Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Developer(s)	BioWare
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Director(s)	John Epler Corinne Busche
Artist(s)	Matt Rhodes
Writer(s)	Patrick Weekes
Series	Dragon Age
Engine	Frostbite
Platform(s)	PlayStation 5 Windows Xbox Series X/S
Release	2024
Genre(s)	Action role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is an upcoming action role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. The fourth major game in the Dragon Age franchise, The Veilguard will be the sequel to Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014). Set ten years after Inquisition, the game will feature new locations in the fictional world of Thedas for the player to explore. The game is expected to be released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S in fall of 2024.

The game's development, which began in 2015, has been marked by lengthy delays, several fundamental changes in design, and high staff turnover. A release date has not yet been announced. The game was announced as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in 2022 and retitled to Dragon Age: The Veilguard in June 2024.

Development

The development of the fourth main entry in the Dragon Age series, code-named "Joplin", began in 2015 with Mike Laidlaw as its creative director. It was intended to be a smaller, more narrative-focused game set in the Tevinter Imperium region of the game's world setting, Thedas.

Problems with the development of BioWare's other games Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem led to repeated interruptions as "Joplin" staff was shifted to these games. This included putting "Joplin" on hold in late 2016 with development resuming in March 2017 after Andromeda shipped. In October 2017, BioWare and its parent company Electronic Arts cancelled "Joplin" altogether, reportedly because it had no room for a "live service" component to provide ongoing monetization opportunities.

Development of the game was restarted under the code-name "Morrison" in 2018, this time with a live-service component and based on Anthem's code. According to Bloomberg News, after the success of the single-player game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and the decision to cancel the reworking of the massively multiplayer online Anthem in February 2021 following its lackluster launch, EA and BioWare decided to remove the planned multiplayer components from "Morrison" and to develop it as a single-player game only. Alpha-stage footage leaked in February 2023 indicated that the game would use real-time action combat gameplay, influenced by God of War, unlike previous Dragon Age games. Kotaku opined "it's true that Dragon Age's most dedicated fans aren't here for the gameplay—but they still deserve a gaming experience that doesn't feel like it was grafted from a completely different genre."

Staff turnover

The project has been marked by a high turnover of leading staff. Several veteran Dragon Age staff, including Laidlaw, left the company in response to Joplin's cancellation in 2017. After the 2018 restart, Mark Darrah remained as an executive producer, while Matthew Goldman took over the position of creative director for the project from 2017 to 2021. By December 3, 2020, Darrah had resigned from BioWare, replaced by BioWare Austin studio head Christian Dailey as executive producer. Goldman left BioWare by November 2021, and was replaced as Creative Director by John Epler. Dailey left BioWare in February 2022. Corinne Busche became game director thereafter, Benoit Houle director of product development, and Mac Walters production director. Walters in turn left BioWare in January 2023. In March 2023, Darrah returned as a consultant for the game and the Mass Effect team joined the production of Veilguard, according to EA.

In August 2023, BioWare laid off 50 people working on Veilguard and the next Mass Effect game; this included Mary Kirby who was one of the series' original writers and credited with "creating Varric and the Qunari". PC Gamer commented "that's not to say there are no veterans of the good old days left, but you're looking at a very different group of people than the one that made the studio's greatest hits". In October, seven of them sued BioWare for additional compensation, complaining that BioWare's NDAs prevented them from adding their work on Veilguard to their portfolio.

Gameplay

In previous games, a player's preceding world state was imported from save files or the web application Dragon Age Keep; Veilguard will instead allow players to customize the world state during the game's character creation. In June 2024, Game Director Corinne Busche explained this was because "the technology is so different" so they wanted it to be within the game client itself. During character creation, the player will be able to choose a lineage for their player character (human, dwarf, elf, or qunari), a fighting class (rogue, mage, or warrior), and a character backstory with one of six faction associations. GamesRadar+ reported that "this faction choice comes in the same spirit as the Origin choice in the original game" – Creative Director John Epler explained it is "definitely intended to be that throwback. It's not the same, there's not the unique missions, but it sets the course for your character throughout the rest of the game". Unlike previous games, customization options include body size and parts sliders which are not "tied to the voice or pronouns" (she/her, he/him, or they/them) chosen by the player. Busche also confirmed players will be able to remake their Inquisitor from Dragon Age: Inquisition and that while not all previous Dragon Age characters will appear in the game, some will be "woven into" the new game.

Unlike Inquisition, the companions in Veilguard are described as "pansexual" – IGN reported that "Busche pushes back on the idea that The Veilguard's companions are 'playersexual,' a term used to describe games where NPCs are specifically only attracted to the player character". There will be seven companion options, however, the combat system will also reduce the combat party size to three. Game Informer highlighted that the Veilguard combat system demonstrates that the Dragon Age series has completed a "shift from tactical strategy to real-time action", however, "Veilguard's pause-and-play gameplay mechanic, similar to Inquisition's without the floating camera view, let's you bring things to a halt for a healthy but optional dose of strategy" with a combat wheel. Instead of an open world design, Veilguard is a "hub-and-spoke design" where players will get around Thedas via the Eluvian network; some areas will be larger while "others are smaller and more focused on linear storytelling".

Marketing

Dragon Age 4 was announced at The Game Awards in December 2018. Promotional material showed red lyrium (a corrupted power source of magic in the game's universe) and the character Solas – the Dread Wolf – as significant elements of the game's plot. Marketing on social media was focused on the tagline "The Dread Wolf Rises".

In August 2020, a concept art video was released at Gamescom. In December 2020, a teaser trailer featured the dwarven character Varric Tethras as narrator, as well as Solas. No details on the game were released at the July 2021 EA Play event. Jeffrey Grubb, for VentureBeat, commented that "holding back during this EA Play is just about enabling the publisher to get the game into position to begin marketing it in earnest. That will likely start in 2022". Ash Parrish, for Kotaku, highlighted that given all the changes in development "Dragon Age 4 is probably not yet ready to be shown to the world" and that "BioWare has been drip-feeding fans information for years now". Grubb, in a follow-up article for VentureBeat in January 2022, stated that "EA hasn't decided on when to begin marketing the project".

The original logo when the game was titled Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.

In June 2022, the game's title was announced as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. Parrish, now for The Verge, highlighted that the title reveal for the game was "exciting for a lot of fans" because it not only makes Solas the antagonist of the upcoming game but also makes Dreadwolf a direct sequel unlike previous installments in the franchise. A teaser trailer released in December 2023 featured new locations: Antiva, Rivain, and the Anderfels.

In June 2024, the game was retitled Dragon Age: The Veilguard. BioWare explained that the titular Dread Wolf remains part of the game, however, the updated title is a stronger reflection of the game's focus. BioWare general manager Gary McKay stated that the retitling was not due to focus testing:

We actually think sticking with Dreadwolf would have been the safer choice – 'Dread Wolf' is a cool name after all! In the end, it was most important for us to have a title that was authentic to the companions that are the heart of this adventure we've created. We've worked throughout development to create really incredible backstories for each companion that intersect with the main narrative in meaningful ways.

On the title change, Ed Smith of PCGamesN commented that he liked "the sound of the new Dragon Age, and its focus on a cast of characters and their connections, so a name that reflects that conceit feels right". In contrast, Andy Chalk of PC Gamer and Kenneth Shepard of Kotaku disliked the name change. Chalk felt Veilguard "doesn't convey anything in the way Dreadwolf does" – "I see the word 'Dreadwolf' and I instinctively know that some bad shit is happening". Shepard stated, "I understand the naming convention lines up with Dragon Age: Inquisition, which also was named after the team you were assembling, but Dreadwolf was a striking title that I will dearly miss".

Following the release of the trailer introducing the companions, both Robin Valentine of PC Gamer and Edwin Evans-Thirlwell of Rock Paper Shotgun were apprehensive of the design shift from previous games. Valentine thought the companions looked "more ready for a battle pass than an epic quest" with Evans-Thirlwell echoing that it had more of an Ocean's Eleven vibe than a Dragon Age one. Gita Jackson of Aftermath viewed the "weird and bad" companion trailer as part of EA's "long legacy" of poor marketing since "Dragon Age has been the victim of this before". Critics who attended the 2024 Summer Game Fest and experienced a hands-off gameplay demo were more positive about the upcoming game and felt the companion trailer didn't accurately portray it. Mike Minotti of GamesBeat commented, "don't let that weird CG trailer scare you". Both Sean Booker of CNET and Alex Donaldson of VG247 were reminded of Mass Effect games; Maddy Myers of Polygon and Parrish of The Verge thought the updated customization options in character creation stood out. Parrish reserved "final judgment" for the finished product as "an hour of hands-off gameplay isn't enough to completely dispel the lingering concerns that the game's tortured development cycle has affected its quality. But I know the Dragon Age series, and based on the conversations I've had and the little I've seen, it feels like despite the turmoil, BioWare still got it right".