Summary
BioWarehas had a rocky past decade. ThoughDragon Age: Inquisitionwas well-received, its well-documented development process was full of crunch and popularised the ironic term ‘BioWare Magic’. Following on from that,Anthemwas an abject failure, universally criticised for releasing unfinished with shallow gameplay. The game was quickly abandoned.Mass Effect: Andromedais a mixed bag, but it certainly didn’t achieve the relevance and praise of the original trilogy.
Dragon Age: The Veilguardis potentially a return to form for the legendary studio, and the team at BioWare is well aware of where their strengths lie. In an interview with Edge Magazine (thanks,VGC), The Veilguard’s creative director John Epler touched on the studio’s missteps with Anthem.
BioWare Is About Story-Focused Single Player Games
“We’re a studio that has always been built around digging deep on storytelling and roleplaying,” Epler said. “I’m proud of a lot of things on Anthem - I was on that project for a year and a half. But at the end of the day, we were building a game focused on something we were not necessarily as proficient at.”
“For me and the team, the biggest lesson was to know what you’re good at and then double down on it,” Epler continued. “Don’t spread yourselves too thin. Don’t try to do a bunch of different things you don’t have the expertise to do. A lot of people on this team came here to build a story-focused single-player RPG.”
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is certainly that, with a ‘switch’ to a mission-based system rather than an open-world one so BioWare can handcraft the player’s experience. The player’s companions are also taking centre-stage as “fully realised characters” which BioWare has promised will have their individuality outside the actions of the player.
We learned a lot of other snippets of information from the Edge Magazine interview: you’ll beforced to swap out companions for certain missions, thetactical camera has been removed,Minrathous is larger than you thinkand we’re not going to haveanother Hinterlands situationon our hands.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard doesn’t have a confirmed release date butrumours suggestBioWare could aim for the end of October.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
WHERE TO PLAY
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.
