Dragon Age: The Veil Guard has activated a side of the internet that has been Living on crumbs for ten years. Think about it: the dragon age fandom hasn’t had a game to parse, anticipate, or scrutinize since Inquisition launched in 2014. The Veil Guardwhich will finally conclude the devastating cliffhanger of Inquisition‘S Offender DLC, is only a few months away, and after a name change, cinematic trailerAnd gameplay revealfans finally have something substantial to chew on, instead of supporting themselves with comics, short stories and a Netflix anime. I’ve seen BioWare fans go through some tough times in between Inquisition And The Veil Guard, it’s encouraging to see the explosion of fan art, theories, and love pouring from all sides of the internet in anticipation of the next chapter. But that expectation is imbued with a bit of fear. What happens if, after waiting all this time? The Veil Guard doesn’t live up to the game someone has been imagining for ten years? Worse yet, what happens to BioWare when it launches what some might consider its third “attack”?
While dragon age itself has been dormant for ten years, BioWare has not. The studio was released in 2017 Mass Effect: Andromeda which, despite some pretty ambitious battles and a cast with the potential to grow into something as beloved as that of the original trilogy, was criticized for its bugs, awkward animations and bloated open-world design, to the point where BioWare put the series on ice. This was followed by HymnAn ill-advised looter that felt like an abuse of the RPG studio’s talents, and ultimately ended up going nowhere after the studio canceled the planned overhaul. Both games were reportedly stuck by development issuesand from the sound of it, The Veil Guard then also has difficulty getting off the ground Inquisition‘s development completed.
The Veil Guard has apparently gone through at least a few iterations since BioWare began development, including versions that centered live service elements And multiple players. Now, The Veil Guard is marketed as a streamlined, micro-transaction-free, single-player action RPG. It seems like BioWare has its priorities clear, but that’s how it sounds The Veil Guard exists in the form it took after the studio and publisher Electronic Arts got it wrong twice in a row. That makes it easier to get excited about the fourth game. BioWare said this a lot of the right things in the past two weeks since Summer Game Fest. The Veil Guard went from a predominantly conceptual idea to dragon age fans’ minds for something very close to what those fans have been asking for since party member and villain Solas announced his plans to watch the world burn Offender.
Of course there was also division. dragon age has changed subgenres over the past fifteen years, but The Veil Guard is more of an overt action RPG than even Dragon Age II was in 2011. So for those pining for the tactics-driven gameplay of the series’ first game, Originhave particularly taken issue with BioWare’s acrobatic gameplay showcase on the heels of Baldur’s Gate 3last year’s success. Look, it wouldn’t be a BioWare game if it didn’t also spark some of the most vicious online discussion known to man. But after watching the studio evolve over the past seven years from chasing bloated open-world trends to making a live-service loot shooter, I saw BioWare make a game that strips all of that away to get to the heart of what the studio has always done. Well has reignited the excitement in the studio. I admit it, I look The Veil Guard‘s behind-closed-doors presentation at Summer Game Fest excited me in a way that has only happened a few times in my career.
The thing is, BioWare fans never really go too far while their favorite series is on hiatus. If nothing else, the studio did a good job leading up to The Veil Guard through extended media such as comics and short stories introduce characters which the studio was working on for the fourth game. In fact, a few of them The Veil GuardThe party’s members have been waiting for their big induction for years. So fans have had time to get a sense of who new characters like Neve the detective mage and Lucanis the mage-killing assassin are long before they appeared in a video game.
Fans may love these new characters, but at the same time The Veil Guard brings people back to a story they have been waiting for for ten years. BioWare is clearly aware of how invested these enthusiastic fans are, and is playing with their expectations and years of investment. How do you captivate a fandom that has been eager to wrap up a story for a decade? Endanger one of their favorites in an angsty shouting match between him and an old friend. Pull their heartstrings and remind them of all the choices they made over the past three games, knowing it all led to this moment. Give them something to project their own journeys onto.
With all the struggle The Veil Guard has reportedly gone through multiple iterations, fans seem relieved to see that, based on what BioWare has shown, much of the original vision still appears to remain intact. Case in point: fans have been scouring old teasers for clues, and a 2016 post from then-producer Mark Darrah (now working as a consultant on the project) has attracted attention dragon age diehards. It shows Darrah looking through a design booklet for the game, with a rook chess piece on the cover. Smoke is the name of it The Veil Guard‘s main character.
While The Veil Guard seems to be prioritizing continuity and payoff, the road to arriving at this current vision for the game has been tumultuous to say the least. BioWare’s turnover over the past decade has not gone unnoticed, and so has the studio 50 developers fired last year, including veterans like writer Mary Kirby, who is a major creative force behind the dragon age series. The studio has also been there center of a legal battle on severance payments to dismissed employees. Even with some key leaders remaining at the studio, BioWare has lost some of the big players that helped make some of the most celebrated games what they were.
With all those key players gone, it’s a studio at a crossroads, one that could strive to remain faithful to the work of those who have gone before, or chart new paths of its own, or find a happy medium between can find the two. , honoring that legacy while breaking new ground. What we have seen of The Veil Guard suggests it wants to do the latter, and it feels like a leap of faith for BioWare after all this time.
There is a lot of driving Dragon Age: The Veil Guard. The stakes are high for the series that fans have longed to return to. These may be higher for BioWare itself, but hopefully a studio we’ve all seen creep into the modern age together can right the ship with this release as it navigates the world’s tumultuous shores. this incredibly volatile industry. I’m excited and terrified to find out when dragon age will return this fall.
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