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The news that EA has been bought by a mixture of Saudi Arabia’s government and Jared Kushner has stirred a lot of feelings in me, even outside the political and moral implications of the purchase. It has reminded me that Electronic Arts has been a meddlesome presence in the video game industry for years now, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the steady decline of the Dragon Age series.

Never let anyone say that I won’t hold a petty grudge because, a year after it was released, I’m still salty about the version of Dragon Age: The Veilguard that we got to play.

The troubled development of the latest – and potentially final – entry in the Dragon Age series has been well documented. It began as a single-player game, just like every other Dragon Age game before being switched to a live-service multiplayer game as EA ordered BioWare to chase that particular white whale before then changing back to a single-player game. This resulted in a painfully long development process where the final product somehow still felt rushed in the end.

There were tonal inconsistencies throughout the dialogue and a lack of meaningful choices, something that is particularly damning in a BioWare game. Unique choices and branching narratives are what made them famous, going back to Baldur’s Gate and through the Mass Effect series. The fact that the ending of Dragon Age: The Veilguard consisted of one awkward victory pose and a voiceover telling me that I had saved Thedas was such a letdown from the finales of Inquisition or Origins. It was tacted on, unimaginative, and boring.

Reading reports about this game, there is certainly a case of corporate meddling going on here. After Forspoken was panned for its snarky dialogue, Dragon Age: The Veilguard underwent extensive rewrites to give it a more serious tone. The thing about narrative video games is that there is a lot of dialogue, and changing it is not a simple task. It means pulling writers off of other tasks, like polishing the script and implementing the branching narrative that players expected, to give the game a more dark fantasy tone. This means months of work that could have been better spent elsewhere.

It is so frustrating because there are moments of brilliance in Dragon Age: The Veilguard that should have been highlights of the series. A beautiful exploration of gender expectations and societal pressure. A rewriting of what we as fans know about the world of Thedas. A third act twist that genuinely caught me by surprise and knocked me flat (I’m being vague because sometimes you gotta experience these things for yourself). There is greatness in the characters and the narratives here, even if it is half-baked and underdeveloped at times. Every misstep screams of a development team that needed more time and less interference to create their unique vision.

When EA announced that Veilguard hadn’t reached its sales expectations, it felt like a final nail in the coffin of a franchise that has had dizzying highs and horrific lows. I love Dragon Age: Origins. I forgave the rushed and occasionally broken nature of Dragon Age 2. Inquisition felt like it was setting up a grand finale, with world-ending stakes and a bigger scope. Then Veilguard came in and, because of an abnormally long development time and executive meddling on an unforgivable scale, was doomed not to meet the expectations of the shareholders or fans.

There is a good chance that this is the end of the Dragon Age series, which showed so much promise two console generations ago. My honest belief is that Veilguard failed not because players had moved on from the series but because EA couldn’t decide what game they wanted BioWare to make.

Yes, I’m still salty, and I’m not ashamed to say it. Instead of being a solid entry in a good but uneven RPG series, Dragon Age: The Veilguard shipped as a limp noodle that ended up killing the entire franchise off.

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