439 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

What about the part where Oren was murdered in the Human Noble storyline? Or during Redcliffe where the Warden can murder Connor themselves? Or convincing Zerlinda in Orzammar to abandon her young baby in the Deep Roads? Or letting Amalia get possessed by Kitty and/or killing her? Or that bloody altar in Haven that's just about the right size for a child?

 

The amount of children possibly getting murdered in this game strikes me as exceptionally dark.

 

The little boy in Haven playing with the fingerbone.

 

The burned out orphanage in Denerim's Alienage.

 

Hespith.  Just...Hespith...

[Bayonet Hipshot]

When it comes to dark and gritty, one must understand that this is an expectation. An expectation that has most likely, increased due to the popularization of series such as Game of Thrones.

 

Additionally, one must remember that the Dragon Age franchise itself, started off with a very Game of Thrones vibe to it. There was family betrayal, family slaughter, rape, corruption of a dear friend, friend using forbidden arts, wedding gone wrong, citizenry enslavement, caste system, sexist philosophical system (that was conveniently whitewashed in DAI) and what have you.

 

Dragon Age Inquisition felt like generic fantasy RPG and that's it. The previous generic fantasy that came out before Inquisition was Skyrim and even that game had the sense to be dark when it came to its Daedric quests, vampirism, lycanthropy and one of its guilds.

 

These days, when people think dark and gritty, the probably do not just expect some alternate universe shenanigans and be done with it. They want a violent family massacre like what happened to the Stark family in Game of Thrones or the Cousland family in Thedas or perhaps a very manipulative and scheming ****** that double crosses everyone to get what they want or some dastardly political intrigue. They may also want a world where the art complements the dark and gritty setting.

 

Dragon Age Inquisition does not have these moments in almost every aspect of the game. 

 

1) When it came to Origin stories, you did not suffer a massacre or backstabbing that made you flee or original family and end up in Haven or you were not victims of assault and abuse by Templars and Mages, something like Tabris suffered at the hands of Vaughan in Origins. It was a few sentences and a war room mission or two. 

 

2) The creepiest crap that the game had was the big spider thing which we did not fight yet we have fought and killed creatures the likes of the Broodmother and the Harvester and even the Varterral. Poweful bosses like High Dragons feel powerful but they never feel like they are going to tear you apart. 

 

3) The art in the game is bright, colorful and cheery even as opposed to dark, gloomy and gritty. This is perhaps one of the biggest issue with why the game does not feel dark and gritty.

 

4) The gameplay is too over the top as opposed to being violent and brutal. This follows right behind the art not being dark and gritty. You do not really get the sense that you are popping heads with your arrows or chopping people into pieces of meat with your blades or roasting them alive with mage fire. The gameplay is all about being flashy, being spammy and nothing else. If anything, I actually somewhat like the Team Fortress 2-esque violence in Dragon Age 2's gameplay. 

 

5) No one you really care or grown to care dies in the game. Roderick is Udina 2.0 with some conscience and let's face it, he is neither our follower nor our adviser. We did not have a Virmire situation with our own companions. You could argue the Hawke vs Stroud / Loghain / Alistair is dark but they do not involve our characters. I mean we have nine of them this time. Nine. 

 

6) The loss of the Crestwood demo thing. I think most of us enjoyed the timed mission for the Crestwood demo back in the day. That was cut out and instead we get a rehash of Origins' Redcliffe. 

 

7) Coryphefish does not do much apart from destroying Haven. He never tried to setup an elaborate trap to corner you somewhere or did not kidnap and hold someone you held dear for ransom (alternate universe does not count). He didn't do much.

 

8) The followers. Out of the nine, only Vivienne was the one with an actual secret agenda but that was never fully fleshed out. With Morrigan in Origins we had her Old God Baby, with Anders we had the Chantry explosion, with Isabela we had the theft of Koslun's Tome. I suppose Blackwall's masquerade was something but come on, there were nine companions. I expected one to be a spy planted into the Inquisition to report to Corypheus or something. 

[Sifr]

The little boy in Haven playing with the fingerbone.

 

The burned out orphanage in Denerim's Alienage.

 

I completely forgot about the orphanage and that little kid in Haven, I figure that he probably escaped with the Reaver chick from the Multiplayer, rather than have been killed by the Warden on their roaring rampage of revenge?

 

But yeah, considering that Hawke can rescue Lia and slit the throat of her child-murdering abductor, and children don't seem to exist anywhere in DAI, I think the series has gotten a tad lighter in that regard?

[Bayonet Hipshot]

I completely forgot about the orphanage and that little kid in Haven, I figure that he probably escaped with the Reaver chick from the Multiplayer, rather than have been killed by the Warden on their roaring rampage of revenge?

 

But yeah, considering that Hawke can rescue Lia and slit the throat of her child-murdering abductor, and children don't seem to exist anywhere in DAI, I think the series has gotten a tad lighter in that regard?

 

The Dragon Age franchise has become diluted. To what end, I have no idea. You cannot say that they are diluting the franchise to appeal to the mainstream media. The mainstream loves watching Game of Thrones. The gaming community loved stuff like Amnesia, The Evil Within, etc. 

[Wulfram]

On my first playthrough my character's lover turned out to be a murderer of children, my warden's LI turned into a crazy murderer and my Hawke died.  That was kind of dark.  Though perhaps not a typical playthrough.

[Iakus]

AS I said, I prefer Dragon Age to be high fantasy with dark elements rather than a dark fantasy with high elements.

[ComedicSociopathy]

From what I've gathered from my fellow DA fans this game desperately needed a torture/rape pit.

 

Because that's totally something that people want to see in their video games. 

[Emu8207]

I agree I think Bioware played it safe with the story and that may have been a mistake. DAI is still a good game but it has the weakest writing in the series, yes even weaker then DAII.

[Iakus]

I agree I think Bioware played it safe with the story and that may have been a mistake. DAI is still a good game but it has the weakest writing in the series, yes even weaker then DAII.

DAI's writing wasn't weak so much as there was too little of it for the size of the world we got.

[stonerbishop]

I would probably agree with whoever said that the visuals play a large part in our 'perception' of it not being dark and gritty. Everything is bright and colorful. Origins, everything was gray and brown. It does affect the psyche a little

[Bizantura]

DAI has 2 psychopaths in it, one with brains and one without.  The one with brains is not well liked the one without is the "new pet" on the block.  I say DAI is dark enough but in a very "social" subtle way.

[In Exile]

Yes.
And I will have your baby that will carry the soul of an old god, possibly gone mad with corruption.
And this is the reason I've been here all along.
Oh, and I was almost forgetting: you'll never see me again.

Tell me that's not dark.

It's not dark. If you think that's dark everything in DAI is dark.

[realguile]

Just wait for Bloodborne.

[Il Divo]

Just wait for Bloodborne.

 

When it comes to Dark, it doesn't get better than From Software. 

[mbeckham]

Lol, Fable.

 

I agree that DAI is a lot softer than it should be. It is a game where there are two wars going on, and none of them are really, actually, genuinely used. Everybody is written as crazy and "deserves to be slaughtered", dehumanized to a fault. A templar would tell you that they fight/kill because they have a duty, but really, they're afraid to lose whatever they have left in a world gone mad; their brothers die all around them, often for petty reasons, and sometimes for them. Mages are much the same in that regard. 

 

Dragon Age does something right, in that it admits that war is bad and gets people killed, but it fails to understand why war is fought if it is so terrible. It fails to understand why some men are so enthused to fight in a place where there are no rules, where men are encouraged to fight and kill when all their lives they are told not to. It fails to see why the Warden's tale is so inspiring - that, in admist the war and chaos, the vile blood and mud the covered Fereldan, one spark of hope - the Warden - shone so bright in contrast to its surroundings that it gathered even the most cynical of people to fight against a threat most people would consider impossible to conquer without the Grey Warden Order. Of course, your warden could've been a complete jerk, but that doesn't change the fact that you, the protagonist, have been plunged into a complete nightmare and hellhole, and yet still retained their humanity.

 

DAI is one sided and tastes like cardboard. It not only has one war, but two wars going on. We have books explaining how they came to be, but no insight on why anybody would fight them, would believe in them, or even shows any heroism. Everybody is a selfish bastard with their own agenda, forcing their beliefs onto others as they will. Briala and Celene both chose duty over love, claiming to fight/speak for a people that neither properly understand. Gaspard claims to fight for the best interest of Orlais, but he fights for old legacy and not the greatness Orlais can be. Rhys made the "tie-breaker vote" for the war despite knowing what it would entail. Fiona sold her people to Tevinter, returning them to the slavery that half of them laid down their lives to break free from, that many of her people fought against, some not even willingly. The Seekers placed their faith in Lord Seeker Lucius, who sent them one by one to their deaths because he believed that the world should be purged. The Templars, similarly, in Samson, who felt betrayed and used by the Chantry and found purpose in Cory, when the duty of his people for the majority of their lives strove to protect the mages from themselves, not serve the Chantry.

 

Never, ever do we get someone who believes their cause - the cause of the war - just yet retains enough of their humanity to not be a complete fuckwit about it. We don't get people who geniunely believe something, not believe it because they're angry/bitter/whatever about it, and change their minds slowly or surely. All we get are duty bound individuals who refuse to see the third option. We get people who are just blind leading the blind. They all selfishly decide what is best for their people. Our companions are no different, of course, and neither is our Inquisitor. Yet the game tries to convince us that we are doing what is right, when we are no different than those who caused the war, when we have no right what is best to decide what is best for the world.

 

Of course, we can't go around individually asking every individual what they want. We can't save every person, we can't stop all the fighting, we can't make everybody sit at the table. We must make tough decisions that mean that one side lives, the other dies. We must choose between an alliance and our own people at times, even. We are forced to choose, whether we want to or not, between two choices that may not even appeal to us. This is not a fault. The fault is, why aren't we allowed to try?

 

Why can't we try to save everybody, even if it means we will fail? Why can't we try and save the mages and templars, even if it means we fail? Why couldn't we have been the ones to sacrifice our lives at Adamant Fortress, saving both Hawke and the Warden with us? We were certainly allowed to try in Dragon Age Origins, and understandably this was absent in Dragon Age 2. But in a world torn asunder, one of the options should be to attempt to sew it back together, not just picking one side of the tear or the other. I'm not saying it should work. There are many reasons why it shouldn't. But don't deny that there was always, always, always a third option, and I believe that DAI suffered for it.

 

So, yes, DAI is not dark, violent, or gritty enough. It doesn't have anything in it that would contrast it. Everybody's bad or just as bad. It's, you know, not terrible, but when everybody is wrong including your own PC, and nobody is given the option to try and do the right thing, you just can't get too well in darkness, violence, or grittiness. It doesn't work to have corpses when you spend 90% of the game making them and have 0 opportunity not to. It just doesn't work like that.

 

Yeah. Kinda not entirely happy with DAI. =/

This is a very good point.  evil has to be relatable in some way to be disturbing.  Zathrian is a good example of this, he did a horrific thing, but it was because he saw a horrific thing done to someone he loved.  You're not just fighting some decepticon, you're seeing what the world does to people.  You can understand his rage and that's what makes it disturbing. Even Branka's desire to restore a fallen Empire can be understood, given the darkspawn threat, and Ogren tells us she used to be good which makes her behavior all the more deplorable.  The Mayor quest gave us some of that and I think that's why it strikes a cord with so many.  

[kukumburr]

I think they could have utilised the demons better. The rifts seemed to just spit out 'foot soldiers' rather than terrifying demons with special powers and such.

 

This is what I found to be disappointing. In DA:O there were some cool interactions with demons, like the whole orphanage quest with the rage demon thing at the end, the desire demon in the Circle Tower who had a templar brainwashed, Kitty & Amalia, the Sloth demon, the Baroness in Awakening, etc. In DA:I the only two demons I remember being interesting at all were the Envy demon if you sided with the Templars, and Imshael (although he wasn't that exciting). The rest of them might as well have been bears or any other mindless mob. Which is a shame, since demons are supposed to be pouring into the world, yet they seem to be fairly contained to their little rift areas.

 

There were some interesting and dark codex entries and notes scattered around that involved demons, but you never get to see any of it. And any side quests that involved demons were basically just "go here, put something there, when demon pops out kill it". There's really no interaction with them. I would have liked to see quests more like the ones in DA:O, where you sort of have to go through some creepy stuff and uncover the demon before you can kill it (or make deals with it).

[Lebanese Dude]

I think people are exaggerating the level of darkness in DAO. It's probably because it was their first experience in the Dragon Age world. 

 

The Dragon Age world isn't that dark to begin with. Most dark topics discussed here such as broodmothers (Darkspawn-themed DAO) and blood magic (Blood magic-infested Kirkwall) were introduced and explored in the first and second installments.

In DAI, the red lyrium and fade-related topics were explored. I think they did a pretty good job.

 

Disgusting sacs of flesh near Darkspawn aren't any more "grisly" than seeing mid-combat red lyrium induced transformations into bulging masses of spikes and flesh.

 

What about the bodies near the temple positioned in a way that implies that they did not die immediately and instead burned alive in torment?

 

What about the nightmare-fueled conflicts between duty and self-preservation shown by the Grey Warden warriors?
 

What about the canonical confirmation that elves have a much darker history than is implied by the Dalish?

 

I fail to see how choosing to sacrifice Celene is any less dark than choosing to sacrifice Isolde.

Is blood magic any more dark than intentionally permitting the death of an empress? At least the former was voluntary.

 

Frankly I think DAI's darkness is more subtle than its predecessors.

[zahra]

I guess it was a lack of heart-wrenching moments, which were available in DA:O and DA2.

 

DA:O = Every origin started out as a tragedy, and made you super invested in the character you built. And from that point on you are confronted with choices that can end up pretty dark. The Tower (kill Wynne and all mages) Redcliffe (sacrifice a kid or his mom) Zathrian (slaughter an entire clan) and so on and so forth. It also includes the choice to die, and of course the tear-jerky Alistair dying instead of you.

 

DA2 = Sibling dies, Sibling dies again if you don't bring Anders, or gets recruited to the GW/ or gets imprisoned in the Circle and/or becomes a Templar (joins the very people who are your natural enemies) - then your mother dies in a horrific way. Pretty much a series of "OMG WHAT". Then Anders becomes a terrorist, and you can also choose to side with the Templars and fight with Anders (which is really sad if he is your LI)

 

DA:I = You become a prisoner, then suddenly you are the new Jesus. Haven gets attacked but you gain a sweet fortress. And from that moment on you continue to kick ass and nothing really bad happens (with the exception of The Abyss, but if you get to choose between Stroud and Hawke its pretty much "uh ok.")

[Ashagar]

The different about inquisition is it doesn't try to ram the darkness down your throat and be ham-fisted about the darkness in the game, its more subtle and implied about its darkness compared to previous titles.

[The Mistress]

When it comes to dark and gritty, one must understand that this is an expectation. An expectation that has most likely, increased due to the popularization of series such as Game of Thrones.

 

Additionally, one must remember that the Dragon Age franchise itself, started off with a very Game of Thrones vibe to it. There was family betrayal, family slaughter, rape, corruption of a dear friend, friend using forbidden arts, wedding gone wrong, citizenry enslavement, caste system, sexist philosophical system (that was conveniently whitewashed in DAI) and what have you.

 

Dragon Age Inquisition felt like generic fantasy RPG and that's it. The previous generic fantasy that came out before Inquisition was Skyrim and even that game had the sense to be dark when it came to its Daedric quests, vampirism, lycanthropy and one of its guilds.

 

These days, when people think dark and gritty, the probably do not just expect some alternate universe shenanigans and be done with it. They want a violent family massacre like what happened to the Stark family in Game of Thrones or the Cousland family in Thedas or perhaps a very manipulative and scheming ****** that double crosses everyone to get what they want or some dastardly political intrigue. They may also want a world where the art complements the dark and gritty setting.

Before I even respond to the rest of what you've said - perhaps a good portion of DA:O's content was inspired by Game of Thrones (in fact, the Legion of the Dead was inspired by the Night's Watch), but one must remember that the sort of crap that happened in that game, sans the Blight, was actually pretty normal to have happened in medieval times and before. Torture was a way to break people and gain information. Selling slaves was a 'great' way to make a profit on people and ship out some of the poor or destitute in your city. Rape happened, and it happened frequently. History books don't like to highlight these things, and it leads people to think that these sorts of things didn't happen as often... when, in fact, they did.

 

Based on the War of the Roses (a real-life conflict between major houses), Game of Thrones might have re-ignited people's interest in low fantasy and high drama, but I think much of the "DA:I wasn't gory enough for me!" was, for the most part, because the storyline didn't really emphasize any of those sort of details or values. I don't think much of that was brought on by looking at Game of Thrones and looking back at the series to go, "Dude... where did all my gore go?" (that, and I think quite a few people have wondered this without even reading or watching Game of Thrones) but rather just observation and comparison as people look back to or play the previous DA games.

 

If you look around, DA:I has a good amount of nightmare content - but it's not part of the main questline, nor is it really relevant enough to the main questline to include as a 'must-see'. Yes, DA:I could have been more bloody and gory, but it fit to have the despair toned down a little bit since the game's main focus is 'hope'.

 

1) When it came to Origin stories, you did not suffer a massacre or backstabbing that made you flee or original family and end up in Haven or you were not victims of assault and abuse by Templars and Mages, something like Tabris suffered at the hands of Vaughan in Origins. It was a few sentences and a war room mission or two. 

 

2) The creepiest crap that the game had was the big spider thing which we did not fight yet we have fought and killed creatures the likes of the Broodmother and the Harvester and even the Varterral. Poweful bosses like High Dragons feel powerful but they never feel like they are going to tear you apart. 

 

3) The art in the game is bright, colorful and cheery even as opposed to dark, gloomy and gritty. This is perhaps one of the biggest issue with why the game does not feel dark and gritty.

 

4) The gameplay is too over the top as opposed to being violent and brutal. This follows right behind the art not being dark and gritty. You do not really get the sense that you are popping heads with your arrows or chopping people into pieces of meat with your blades or roasting them alive with mage fire. The gameplay is all about being flashy, being spammy and nothing else. If anything, I actually somewhat like the Team Fortress 2-esque violence in Dragon Age 2's gameplay. 

 

5) No one you really care or grown to care dies in the game. Roderick is Udina 2.0 with some conscience and let's face it, he is neither our follower nor our adviser. We did not have a Virmire situation with our own companions. You could argue the Hawke vs Stroud / Loghain / Alistair is dark but they do not involve our characters. I mean we have nine of them this time. Nine. 

 

6) The loss of the Crestwood demo thing. I think most of us enjoyed the timed mission for the Crestwood demo back in the day. That was cut out and instead we get a rehash of Origins' Redcliffe. 

 

7) Coryphefish does not do much apart from destroying Haven. He never tried to setup an elaborate trap to corner you somewhere or did not kidnap and hold someone you held dear for ransom (alternate universe does not count). He didn't do much.

 

8) The followers. Out of the nine, only Vivienne was the one with an actual secret agenda but that was never fully fleshed out. With Morrigan in Origins we had her Old God Baby, with Anders we had the Chantry explosion, with Isabela we had the theft of Koslun's Tome. I suppose Blackwall's masquerade was something but come on, there were nine companions. I expected one to be a spy planted into the Inquisition to report to Corypheus or something. 

1) We don't know if the Herald was roughed up by Templars in their sleep while being held as a prisoner underneath the Haven chantry. We do know that Solas helped to keep them alive by keeping the Anchor stable, but that's really most of what we know. In addition, I think Cassandra would have kept them in line, anyway, as she is a Seeker and is able to take down mages or templars effectively... and would not take kindly to anyone harming her prisoner while there's a chance said prisoner could help with the... recent events. Add in that Southern Thedas templars are known to be much less corrupt than those in other areas (through general understanding that Greagoir and most of the Orlesian circles knight-commanders were strict and vigilant with their men), and it's highly unlikely anything would have happened via the Templars.

2) The effect that Broodmother and other gory enemies had was not 'oh Maker I'm gonna get torn to bits', it was 'What the actual **** is this creepy **** doing here?' or 'Holy crap, this **** is fucked up. This Blight/blood magic/demon stuff is nightmare fuel.' The Blight and demons (as well as blood magic) gave options for more gory and monstrous adversaries. The fact that none of these really take a spotlight position in Inquisition really tears down most of the opportunity for such things, and even while Corypheus and his Archdemon pet are blighted creatures they can't be so gory or terrifying that they're unpalatable by a good amount of players. This also goes with the fact that the game is slowly raising from Low Fantasy as you try fixing things as the Inquisitor.

And before you go "Hey, what about Red Templars?" - the whole 'Red Lyrium eats blood and grows from it' prevents them from really being gory and creepy like previous mooks we've had to fell. Same goes with the Venatori - never are they really shown to use blood magic, which makes them more generic spellcaster fodder.

3) I agree... to an extent. Most of that has to do with the scenery, yes, but the majority of the time when things went wrong in DA:O there was tumultuous weather and damp atmosphere (and I don't mean just fog and rain) to add to the 'drama' of whatever event is happening (when applicable, of course). It happens in quite a few plot points for DA:I, but some areas feel far less... hectic, I think is the right word for it, than they should. I felt no rush to save Celene from Florianne. I didn't feel any rush to beat down Corypheus. While the former had little else that could have been done to it, the fight with Corypheus felt much shorter and lackluster because of a lack of my troops fighting his own lackeys. The sound of fighting in the background adds to tension, I believe personally, and without that it didn't feel like much of an 'epic battle'. (Compare to the Battle of Denerim or the Mage Uprising in Kirkwall)

4) Honestly? I think much of it has to do with not being able to rip apart enemies with the 'finishers' as we had in DA:O. Those sort of moves for higher-end creatures and bosses made me (and I'm sure others, as well) feel like my group was full of badasses. Yes, the combat is cleaner, and I agree that it's better in many respects. I just really miss finishers.

5) I'll agree with you there. The only two real situations that make anyone scratch their head for a moment is the Fade Sacrifice or the Orlesian Throne Dispute. Even then, it's not a hard decision to make for many people, and none of their personal companions are really in much danger.

6) I never saw this demo, honestly. I kept my expectations of DA:I to as much of a minimum as I could to enjoy it and take it in without criticizing it from the get go, and that included seeing most of the content they were 'introducing' beforehand. I do think some events could have used some sort of timer on them, though (like the Halamshiral event or some of the others).

7) Corypheus does suffer from the 'Evil is Dumb' syndrome pretty terribly, said to be his 'pride' blinding him. Personally, he feels like a weakly-written nemesis... but he was meant to be as such, and I accept that. If he were smarter about it, he would have been able to take over Thedas completely, hands down, and the Herald would have been a piece of cake to crush under his heel, but what would have been the point of making him less prideful or driven? It would have given the game a more Dragon Age II feeling, tbh.

8) Honestly, Anders is the only one that really goes and fucks **** up royally. I wouldn't compare him to Morrigan (who did it to take the Old God soul and save you/Alistair), who only gives the feeling of "Oh, so that's why you came here with us" rather than betrayal, and I most certainly wouldn't compare him to Isabela. Yes, Blackwall has been lying to you, and yes, Vivienne is using anything she can to her advantage in the Game (even the death of someone she loved)... but I agree that it's underwhelming compared to Anders, solely due to the fact that he did something earth-shaking that pretty much started a war.

[abisha]

been discussed a few times already, i always say DA:I feels like it's made for children.

i find it lacking real darkness.

 

even old RPG games have more darkness in their games *planescape torment* *BG*

i do understand makeing good dark setting is one of the most difficult thing's ever, to much you end in Sin City 2 *to much it loss it's touch*

but just enough and you get Sin City (perfect balance)

 

why it's really requested?,

i see battlefields yet nothing if true horror of war, like *rape,Genocide,Food shortage*the stuff that's really happen in war.

only see a few demons blah blah blah* weak done. etc to bash DA:I on for.

[Ryzaki]

The only thing "darkness" wise that's missing in DA:I is sexual assault, and frankly that's a good thing. 

 

It's not actually pretty sure Cole brings it up in a banter. Something about a templar telling a mage if they tell anyone they'll call em a bloodmage.

 

And it's heavily implied with the Tranquil girl Giselle is talking to in the Chantry when she mentions if she was reverted she would probably kill herself. "Would you like the tranquility reversed?" "I don't believe that is wise. Things happened to me that might make me uncomfortable if I was reverted. I can survive in this state I was reverted I might not." And there's the mentions about mages and templars alike abusing the tranquil. I guess you could take that to not mean sexual assault but given how in previous games that's exactly what abuse happened to them...

 

It's still there. It's just not in your face with a glowing neon sign anymore.

[Ieldra]

I agree I think Bioware played it safe with the story and that may have been a mistake. DAI is still a good game but it has the weakest writing in the series, yes even weaker then DAII.

I do not agree. The impression that DAI's is clean, tame and safe compared to its predecessors has little or nothing to do with the writing. This is about which kind of stuff is presented, not how it is written. It may also have something to do with the fact that the things that do exist that could mitigate this expression are experienced at one step removed through in-world documents.

 

And again, for me it's not about the horror, but about "uncomfortable" things on one hand and being able to deal appropriately with the world's everyday evils on the other.

 

That we don't have cities may also have contributed.

[stonerbishop]

I think people are exaggerating the level of darkness in DAO. It's probably because it was their first experience in the Dragon Age world. 
 
The Dragon Age world isn't that dark to begin with. Most dark topics discussed here such as broodmothers (Darkspawn-themed DAO) and blood magic (Blood magic-infested Kirkwall) were introduced and explored in the first and second installments.
In DAI, the red lyrium and fade-related topics were explored. I think they did a pretty good job.
 
Disgusting sacs of flesh near Darkspawn aren't any more "grisly" than seeing mid-combat red lyrium induced transformations into bulging masses of spikes and flesh.
 
What about the bodies near the temple positioned in a way that implies that they did not die immediately and instead burned alive in torment?
 
What about the nightmare-fueled conflicts between duty and self-preservation shown by the Grey Warden warriors?
 
What about the canonical confirmation that elves have a much darker history than is implied by the Dalish?
 
I fail to see how choosing to sacrifice Celene is any less dark than choosing to sacrifice Isolde.
Is blood magic any more dark than intentionally permitting the death of an empress? At least the latter was voluntary.
 
Frankly I think DAI's darkness is more subtle than its predecessors.

  

The different about inquisition is it doesn't try to ram the darkness down your throat and be ham-fisted about the darkness in the game, its more subtle and implied about its darkness compared to previous titles.

Maybe it should be more overt.

[Ashagar]

Perhaps it could but its better than being ham-fisted and trying to ram it down your throat, it would be nice if they could find a middle ground between the two.