This Element of ‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’ Means the World to Me As a Fat, Queer Gamer

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Proceed with caution!

The more games I play, the more games I wish I could play with a fat character. I want to see myself represented in fantasy, sci-fi, and stranger worlds, dressed to the nines with the rest of the party and saving the world one enemy battle at a time. A handful of video games offer slightly larger body sizes in their character creators, but not many.

I was pleasantly surprised and moved to see that the character creator in Dragon Age: The Veilguard allows you to create small fat characters whose hips, thighs, and stomachs protrude both in and out of armor. For reference, “small fat” refers to fat people who can usually wear 1X-2X clothing or even wear non-plus-size clothing from certain brands, giving them more accessibility and options than larger-bodied fat people. Veilguard also goes a step further. The “scars” section of the character creator offers a full-body application that mightily resembles stretch marks, which is something you typically have to mod into other PC games.

In my first Dragon Age: The Veilguard playthrough, I made a rogue dwarf who works with the Shadow Dragons and expected some flexibility with body size and shape. When I saw how many ways you could customize Rook’s body, however, I experimented with making human, elven, and qunari Rook builds, too. All of them can be small-to-medium fat characters and the player can change the intensity of their stretch marks to their liking. This may seem like a small thing, but as an active part of the fat liberation movement, I can tell you it’s anything but.

Still, I expected to leave the character creator and not be able to tell my Rook was fat in regular gameplay—but I could. Wherever I run, jump, or battle in Thedas, I can see Rook’s thighs and hips and stomach in their armor. None of their clothes clip through their body (which is what happens when graphics are rendered poorly and don’t account for where they might intersect) or vice-versa and they look super hot wielding their daggers and mapping the terrain.

Rook is visibly fat in cutscenes, too—even the “big romance” scene in the endgame, when they share an intimate moment with their love interest and take off their clothes. Even though Rook’s body doesn’t look exactly like my body (in any iteration), it’s the closest a video game that I’ve played has ever gotten, making Veilguard a particularly emotional experience as a longtime Dragon Age fan who’s waited ages for another trip to Thedas. I had no idea how much this would mean to me until I saw it with my own eyes, but more than once while playing, I cried just seeing my fat character being fat.

Rook isn’t alone. There are fat NPCs sprinkled throughout Thedas, too. I recall at least one Veil Jumper with a similar body type to Rook’s and some dwarves, as well as at least one human. Better still, I don’t recall any anti-fat comments or jokes, though I intend to keep an even keener ear out for those in my next playthrough because they can slip by in such a highly-populated RPG. Side conversations happen constantly between NPCs, including companions, so please take that observation with a grain of salt.

Bigots have harped on the inclusive aspects of Dragon Age: The Veilguard for months and I’m sure the game’s fat representation will only make that worse. Fatness is a particularly contentious issue in fantasy spaces because, in the real world, it’s assumed to be a moral wrong or a problem that needs to be solved. And in fantasy, many old-school players believe they shouldn’t have to confront “real-life issues” like poverty, racism, or anti-fatness (and they seem mostly ignorant of the irony in these protests). There’s always pushback against efforts to make gaming more inclusive, especially when sci-fi and fantasy gaming.

BioWare and in particular Dragon Age have always strived for inclusion, with trans and queer characters at the forefront since Origins debuted in 2009. Unfortunately, anti-fatness is often rampant in LGBTQ-specific spaces as well, so positively representing one group doesn’t mean positive representation of the other, or of people who live at the intersection. As a fat, queer gamer who adores Dragon Age, I’m genuinely thrilled to see fatness included in this way in Veilguard and hope it’s an indicator of even more fat inclusion that isn’t code for “funny” or “evil” in future games from major studios.

This isn’t just a selfish interest. Fat character customization options in Dragon Age: The Veilguard and other games ultimately positively contribute to the fat liberation movement by allowing fat people to actually imagine ourselves doing cool things while fat, rather than having to shrink ourselves to fit into certain settings. Representation is always the first step toward liberation, especially when it comes to dismantling oppressive systems like the diet industry.

Whatever the detractors have to say, I’m thrilled to play a fat Rook in Veilguard. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is available for PlayStation 5, Xbox, and PC via Steam and Epic Games. The Standard Edition retails for $59.99 and the Deluxe Edition retails for $79.99.