Summary
If you were to ask 100Dragon Agefans their favourite thing about the series, I’d guess more than 80 would say, “the characters”. The world is beautiful and diverse, the narrative is rich and twisting, and the combat is engaging and layered (despite what one former dev thinks), but the draw has always been the wider cast. In the latest interview coming out ofBioWarethough, it doesn’t seem like the studio understands that.
Speaking to GameInformer, game director Corinne Busche said"Previously, it feels like companions are going on an adventure with me… [but in The Veilguard] the companions are so fleshed out that it feels as though I’m going on a journey with them." Now, Busche directedThe Veilguard, and so has seen multiple iterations of its playthroughs, and therefore knows the game far better than I. But in previous games, I’m not sure exactly how much I agree with that.
Dragon Age’s Promo Cycle Is Extremely Interview-Heavy
Of course, a key thing to understand is that (while Busche has been forthcoming and open in most interviews), everything coming out of BioWare in any official capacity is marketing. When they say ‘you don’t need to have played Inquisition’, they’re trying to sell copies of the game to the widest audience possible. We know the game starts with two Inquisition characters hunting down another Inquisition character while he carries out his plan from Inquisition and summons characters first mentioned in Origins. You kindadohave to have played Inquisition to understand the weight of that, but they say the answer that sells more video games.
Likewise, Busche can’t say ‘yeah Emmrich is great buthe’s no Zevran’. I think the quote treads the line of respect and deference to the past works of the series (Busche also says she “adores” previous companions), while doing the necessary job of emphasising that Veilguard is the best game ever, please buy it. Please. But it made me consider the journey of previous Dragon Age games, and how they relate to the protagonist.
In Dragon Age: Origins, it’s you and Alistair going through the central narrative together, while Morrigan’s story closely intertwines with this saga as well. The rest of the cast are “going on an adventure with me”, but still each get their own arc. Likewise, it’s tough to see exactly what Anders does differently if you’re not around in Dragon Age 2, while Varric is also tied closely to your own path. And in Inquisition, Cassandra drives the plot forward initially while Solas isdeftly guiding events from the shadows.
Is Dragon Age Trying To Elevate The RPG?
There are definitely some characters across all the games who are your classic fantasy RPG companion, who add a party role, some comedic relief or narrative weight, and their own quest line that represents some wider part of the world but feels superfluous to the central aim. But there are also some who drag you on the adventure with them as much as others are dragged along by you. This balance is important.
Could this all be overreacting to a single quote? Oh, absolutely. Dragon Age: The Veilguard has decided thata one hour opening hands-off at Summer Game Festfollowed by a minor trailer and then supported across another five weeks with deep dive interviews is the promo route to go, and that means quotes are king. We’re finding more out from the game than we would through trailers this way, because we’re getting greater insight to the ‘why’ of certain decisions, but we’re also being asked to trust more. Seeing is believing, and we can’t see anything.
This is the fewest number of companions we’ve ever had in a Dragon Age game, and we can only take two at a time with us on adventures to boot. The maths on this has me concerned because I love Dragon Age’s characters, and so want as many as possible. But if the trade-off is that they get richer and more developed stories because of it, then I’m in. I’m just struggling to tell what these quotes mean.
On the one hand, the old approach of them going on an adventure with us meant their stories were often completely separate from the main aim, which allowed them to spin off in all sorts of weird directions and occasionally dovetail with the central plot. Ditching that to make them more connected to the core narrative so we’re all in this together could limit those possibilities.
On the other, us feeling like we’re on an adventure with them could mean they all have even wider, further reaching stories, taking advantage of the greater amount of screentime available to them. It could mean they each get stories that are bigger than fetch quests that uncover lore, but are strong enough narratives that they could sustain an entire game without the player character required, which is not the case in previous stories.
As I’m sure every fantasy game over the next decade or so will do, it makes me think ofBaldur’s Gate 3. Larian’s adventure was praised for its rich narratives and complex characters, but when you really break it down, they don’t actually matter. Lae’zel’s crisis of faith, Wyll’s father, Halsin’s and Jaheira’s duty to the Harpers, Astarion’s past with Cazador, Minsc’s… everything have no real bearing on the story and the worm in your eye. Gale’s tryst with Mystra, Karlach’s past with Gortash, and Shadowheart’s connection to Shar (at least up until the end of Act 2) are all linked more closely, but generally, these people are on an adventure with you.
But in Baldur’s Gate 3, their own adventures are so interesting that you want to be pulled along by them, and the narrative weaves them seamlessly into everything else that it doesn’t feel as though you’re pausing the adventure to see to Lae’zel’s needs. Matching up to Baldur’s Gate 3 is a high bar (and the game launched too late to be of any influence), but I hope Busche’s comments point to a refining and enriching of Dragon Age’s quests to give them this sense of layering and realism, not a total teardown of the companion system in The Veilguard.
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.
