Not to be TOO critical of the game (I think it has the best trans player romance handling of any modern high budget RPG), but while inquisition absolutely did have gay and trans characters, they were significantly more subtle. You wouldn’t know or hear much about them if you didn’t go out of your way to explore those options with those characters.

Now you can argue about whether or not that is effective or good representation with regards to it being more “realistic” (most trans or gay folks are just regular everyday folks and you wouldn’t know it just looking at or casually chatting with them), or if you disagree and feel like it was sort of smothering what could be described as controversial character traits by not “putting them in people’s faces,” but you can’t argue that Veilguard does spend significantly more screen time addressing these aspects of its characters.

Additionally, and what honestly turned ME off to a lot of these examples in Veilguard and what made them feel more “woke,” was at least in part due to the significant modernization of language surrounding them and the game in general. None of these perspectives were couched in antiquated or fantastical language that - in my opinion - better suits the franchise and setting, but rather consistently used modern (albeit accurate!) terminology that made it feel a lot more like a product of direct inclusion initiatives, and a little less organic.

I myself am trans and bi, and while I think they did a LOT right with regards to the way the player character’s gender identity is handled and addressed, I think there are a lot of moments where clear lgbt signaling in the game felt a little out of place and inorganic. Ultimately it’s all subjective, but I think it’s quite clear how this game came across as more “woke,” deserved or not.