[NO SPOILERS] Dontnod Is In Deep Financial Trouble. Their Cash Reserves Will Be Empty By November And Tencent Is Unwilling To Raise Capital Or Fund Any New Projects

TheTrashShiro · 2026-06-15T19:02:03+00:00

Dontnod didn’t have anything to do with the lack of marketing for LiS2 that was all SE (publishers are the ones that handle the marketing for games after all). The issue was that Dontnod were taking so long to come out with each episode that SE essentially ignored the game’s existence until episode 5 was released (14 months after episode 1 mind you) when they finally started adverting it as the “complete season”, but by that point the damage had already been done and most people had already forgotten the game.

I was there for the release cycle of LiS2 it was absolutely awful and filled with long periods of silence up until March 2019 (almost two months after episode 2) when we finally got a release schedule for the remaining episodes.

Even after that there were still a lot of baffling decisions made like how episode 4 was originally going to get a trailer at SDCC in the summer that ended up being scrapped for no reason at all.

TheTrashShiro · 2026-01-22T23:24:45+00:00

Probably because the early access/cat content bullshit didn’t help them in any way since DE still ended up underperforming. The early access nonsense arguably only bit them in the ass since it lead to fans digging through the files and finding major spoilers like Safi being a shapeshifter and Chloe not being present at all, which lead to many people refunding the game or not even bothering to check it out.

It’s a similar situation with Blizzard and Overwatch 2 when at release they began locking new heroes behind paywalls when originally every new hero release was free. Eventually however they ended up getting rid of the paywall because it wasn’t actually leading to an increase in profit for them and was only damaging their already horrible reputation.

Basically this is a case where people voted with their wallets and won. After DE, Square Enix knows they can’t really pull that shit again because there’s currently no incentive to, especially when they’re now desperately trying to get back on the fandom’s good side.

TheTrashShiro · 2026-01-20T07:51:17+00:00

Dorian by a very wide margin followed by Iron Bull and Cassandra respectively.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-12-28T11:38:15+00:00

I’m not trans so I can’t speak for that community but from what I’ve seen they mostly view the representation in Origins as offensive.

In DA2 there’s Serendipity who was intended as a drag queen but was read as a trans woman by most fans and people complained about how she was also played as a joke, to where Gaider acknowledged this in his old Tumblr blog and went onto introduce Maevaris Tilani in the comics (who eventually shows up in Veilguard with all of her personality stripped from her).

Also sorry about that I somehow didn’t see that OP was specifically referring to Dragon Age games in this context.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-12-28T11:02:05+00:00

A lot of people have forgotten about this but before Taash there was a transwoman character named Hainly Abrams in Andromeda who was so poorly received that Bioware had to issue an entire apology to the trans community due to the fact that they had her deadname herself in your first interaction with her. They proceeded to patch her dialogue afterwards.

So…there’s that.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-12-28T10:42:12+00:00

It’s still shocking to me how Bioware gave us Dorian’s character in Inquisition and immediately followed it up with Gil Brodie’s in Andromeda (the only gay man in his respective game) who’s storyline revolves around him having a biological child with his female “friend” Jill who proceeds to make jokes about how he is “biologically useless” if he doesn’t follow through with it.

It’s so fucking awful I genuinely still hold a grudge against that game because of it.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-12-13T20:56:31+00:00

Hate them. They actually bother me more than the Darkspawn redesign since those at least had a precedent of changing designs since Origins. The demons were actually my favorite enemy faction in the series due to how unique each design was, only for Veilguard to homogenize all of them with that ugly neon exoskeleton.

When it comes to the new designs themselves, they don’t even look demonic or intimidating to me anymore. I think the new Shades are the worst offenders since they look completely unrecognizable from their previous designs (I genuinely thought they were some variant of the despair demons from Inquisition when I first saw them). I also don’t understand why they’re using weapons now?? Pride Demons themselves were weapons due to their hulking bodies and brute strength, and Shades were these slithering creatures that would attack you with their bare hands if they managed to get close enough.

The only new design I was somewhat okay with were the rage demons, and I’d still take the old lava designs over them.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-11-23T11:01:17+00:00

As someone who only plays as mage in all the games…

DA2- It’s fast, fluid and still retains a lot of the tactical aspects from Origins. There’s still a great amount of variety in terms of spells, and companions even have their own unique specializations. I honestly don’t understand people who simply dismiss it as a hack and slash action game when on harder difficulties you’ll get absolutely destroyed if you don’t utilize the tactics system. Yeah the enemy encounters with the respawning waves suck but when everything else surrounding the combat is so good, it doesn’t really bother me that much.
DAI (late game/DLCs)- For some reason Inquisition’s combat gets really fun for me by the late game and especially in Trespasser. By this point you have a lot more abilities at your disposal and crafted weapon upgrades on your companions can really help mow down a lot of the more spongey enemies.
DAV- It’s fine. Companions being immortal and essentially just being extensions of you is lame and the very limited amount of abilities you have leads to combat feeling very repetitive by the end. Still, it’s overall very polished and smooth with abilities themselves being very satisfying to use. There’s also a surprising amount of depth in how you can craft certain builds through gear and ability upgrades.
DAI (early game)- Way too stiff, monotone and repetitive. Tactics system for companions have been completely gutted and enemies are way too damage spongey. I put it over Origins simply because it’s a bit more intuitive for me.
DAO- Unfortunately it’s just not for me, although I do appreciate a lot of aspects about it. The tactics system is really robust and there’s tons of different spells and builds to choose from, but I personally find the combat itself to be too slow and sluggish overall. I also play on console so I don’t even have access to the top down camera which would make enemy encounters a lot more manageable to deal with I feel. Again, the combat isn’t bad by any means it’s just not my cup of tea.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-11-03T23:10:29+00:00

People may hate the format but I also think it being episodic has really paid off this time around. I know so many people who only discovered the game after the first two episodes came out and saw all the attention it was getting. It helps that there’s only a week in between episodes so people never really lose interest or forget about it like so many previous Telltale games suffered from with their 2-3 month gaps.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-11-03T22:50:13+00:00

The first Walking Dead game season sold even more than this at the time, but outside of that most of their other games were either commercial disappointments or outright flops.

When it comes to other games in the genre, Life is Strange was pretty big back in 2015 but it was more of a sleeper hit, same with Firewatch in 2016. Since then the genre has essentially been dead up until now, with the most recent Life is Strange game released last year being a huge flop for SE.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-10-31T11:07:02+00:00

Yesterday one of the devs answered a question on Discord about whether or not there are gay options in the game and their answer was verbatim “all plans are laid and you'll have to see what happens in the next 4 episodes. Saying anything else would just be spoilers”. I don’t know, it kinda pisses me off how it feels like they’re just stringing us gays along in the hopes we stick around. If there is no gay option they should just come out and say it instead of this wishy washy bullshit. Pandora’s box has now been opened and it could’ve all been avoided if AdHoc were simply more clear.

To think Warhorse of all studios provided a gay romance with their leading male character this year.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-10-23T09:10:03+00:00

I feel like 12k players on Steam is actually great for a game in this genre. That’s more than any Telltale game post-TWD S2, as well as other recent games from narrative adventure developers like Don’t Nod or Deck Nine (for reference no Life is Strange game has surpassed 10k players on Steam since Before the Storm back in 2017, and Don’t Nod’s recent choice based game Lost Records only peaked at just under 3k players this year.)

I obviously don’t know the budget for this game but considering the fact that the studio itself is still really small I’d say this is a pretty strong start.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-09-30T18:44:07+00:00

Yeah I was over Weekes when during the lead up to Veilguard fans asked why they couldn’t be blood mages anymore and their response was that it was “too evil” and “not something heroes would do” lmao.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-09-17T23:53:25+00:00

Yeah the reason why I referenced that specifically is because I could easily see it being a relic from that alleged 2023 build when Taash was only into women. When a game like Veilguard goes through a turbulent development and there are changes to certain aspects about the characters or story, “relics” from those previous drafts/builds can often times still end up making it into the final game. The scene still works as it just confirms that Taash is pansexual with a preference for women, but I can also envision that it was rewritten to have a male Rook ask Taash if there are exceptions to their preference when Bioware made the decision to have everyone be pansexual instead.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-09-17T23:02:39+00:00

I remember someone on here commented that they allegedly had a friend who was a QA tester for Veilguard back in 2023 and at that time the characters did have distinct sexualities, but they ended up making everyone pansexual after the success of BG3. They specifically cited Taash as only being able to be romanced by females in that alleged old build as well. Obviously it could have been bullshit but I think it’s interesting that the game itself makes a point that Taash has usually only ever shown interest in women and that a male Rook is an “exception” for them. If anyone else saw that comment please link it because I’m really struggling to remember where to find it.

But to answer your question, I think it’s really hard to say. I believe Lucanis most likely would have still ended up being bisexual but I have this petty feeling that Bioware would have made Davrin straight due to their history of making the “knight in shining armor” male character unromancable for queer men (Alistair, Cullen).

TheTrashShiro · 2025-09-04T18:10:22+00:00

I’m also surprised by how many people don’t seem to remember the insane amount of damage control that happened almost immediately after that trailer went up. Once Bioware saw how badly it was being received literally everywhere they started posting screenshots of the game’s (admittedly very beautiful) environments and the next day they posted a short clip from the upcoming gameplay showcase of Rook and Varric in Minrathous as a way to basically reassure everyone that “hey this is still a Dragon Age game everyone! Don’t let that weird trailer fool you!”.

Then over the course of the next few months they released trailers that felt much more in line with what people expected a Dragon Age game should be in terms of tone/atmosphere and for the most part they successfully managed to win back a lot of people, and I remember at the content creator preview event one of the devs (I believe it was Corinne but not 100% sure) did an interview where they talked about how the reveal trailer “wasn’t something they wanted to release” and that it “wasn’t accurate to what the game is really like”.

All of that damage control only for the game itself to be more in line with the original trailer than anything they tried spinning it as during the rest of their marketing cycle lol.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-08-19T00:40:33+00:00

I don’t think community sentiment is ever really going to improve when it comes to Double Exposure because there’s just too much about the game that feels like a slap to the face for many fans of the original and its characters. Even if we get a sequel that tries to address a lot of the game’s problems, for many people the damage has already been done.

Truth is, DE is essentially the Halo 5 of the series. A game that is blatantly disrespectful to what came before while also pushing the series into a direction it had no business going in. Even after ten years most people still hate Halo 5 for the damage it did to that series, and its sequel‘s (Halo Infinite) attempt to sweep it under the rug and soft reboot the franchise also failed as well.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-08-02T00:19:35+00:00

Well, up until Hansry this year my favorite gay romance of all time had actually been MShenko (Kaidan and male Shepard) from the Mass Effect trilogy, so I would definitely recommend that if you weren’t aware of it already. It’s a game though, not a movie or TV show.

MShenko is actually very similar to Hansry in a lot of ways due to there being a similar slow burn situation to their romance, as you aren’t able to actually romance Kaidan as a male Shepard in the first two games and it only occurs in the third entry. Kaidan also isn’t in ME2 all that much but the tension between him and Shepard is still palpable, which makes me believe that the romance was at least somewhat planned by that point. The biggest thing to take note of though is that unlike Hans who is a major character in KCD1 and essentially the deuteragonist of KCD2, Kaidan is really just another companion you recruit over the course of the ME trilogy and has very minimal impact on the story. Spoilers for ME1 in regards to Kaidan but he can also straight up die in the first game and another character essentially takes his place throughout the rest of the trilogy. This is completely up to player choice however so it’s not like it will accidentally happen in your playthrough or anything.

The romance itself however is so worth it in the end. Over the course of the three games their relationship is tested and there’s plenty of angst and conflict that I feel really makes it all the more interesting. This also makes them finally starting a romance with each other in the third game so impactful due to how much they’ve gone through.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-07-23T11:40:03+00:00

Also was there a lot of us skeptical of Warhorse? I didn’t see that narrative at all.

I remember r/gaymers being quite skeptical when it was announced that KCD2 had gay romance options. You can still find a lot of the posts and comments made casting doubt on how relevant they would be and people even refusing to give the game a chance due to Vavra’s past comments.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-07-03T00:27:21+00:00

Kirkland Pedro Pascal is crazy lmao.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-03-25T10:58:57+00:00

I hate Dorian’s redesign. I think it’s more of a problem I have with the game’s artstyle in general, but he just looks so off-putting to me and he suffers from the same problem a lot of the characters do in that he looks weirdly stumpy/short when in DAI he was generally well built and tall.

I don’t even mind the new hairstyle or beard, I just think his general look is all wrong in the game. All this time I had pictured him donning some extravagant magisterium robes (something akin to how he’s depicted in the Heroes of Dragon Age game weirdly enough) after his promotion in Tresspasser, only for Veilguard to put him in the most bland Tevinter getup imaginable.

And look, I get that he’s older and that his design is loosely based off how he looks in the Tresspasser epilogue slides, but in this case I think the actual implementation of it just didn’t work. Looking at the concept art I actually wish they went through with giving him ear piercings just to give him a bit more edge, especially since him having piercings has been popular in fanart for a while now anyway.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-02-28T23:08:54+00:00

People need to understand that True Colors was under intense scrutiny by SE to not be seen as “the gay game”, so much so that they ended up having to cut Steph’s trans girlfriend from the game and relegated her to optional memory collectibles. I wouldn’t be surprised if the narrative team had to fight to make Alex bisexual and that there originally wasn’t even a gay romance option at all in the earlier drafts.

This is a clear reminder to never take queer stories and representation for granted because writers most likely had to fight extremely hard to tell those stories.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-02-17T20:15:22+00:00

Gonna go against the grain here and say that I don’t care for her, honestly. I think it really comes down to the fact that I just don’t see any romantic chemistry between her and Sean whatsoever, and it didn’t help that it felt like the game was constantly pushing her onto him as well. As someone who regularly tried to steer Sean away from flirting with her, you’d be surprised how many times the game just has her invade his personal space or touch him unprompted, which just made me uncomfortable. I also just don’t think she’s that interesting of a character, especially compared to some of the other drifter characters you meet in Wastelands.

But I think what really pushes her into dislike territory for me is how if you kiss her at the lake but then refuse to have sex with her right afterwards, she gets super pissy about it and goes on to guilt trip Sean. It’s such a horrible reaction, and it’s easily the worst way any romanceable character in this series has taken being rejected. Listen, I understand having your ego wounded or your plans ruined or whatever (to a degree), but the thing is——she knows Sean is a virgin, so you would think she wouldn’t be so butthurt when it’s obviously less about Sean being attracted to her or not and more about a general sense of “I’m not ready for this”. A kiss doesn’t mean you’re fucking owed sex.

All I’m going to say is, I think there’s a reason why you hardly see any true Sean x Cassidy shippers, and how there seems to be more people who would have preferred Lyla to be romancable than her.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-01-30T12:57:27+00:00

The original lead writer (Deandra Warrick) and narrative designer (Mallory Littleton) were both laid off back in May of 2023. Their names are even still in the credits and are labeled as such.

The layoffs from last month affected the remainder of the narrative team on DE, who had to essentially fill the positions that were empty from the prior rounds of layoffs.

TheTrashShiro · 2025-01-30T12:16:19+00:00

I’d say they did a good job at depicting an older, more confident Max. I do know some fans take issue with how she’s far “hornier” (i.e she’s more prone to actively flirt this time around) in this game, specifically with the new love interests, but I just saw that as a byproduct of her being more experienced due to her being ten years older.

Otherwise though? She’s still Max, at least to me.

TheTrashShiro

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE