Dragon Age: The Veilguard has enabled a side of the internet that has been living off crumbs for a decade. Think about it: Dragon Age fans haven’t had a game to analyze, predict or scrutinize Inquisition launched in 2014 The Keeper of the Veilwhich is set to finally end the devastating cliffhanger of Inquisition‘c Trespasser DLC, is just a few short months away and after a name change, cinematic trailerand revealing gameplayfans finally have something substantial to chew on instead of sustaining themselves with comics, stories and anime on netflix. Watching BioWare fans go through tough times in between Inquisition and The Keeper of the Veil, it’s heartening to see the explosion of fan art, theories, and love pouring out from all over the internet in anticipation of the next chapter. But that anticipation is tinged with a bit of fear. After waiting all this time, what if The Keeper of the Veil doesn’t live up to the game anyone imagined for ten years? Even worse, what happens to BioWare if it gets what some might consider its third “strike”?
While Dragon Age itself has been dormant for ten years, BioWare is not. In 2017, the studio released Mass Effect: Andromeda which, despite some pretty ambitious combat and a cast with the potential to grow into something as beloved as that of the original trilogy, was criticized for its glitches, clunky animations, and bloated open-world design, to the point where BioWare put the series on ice. This was followed by Antheman reckless loot shooter it felt like a misuse of the RPG studio’s talent and ended up going nowhere after the studio conserves its planned overhaul. Both games were reportedly bogged down in development issuesand from the sound of it, The Keeper of the Veil also struggled to get off the ground afterwards Inquisitiondevelopment is complete.
The Keeper of the Veil has apparently gone through at least a few iterations since BioWare began development, including versions that centered elements for live service and multiplayer. now, The Keeper of the Veil is marketed as a streamlined single-player action role-playing game with no microtransactions. BioWare seems to have its priorities straight, but it also sounds like it The Keeper of the Veil exists in the form it was after the studio and publisher Electronic Arts screwed it up twice in a row. That makes it easy to get excited about the fourth game. BioWare said very right things just in the last two weeks after Summer Game Fest. The Keeper of the Veil went from a mostly conceptual idea into Dragon Age fans’ heads to something very close to what those fans want ever since party member-turned-villain Solas announced his plans to watch the world burn in Trespasser.
Of course, this is also a disagreement. Dragon Age changed subgenres in the last 15 years but The Keeper of the Veil is more of an open action RPG than even Dragon Age II was in 2011. So naturally, those who yearn for the tactical gameplay of the first game in the series, Originparticularly objected to BioWare’s acrobatic gameplay on the heels of Baldur’s Gate 3last year’s success. Look, it wouldn’t be a BioWare game if it didn’t also attract some of the most vitriolic online discourse known to man. But after the past seven years have seen the studio go from chasing bloated open-world trends to creating a live-action angry shooter, we’ve seen BioWare make a game that cuts through all of that to get to the heart of it. which the studio always rules well has reignited the excitement for the studio. I admit, I’m watching The Keeper of the VeilThe closed-door presentation at Summer Game Fest moved me in a way that has only happened a few times in my career.
The thing is, BioWare fans never venture too far while their favorite series is on hiatus. If nothing else, the studio did a good job The Keeper of the Veil through extended media such as comics and short stories character introduction the studio was working on the fourth game. In fact, several of the The Keeper of the VeilParty members have been waiting for their grand performance for years. So fans had time to find out who the new characters like Neave the mage detective and Lukanis the mage slayer were long before they appeared in a video game.
Fans may love these new characters, but at the same time, The Keeper of the Veil brings people back to a story they’ve been waiting a decade to understand. BioWare is clearly aware of how invested these eager fans are and is playing with their expectations and long-standing investments. How do you hook a fandom that’s been dying to see a 10-year story wrapped up? Put one of their pets in danger in a furious shouting match between him and an old friend. Stretch their hearts and remind them of all the choices they’ve made over the last three games, knowing that it all led up to this moment. Give them something to design their own journeys on.
With all the strife The Keeper of the Veil Reportedly having gone through its multiple iterations, fans seem relieved to see that based on what BioWare has shown, much of the original look still appears to be intact. Case in point: Fans scour old teasers for clues and a 2016 post by then-producer Mark Darrah (now worked on the project as a consultant) attracted the attention of Dragon Age diehards. It shows Dara looking at what appears to be a design brochure for the game with a top chess piece on the cover. Rook is the name of The Keeper of the Veilthe main character.
While The Keeper of the Veil seems to prioritize continuity and payoff, the road to getting to this current vision of the game has been tumultuous to say the least. BioWare’s turnover over the past decade hasn’t gone unnoticed, even by the studio laid off 50 developers last year, including veterans like writer Mary Kirby, who was a key creative force behind Dragon Age series. The studio was also in center of a legal battle over benefits payable to laid-off employees. Although some key leaders remained at the studio, BioWare lost out some of the main players which helped make some of the most famous games what they were.
With all of these key players gone, it’s a studio at a turning point, one that can look to stay true to the work done by those who’ve gone before, or chart new paths of its own, or find some sort of happy medium between the two, honoring that legacy while also venturing into new territory. What we saw The Keeper of the Veil suggests it’s aiming to do the latter, and it feels like a leap of faith for BioWare after all this time.
There are a lot of things Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The stakes are high for the series that fans have been dying to return to for so long. They may be higher for BioWare itself, but hopefully with this release, a studio we’ve all watched collectively stumble into the modern age can right the ship as it navigates the stormy shores of this incredibly changing industry. I’m excited and terrified to find out when Dragon Age returns this fall.
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