With 10 years between 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition, the latest entry in the series, and the upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the latter has a lot going for it. It’s both a follow-up to a beloved game from a decade ago in one of BioWare’s most beloved series, and the first BioWare game since the 2019 release of Anthem, EA’s multiplayer attempt for a live service less than two years after – late.
Curious about the pressure surrounding Veilguard’s release, I spoke with BioWare about the lessons learned from the Inquisition follow-up and what it’s like to return to that series so many years later.
“We’re starting in pre-production,” BioWare General Manager Gary McKay tells me when I ask about BioWare’s guiding principle for developing Veilguard. “We spent a lot of time iterating, experimenting and innovating about different things. It was multiplayer at one point – we looked closely at multiplayer, but we felt like we couldn’t really go back to our roots. And when we asked ourselves, “What is the game we want to develop,” we really wanted to go back to our roots, which is amazing storytelling, and that’s the opportunity to impact the world.
“And we really felt that multiplayer wasn’t going to do that. But a single-player RPG is really where we wanted to spend our time, so after spending that time in pre-production really honing in on what the vision of this game is, and [being] enabled to fulfill the creative promise of this game, 1721379117 we’re really excited about what’s coming out.”
McKay says Veilguard mixes seasoned veterans with new voices and perspectives, and “that’s really important to this game.” For example, people like former Dragon Age producer Mark Darrah, who left the studio in 2021 but is now a consultant for Veilguard, and creative director John Eppler have a combined decades of experience at BioWare. They work with people like game director Corinne Busche, who joined BioWare shortly after Anthem launched (but has been bringing love to Dragon Age since the series began in 2009), every day to develop the game we’ll be playing this autumn.
“[You] I want to have different perspectives, different backgrounds,” McKay says. “If you put a bunch of people together who only know one thing, that’s not where you see creativity. That’s not where innovation comes from. Innovation comes when you have […] that past history and mix it with some new voices and perspectives.”
Darrah has been involved with BioWare in some capacity since the early days of Baldur’s Gate, and when I asked him about the studio’s progress from that series to the next Dragon Age, he said it’s been incredible. “What’s so amazing about Veilguard is that it’s the game where we finally said out loud that BioWare’s greatest strength is character storytelling. If you go all the way back to Baldur’s Gate 1, Baldur’s Gate 2, those games tell stories through characters, but there’s no intentionality behind it. And in this game, we’re finally putting that intentionality first, putting the characters first, building the game around that, around those character moments, which is really the best way BioWare knows how to tell stories.”
I ask Darrah if Veilguard is doing something that BioWare wanted to do in previous games but couldn’t, and he says, “Storytelling through animation.” In previous games, every character moves “exactly the same way” and everyone is homogeneous in this way, he says. “If you put armor on and put it on Alistair, you look exactly the same standing side by side.
“We’re now able to keep the character that appears in the visuals and motion even when you customize them, which just wasn’t possible in the past.”
He also mentions BioWare’s confidence in its game development engine for Veilguard, which, like Inquisition, uses EA’s own Frostbite. “Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II were doing what they could with the technology they had; “Dragon Age: Inquisition did a good job using Frostbite, the engine,” says Dara. “But with this game, there’s a better understanding of the engines for a lot longer, but also the technology of the hardware that the game will be played on as we move forward [is] capable of doing much more [and] execute it visually to a degree that simply wasn’t possible in the past.”
The Inquisition
With 10 years between Inquisition and Veilguard, BioWare has to balance satisfying long-time fans of the series with newcomers getting involved for the first time. Epler says the studio worked hard to make sure Veilguard was respectful and referential to previous games without feeling like you had to have played Inquisition, Dragon Age II or Origins to fully understand what was going on.
“So while there are references, there are times where we have callbacks, it’s really its own story, its own sequel with a different cast, with different characters,” he says. “Historically, Dragon Age has always had a different cast for each game, so that gives us a lot of freedom in terms of what we want to rely on in the past and what we really want to bring in that’s new and forward-looking.” ”
Darrah adds that the events of Veilgaurd are being developed in order to tell stories about the future of the series. “It’s a game that takes the ball that Inquisition had, puts its own spin on it, has its own characters, takes its own direction, but continues the path forward into the future,” he says.
“Dragon Age has always been about change. Every game has had a new protagonist and explored their own space all along and this game is no different. [Veilguard] does a good job of bridging that gap. Indeed, Dragon Age superfans have actually made a lot of really educated guesses, and some of them are quite right about where the franchise is going. The thing we need to make sure is that people who may have only played Inquisition understand what the franchise is really about – it’s about a new character, about change, about evolution – and don’t come expecting a direct sequel to a game , which they have played and then been disappointed. This game is something new, something that evolves, something that is bigger than before, same as any other game […] before him.”
For Busche, balancing newcomers and fan expectations at Veilguard is all about managing assumptions. She says that Veilguard takes place in a part of Thedas that BioWare only hinted at. The team has hinted at Weishaupt’s Grayguard Keep, the depths of Arlathan Forest, the Rivain Coast, the Great Nevara Necropolis, and Minratus, but now players will finally go to the locations of these stories.
“We have a rich history of world-building within the IP, so existing players will be familiar with these places and be very excited to go to them and explore their mysteries,” Bouchet tells me. “But for our new players, we don’t assume you know anything about these places. I’d say that goes for the characters as well; we took a lot of care in how we present every single companion and main story figure within a game [with that in mind].”
Epler told me that Veilguard differs from Inquisition and other Dragon Age games in the way that Rook, the player character, can’t save the world without the heroes he meets on his journey.
“Dragon Age has always been about heroes, but to a certain extent we almost feel like we got lucky in that,” he says. “Inquisition is a story where you end up being the main character […] have the biggest role. This time we wanted to tell a story where you literally can’t save the world without these characters. Beyond that, though, we also wanted to give them their own arcs that could run parallel to the main story and really give them that kind of deep storytelling that our fans really enjoy.”
Although he’s biased for obvious reasons, Eppler says Veilguard is his favorite Dragon Age game he’s worked on (and he’s worked on them all, starting as a QA tester on Origins). He says one of the reasons for this is the storytelling in the characters, companions and relationships.
“They have their friendships, they have their rivalries, and they lean into that concept,” he tells me. “You don’t just assemble a group of people who will do whatever you tell them. You bring a family together and that becomes the core of what Veilguard is all about. It’s about taking this group, this established family, and saving the world, side by side with them.”
For more information on the game, including exclusive details, interviews, video features and more, click the Dragon Age: The Veilguard hub button below.
