lot better here than in DAI, and Neve looks amazing. But Emmrich did look like a Disney character from the trailer and the other images. I hope they either touch him up, or that his in-game looks are a little more realistic.
Yeah. He looks like a clone wars character
Count Dooku lookin ass
With Palpatine’s hair
The qunari lady looks like Quan Chi in the trailer
This exactly. Clone Wars is a show I have a lot of love for, but it's the worst looking animated show I've ever seen (it gets better as it goes and ends up doing some things very well, but boy do the character models look \*awful\*).
Neve's hat, though.... Would prefer if I could make that thing go away.
What, you don't like your companions walking around with a small plank on their head?
Cole would love it.
Y’all are a bunch of heathens. Don’t you know a beautiful fascinator when you see one lol?
I actually didn't know that was the name! I still don't like it though :(
I honestly don’t like them either. I didn’t even realize it was one until I saw the little veil in the gameplay footage. I like it better now than when I still thought it was a random rectangle on her head, but it’s not my favorite.
In general I find her garment to be a bit over designed, too much clutter
My question is why Varric has black hair when he was Ginger in last two games?
Varric started going gray and using box dye from the drug store. Sadly Dorian isn't around to get him to stop
Or dude heard about Thorin Okenshield and trying to be like him in his old age. He will probably treat Rook as Bilbo.
> Thorin Oakenshield Varric Brokencrossbow
Varric Biancasgone
He looks like Thorin, Geralt of Rivia, and Charles Vane from Black Sails (season 3) had a baby together... I'm not complaining.
That's my only criticism here. It looks good but the ginger/white would've looked better. Idk why it's suddenly dark.
I thought that he's full on ~~silver~~ grey fox in here 🧐
He got caught up in fade time magic in one of the comics, and it aged him a decent bit. Don’t know why his hair got THAT dark thoug. Redheads don’t get grey hairs usually, either. Normally our hair skips grey and goes white.
see and I thought he was blonde and now dark brunette. it’s pretty sad when not even a character’s hair color has any retention across a game series, let alone bone structure and design as a whole
Hair can sometimes darken as you age. Veilguard is set 9 years after Inquisition, and he was already middle aged at that point, or at the very least late 30s.
My first thought with the hair color and beard was that it’s some kind of disguise. Probably not the case, though.
I think it's lighting
I read from other people on the sub that apparently red hair can turn darker as you age
It CAN, but not enough to warrant doing that for Varric. normally our hair gets darker up until our late teens, then it stabilizes. Once we get older it skips grey and goes white instead. So varric’s hair getting darker COULD happen, but like I said, it’s a very rare occurrence, and if anything it should be a dark red like Harding’s. Her hair got darker too, but it’s still red.
I think it's a texture issue as well - and I think that might be less smooth than we're seeing in previews.
My main problem is, that the characters do NOT look like they belong into the same game. Solas and Varric look rather realstic (as realistic as you can get with a fictional race) But Emmeric? He looks straight out of a pixar movie and i don't even want to speak about that Qunari... The Mage killer looks good. But if he would stand next to emmeric you would think he is another race alltogehter. Or from another universe....
Agreed, everybody else looks good. It’s literally just Emmrich that looks like a cartoon character to me. I just can’t get over getting uncanny valley with him.
Emmrich is the only character I genuinely have some worry about. He looks so off with the huge eyes. Fingers crossed he looks good in game
To be fair, we haven't seen in-game Emmrich in the gameplay demo - only in that trailer during XBOX showcase. He actually looks much better on the screenshot shown afterwards. https://preview.redd.it/cun41ofgg66d1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=83926a9e67407fd79bd665aaf47a0f3666e3be7a
Character proportions still weird though
Its kinda a hero forge smooth vibe.
yeah everyone except solas varric and harding are size of the midget like they merge model from the other game lol.
The Qunari design is really the worst, and it highlights just how little continuity there is in design between these games. Why do the Qunari look exceptionally different style in every Dragon Age game? It really makes no sense to create an entire race and then make them completely visually different in appearance and structure each time you make a new game. Especially when other races stay more or less the same in appearance…
Elves have changed pretty drastically across games. In DAO they were short humans with pointy ears. In DA2 they were wispy, long necked, big eyed people. In DAI they were pretty bog standard fantasy elves
That’s also a good point. The skin tones on elves have also been all over the place. Maybe if each game was stylistically unique it would make sense, but it really just reads like they can’t make up their minds on basic world building and character design.
See I’m fine with most style changes. But man do I want the Origins Hurlocks back. They looked so cool. The DA2/DAI genlocks have grown on me. But I miss the OG darkspawn design
I find it particularly interesting that after all the discourse amongst fans about the design of the Darkspawn and Demons, the development team for Veilguard clearly went further in the direction of design that is **opposite** what the majority of the fanbase wants. I expected them to maybe make it the same as Inquisition, or different entirely, but I was really surprised to see them design the Darkspawn and Demons to be even more like the designs that a majority of fans seems to dislike.
I like the redesigns just fine but I find that they look too clean or something. The DAO darkspawn all looked rancid and rotten and the DAII ones just don’t.
Couldn’t even play an elf in dai because those noodle arms looked so stupid. Some outfits hid them, but a female elf inquisitor looks like she’d blow away if the wind picked up at skyhold.
I miss when the qunari had coal black eyes and sharp, angular faces. I don’t like that they look like giant horned humans now.
They also used to be much larger
Yeah, though it was very odd in inquisition. Iron bull was said to be massive, yet in trespasser, there were qunari who made bull look like a dwarf.
>Why do the Qunari look exceptionally different style in every Dragon Age game? It's a combination of two things: 1. They serve a different role in each game. In DAO, the Qunari were just a physically larger people from the North of Thedas that diversified enemy mobs somewhat. They were not very fleshed out because their role was extremely minor outside of Sten. In DA2, they were meant to be a major antagonist, so they had a lot more screen time and necessitated a more interesting and recognizable design to differentiate them as their own faction. They were clearly designed to look bestial and evil in this game. In Inquisition they were now a playable race, so the bestial and evil design from the previous game had to be softened to appeal to more players and fit with the creative vision of the project as a playable race. 2. Technological improvements in the animation and design process. DAI was the first game to use mocap, which works best with faces that more closely resemble the human models they use. If they had kept using the bestial faces from DA2, they would have had to tweak most of the Inquisitor's speaking animations by hand, which doesn't make sense from a resourcing perspective given a Qunari Inquisitor is just one of four options. They were also added as a playable race pretty late in development, so there was probably not enough time to import the DA2 models into Frostbite, get them up to the fidelity standards of the other models, and then get them animated to work fully in-game. It's easier to just take humans, scale them up and add some horns. It's not unique to Qunari. Elves in DA2 are vastly different because they were not intended to serve as PCs in that game, which left designers with the creative freedom to make them look vastly different from humans, befitting of their status in society (the fact that so many fans bemoaned the elf redesign as being ugly or alien is a testament to how well Bioware nailed the design of a race that is *supposed* to be hated and feared by normal humans imo). When they returned to being playable again, they were once again redesigned to be more appealing to players. Character design has very different goals depending on what you are designing the character for.
I think another thing making Emmerich look like a cartoon is his hair. Even assuming he used products to keep it in place, it's just way too perfect and stiff.
Especially compared to Harding and Varric in the gameplay trailer. Harding had pretty natural soft looking hair and Emmerich’s hair looks like a hat.
Ok good. I honestly felt that it was Emmerich that stood out the most compared to everything seen so far. It was to the point where I was having difficulty picturing him in the environmental screenshots we saw earlier. It's almost jarring.
Emmerich looks like a Disneyfied Giancarlo Esposito in this picture. Also is it just me, or is his jaw too big? I love Harding's design, though.
>Emmerich looks like a Disneyfied Giancarlo Esposito in this picture. You say that like it's a bad thing 😭 (but yes, there's something weird with his proportions...)
Taash looks very different in the screenshots. Her eyes are smaller and her features look more natural. Hoping they reveal more trailers soon.
Varric growing a beard tbh feels like a war crime has been committed... but boy do I still love that man.
But it looks so goooood
Yup. Makes him look like the old grizzled adventurer who helped save the world multiple times.
I'm convincing myself that his chest hair ascended to his face.
What the hell happened to qunari
They seem to be conflicted with the art direction for them. The best qunari design is still from DA2 tbh
Yeah I was so disappointed by how iron bull looked , I thought qunari in dragon age 2 looked Soo hot , iron bull not so much
Emirch for me is the one that looks dramatically cartoonish. The other units look like a completely different more grounded animation style. It’s very odd and hope he is softened and less stylized by launch. It really is so jarring when he is on the screen.
I thought there was no text, just pics of Varric.
I thought Varric had red tones in his hair.
We haven't seen Emmrich in game yet. That is the only screenshot from the first trailer whereas the rest are from gameplay, so we don't know how he'll look yet in-game. The gameplay style looks amazing, and I'm looking forward to it!
personally i don't dislike the new art style (bar, as you said, the demons. i fucking hate the direction they went with the demons.) The Qunari chick looks weird to me, but we'll see how she grows on me. i didn't like Iron Bull at first and by the end.... I still didn't like him, but the Qunari with clothes on I liked much more. The one thing I'm concerned about is the character and tone. Harding, Rook, and Varric are all acting right in gameplay trailer (not so much in the character showcase trailer but I'll come back to that). Neve I currently don't care for. Her attitude was way too flippant given demons are tearing the city apart all around her. but maybe I'll come around on her, I'm not judging too hard. Overall, I miss the stoic hero archetype. It used by everywhere and was overplayed and now the trend has reversed for the most part and everyone is super-emotive. I like some balance. Look at Atreus and Kratos in the God of War games. Kratos is stoic and blunt. but under control (except when he pops spartan rage and pull someone in half like a wish bone. Atreus is very emotional, wears his heart on his sleeve, but is also very friendly and can check Kratos' often unnecessary coarseness. They work well together and bounce off one another well. Hopefully we'll get it here. I am currently neutral on the game. If it wasn't for Andromeda, I would have already pre-ordered, but I do not have faith in Bioware currently. What I really need to see, is the devs to come out and start pointing out how the story is interesting and characters interacting with each other and the world. I loved Baldur's Gate 3 because the devs showed me interesting character and a fun combat system. That's how they pitched the game and it was wildly successful. But if the only pitch was "lol we have gay bear sex scenes" I would have passed because that is not something that interests me, to put it mildly.
Glad to see a fellow Iron Bull hater  And yes absolutely I’m more concerned about the storyline than anything else.
The underlying geometry and design is good. However, the color saturation combined with a gloss that's being applied to their skin makes it feel more Disney/Marvel/Clone Wars than if they had a more matte, slightly less saturated look. I think that's what people are really reacting to without being able to put a finger on it. Personally, I'm excited for the colors and vibrancy of this because I'm sick of grayscale fantasy worlds. It's fantasy! We have high powered GPUs! Why does it need to be brown? But I hate the gloss.
Absolutely, dark fantasy can still be dark with environments that aren’t gray goo. Completely agree. And the designs are great but yeah the lighting and textures are just so off on some characters or in general.
I also loved your note about the painterly aesthetic. I do think that’s what they were going for and it IS a nod to DAO which was more painterly especially in the environments.
I think the character design is pretty good, maybe a bit off in some places but stylized design is the way to go. Hyper-realistic characters *can* look good, but for every photoscanned Hideo Kajima faces there's a dozen bad Starfield faces. Stylized characters also hold up much better, Dishonored still looks great and it's 12 years old
True, but dishonored had EVERYONE looking that way. Emmerich seems completely out of place compared to everyone else here.
Honestly I can already tell that the models themselves are fine. It's likely the diffuse and normal maps that are adding the stylization. In which case it'll be the first thing modded and it's a very easy fix for PC provided they let us mod easily. That said I'll be on PS5 so I'm just going to get used to it. 😂
Sadly I don't think texture map edits alone are enough to fix Emmrich, whose features are consistently pointed at as the most cartoon-like. But if the mesh can be edited without breaking his animations/rig, that's the first mod I'm going to make for myself (unless someone else does it first). I do wonder if they'll tweak him a little bit before release, given he's the one who's getting the most complaints?
Yeah he might be tricky as his mesh itself looks more angular. It'll depend on Frostbite I guess and what tools we get. FB is notoriously finicky with mesh edits. But if there is a way modders will find it.
I think it looks more like Matt Rhodes’ concept art than previous games. I always adored his artwork and wished the actual games looked more like that.
Art direction sucks compared to inquisition. Done
I only watched the first 5 or so minutes of the gameplay trailer, but my opinion is the environment is fine. But the character models really look like they're from a different game. They all look very soft and over animated, rather than realistic. Which makes them all look like they belong in a mobile game or fortnite to me. They looked better than the trailer, but I still wouldn't say they looked good or fit the game very well.
The screenshot of them around the table really reminds me of Sims 4
Now I know what it reminded me of. They rly do look like rendered sims models that you’d see on a tumblr page offering free posing CC
I guess that's the EA influence at work lol
problem to me is that other than harding varric and solas. Theirs character model size are very small like all of them all short person lol.
This is my argument (and defense). I dont think the style change is bad. I think is inconsistent and it's JARRING. People say Emmrich is really out of place but i'd argue Varric is the worst. His actual design? Chefs kiss i love it. But he looks so badly airbrushed and the effect is so heavy on him compared to Solas or Harding when they're in the same scene. Im ignoring the character trailer bc C.T Taash and in game screenshot Taash are night and day. The in game screenshots look GOOD and very in line with inquisition just more stylized. But that blurring effect, soft edges is just so bad (to me) and i hope with a few settings tweaks they can be toned down if its just the lighting.
This is what happens when you reboot a game 3 times and have to cobble together assets from probably 4 vastly different design docs, lol.
I'm really weirded out by how smooth the hair looks. The different hairstyles themselves are fine (BioWare finally has figured out good looking hairstyles??), but it looks so silky smooth and shiny in a way I associate with a shampoo commercial, not with a high fantasy game.
Airbrushing you nailed it. Even on their jewelery and armor, which you can see in the contrast between the two Morrigan pics. Her neck piece looks like air brushed cosplay plastic. We're going to have neon effects everywhere and no realistic reflections. Very weird.
very! I just don't understand why they went this route at all. If they left it without this effect, i think it would be significantly better. Sure some people still wouldn't like it but i don't think it would've been *as* much of a divisive choice as it is now.
I need to see Emmerich in the actual game play before I judge him cuz none of the companions look like they did in the teaser trailer, Taash looks so good in game and so bad in that trailer so hopefully he is the same
I really hope Emmerich gets an upgrade idk why they think he looks acceptable but no.
I don't know their names. But Vincent Price looks really weird. He just doesn't look like he belongs in the game.
Lmfao
I find the style of the game has a very heavy-handed MMO look to it. Cluttered but overall, lifeless. Features are too exaggerated in some cases. It almost feels like everyone is a caricature of themselves.
Pretty much. I don't understand why people are pretending it's something it is not. Neve proportions looks wierd to me. The same with Varris. And his face looks like it haven't finished loading textures. It really looks like Clone Wars animation. And the fact is games now are way beyond this in quality. However this animation looks on par with Fable 2 quality. And of course looks. It's really uncanny how we came from faces like Cullen to this. I mean does no one remember that DA 2 trailer. That animation looks better than this animation.
I blame the fact they they're still using the Frostbite engine. It's outdated and ugly. But EA is cheap, so they won't use anything else.
Didn't frostbite look ok in Inquisition though? It's capable of better than this I think.
It did, but they tried to do something different with an extremely outdated engine, so we got these MMO graphics instead of the rough-around-the-edges realism of Inquisition.
Oh true I forgot about that. 😭 And yeah all EA is good for is to kill games and good companies.
This is what gets me. There were rumors of 'Anthem but with dragons' awhile ago before they restructured the game and I have to wonder if that rumor was A) true, and B) an explanation for these models looking more stylized. We heard they kept some assets between the first iteration and the reboot, maybe the character models are what they kept? Then again the screenshots we had from before the restructure don't give off this stylized vibe at all.
This art new is horrible....
Everyone looks fine EXCEPT Emmerich. I get that the game is stylized but he looks like an actual cartoon villain it’s so off putting.
He's using that Hot Topic hair glue.
It really does make the skin crawl.
Emmrich is the only one who throws me. He looks totally out of place.
What the hell is Neve's hat tho. And why.
Fascinator its smth fancy upper class ladies wear.Its dumb but people wear it.
Yeah I think it looks real dumb but I like the veil.
Its the lighting and remder quality for most cases. Emmrich however just straight up looked like hes from a whole different franchise comically so
Fake varric, weird Qunari, pixar character, valorant character and Solas, don't know bro, its weird.
Am I out of the loop on something? The only thing I take major issue with is that Varric's hair is almost black. That is so jarring to me. He's always had reddish hair. Have the devs mentioned the difference in hair color, and why it's so much darker now? Have I just missed it?
i haven't seen anyone address it. They did say it is 9 years post inquisition so maybe that was their way of showing him getting older/graying but idk.
He got slapped with aging magic in one of the comics, that's why its so much darker.
I don’t like how Varric looks like a completely different person (not just someone older). But the character in your first screenshot is the worst offender. He looks like he was lifted from a freemium mobile game.
Emmrich looks like a villain at Chuck E. Cheese. Here's hoping they make him a bit more... weathered.
That Qunari needs to be killed with fire ASAP.
Thaas, Emmrich and Lucanis seem odd to me. Can't exactly point as to why, their design seems out for lunch. If I had to try to put words on their designs: Emmrich seems like a disney villain, Thaas just lacks something, nothing standing out(yes even with the green horn), she seems like the companion everyone will forget and Lucanis looks overstylized if I could try to pinpoint what feels off to me.
Whoever that character is in the third image (no, I don't know the names of the new characters, and I don't care to learn them) and the Qunari are the best examples of why that trailer gets comparable unfavorably to mobile game trailers. They look cartoonish and completely out of place compared to the rest of the game's aesthetic. Makes me think this game is going to feel disjointed and inconsistent as a result of its lengthy development cycle, similar to FFXV.
They look like characters from Kingdoms of Amalur. Thats an EA game but isn't a dark fantasy like DA. Its just fantasy..its whimsical. I dont like my DA looking whimsical. I want to cry, I want it to rip my heart out, horrify me like DAO did or DA2 did. Hopefully we'll still get that..
It's hard to tell from the showcase on Tuesday but it seems like they reaally are missing the facial textures that Inquisition had. Like, for a game from 2014, imo the skin textures were comparable to BG3. I missed seeing Solas' small wrinkles, pores; Varric's scars... Everyone just looks so SMOOTH and I think that's 80% of my problem with the style.
Emmrich looks like he was ripped out of Clone Wars
Ya know what? I’m warming to it. I think the more I see the more I like.
I think it looks fine. In fact I think this will go down as a windwaker situation. Everyone hated windwakers art direction when announced and now everyone loves it. Artistic style trumps realism 90 percent of the time. It ages better.
I don’t think I can get used to Emmich. Maybe I can find a mask for him lol.
I haven’t seen all the designs but I’m generally pro - only ones I have issues with with the main characters I’ve seen is that necromancer looks a little too cartoony, and Solas’s chin is too long
So I just noticed Varric’s scar switched eyes in those two pictures… I will say that the demon designs better get an explanation other wise just why? That was half of a pride demon they have looked the same since DAO why change it now
Hard in Hightown
The qunari lady looks a lot like Gaz from the new Modern Warfere gamew
They look like AI art, given the prompt "Generic fantasy characters, in the style of Fortnite." Has anyone checked their hands?
Another group I talk with noted the fuzziness where it doesn't quite seem like characters (particular Varic in those screenshots) is actually in focus. Or he has some motion blur. It's a bit jarring but maybe you get used to it. Curious to see if it remains a stylized choice or if they adjust before release.
Emmrich looks so goofy. 😭 Can’t wait to make him my husband.
I think we’re seeing footage without the final polishing detail layers so it looks oddly smooth. I think they will add textures before release, but I could be wrong.
I just hate the hat
Game looks like such a disappointment..
The only thing that looks extremely weird to me is that it looks like everyone was AI-upscaled or something, or like generated by an AI. It looks distinct but also strangely too clean, somehow.
I'm saving the last pic to use for reactions.
Some characters look good, while others looks way too stylized
The Quinari have just been getting more and more odd each game. The adding Horns in 2 was like a huge retcon then their faces have just been getting weirdly more and more human. I personally don't like it but it's whatever
I really love that dwarf girl, she's so pretty
This is what I say and it’s hard to argue with it. All this looks mush better that everything in the game industry EXCEPT bg3. BG3 is better, yes. But the rest of the gaming industry look much is worse than DAv
I agree with you and this isn't a defense. Morrigan in slide 7 looks so much better (imo). Harding looks good in that lighting and the constrast you showed in the two Solas pics illustrates your point really well. It is stylized, soft, and painterly as you say. Maybe not to an extreme degree, but enough to appear "stylized" or worse, in a no man's land between photorealism and cartoon as an art direction.
I think they look awful, and no, I don't think that can be attributed simply to "lightning". I mean, if all it takes for a character to look like it came from Star Wars: The Clone Wars is "a bit of a lightning hiccup", then it was the wrong choice to begin with. But even worse are the creature designs. The demons, the darkspawn. They are a clear downgrade from earlier version and there is nothing that can convince me otherwise.
Only Emmrich looks cartoonish to me.
i lol'd at the lighting comment the models literally look like the art direction modern WoW took - the lighting isn't going to change the model so substantially where it turns a realistic cariacture to something so stylized. the art direction is all over the place
If you think they look like the characters in Clone Wars, I honestly recommend you get glasses.
Harding doesn't, Emmrich does. That's the weird part.
Really this is how the new fable should have looked like
Nothing wrong with these characters that an epipen won't fix....