In a field full of quality RPG developers, this is where BioWare has historically shined: making me have great feelings about my companions and the world in which they live. This is what I long for.
Who is (my) Rook, anyway?
The Veloguard Set up your protagonist, Rook, with a lightly sketched backstory tied to your chosen faction. You choose a first name, are assigned a last name, and read a brief summary of an important event in Rook's recent history. The rest is up to you, and you reveal Rook's essential nature through the dialogue wheel and the major plot choices you make. Those plot options are necessarily mechanically limited in scope and rewards/consequences, but narratively, there's a lot of ground you can cover.
For the record, I chose “Oof.” This is how my Tower rolls. Credit: Marisol Cuervo
During the game's tutorial, you will receive information about a city that has mysteriously lost communication with the group you are helping. You and your companions set out to find out what happened. You investigate the city, find the person responsible, and decide what happens to them next. Mechanically it is quite simple.
The real action happens inside your head. As Rook, I just watched a real horror show in this small town, gathered some really disturbing clues about what's going on, and now I'm looking at the person responsible while trapped inside a cyst of uncomfortably slimy looking material. the game calls Ruin. Here's the choice: What does my Rook decide to do with him, and what does that choice say about his character? I can't answer that question without looking through the lens of my personal morality, even if I intend for Rook to act against my own nature.
My first emotional and instinctive reaction is to say screw this guy. Leave him to the consequences of his own creation. He's given me an offensively venal justification for how he got here, so let him sit there and contemplate his material reward for all the good it will do him while the Ruin swallows him up.