With each entry in the Dragon Age series from developer BioWare usually comes a completely different experience in terms of tone and gameplay. Although heavily inclined towards high fantasy RPGs from the development history of Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights series, Dragon Age plays with a variety of fantasy styles while also adding more and more value to its fun and evolving cast of party members.
with Dragon Age: The Veilguard (previously A terrible wolf), BioWare is looking to revive the series by returning to a traditional fantasy role-playing game. It’s a new Dragon Age that continues the series’ trend of offering an escalating sense of fantasy political and social intrigue, but still strives to emphasize BioWare’s long-standing strengths when it comes to casting compelling characters and resolving their fates. The game was introduced afterwards layoffs at the studio and years of difficult – but not seemingly impossible – shifts in direction.
At Summer Game Fest 2024, we saw an extended demo CoveredA prologue with commentary from creative director John Eppler explaining BioWare’s heavy focus on companion characters is a quiet return to the studio’s design roots.
BioWare’s fantasy comeback
Set after the events of c Dragon Age: Inquisition, the next game will see the world of Thedas face a new threat from Solas, a former ally turned villain. In an effort to destroy the barrier between the ethereal veil and the mortal realm in order to restore his people, Solas unleashes otherworldly forces. A new hero called Ladja teams up with returning heroes Warrick and Harding to form a new group to counter these threats, which inevitably reveal a greater enemy bent on destroying all life on earth.
According to Eppler, Covered in particular, focusing on themes of choice and consequence, and that the darkest world is still worth saving. As with the other games in the series, it features a fully customizable protagonist with different backstories and cultural backgrounds (human, dwarf, elf, and Qunari), giving a wider range of options to make the protagonist feel like a natural part of the world that has been uprooted from obscurity to become a hero.
This follows BioWare’s tradition of making Dragon Age characters more of a blank slate for the player—an ambitious task, given how much game content has to evolve around a long series of player choices—which are displayed in BioWare’s standard dialog wheel.
![Dragon Age: The Veilguard screenshot. 7 members of a group of different fantasy races gather at the table. Dragon Age: The Veilguard screenshot. 7 members of a group of different fantasy races gather at the table.](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt740a130ae3c5d529/blt81d25bfed70e291f/6668a2da463431013f687aaf/dragonageveilguardparty.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Image via BioWare/EA.
BioWare’s strong cast of supporting characters in the game was one of the main building blocks for the developer. Eppler said that the developers tried to build on this with Coveredwhich he says has the most developed companions and connected storylines of any BioWare game.
“I’ve been to every Dragon Age game before, and I think that’s the most important thing Dragon Age: The Veilguard brings an even more compelling experience and a deliberate emphasis on companions to the wider series,” said Eppler. “We’ve said this is the most purposefully crafted companion experience we’ve ever created – every character is an integral part that you can save the world, and each of them brings something to the table. These characters are important and everyone will be on a mission to see and learn more about them.”
BioWare is returning to handheld game content
The dramatic and action-oriented opening of the extended demo offered a clear idea of what this Dragon Age game Covered will, which adheres to familiar pillars in the BioWare RPG ensemble. However, the upcoming game also has a more stylized aesthetic and faster gameplay compared to the more violent and tactical pace of the original game and its sequels. It’s an action-oriented RPG, with the combat itself having a similar flow and pace The sorcerer games. However, Dragon Age’s familiar tactical pause also returns, allowing players to carefully choose skills at their leisure.
Interesting, for now Covered has a clearer narrative emphasis on companions, combat is still tied solely to the protagonist, unlike earlier entries of the game that gave the player more control between groups. However, the game empowers players by allowing them to send commands to allies while strategically coordinating actions with the main character. Reminiscent of Mass Effect’s tactical teams, this feature reminds players that they are individual characters with their own agency.
![Three Dragon Age characters confront a horned dragon with a giant mouth. Three Dragon Age characters confront a horned dragon with a giant mouth.](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt740a130ae3c5d529/blte6b98123eb8ca9de/6668a3077d25f478234b2f9d/dragonageveilguarddragon.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Image via BioWare/EA.
At one critical point in the prologue, Rook had to choose a party member to accompany them in their plan to foil Solas’ spell, leaving one party member behind to hold off the oncoming monsters. This decision will determine how each party member sees the Rook in future adventures.
Eppler said that, as in previous BioWare games, the companions will also have a set of unique quests related to their individual stories that will branch out throughout the game. How you build your party and the choices players make will determine the type of adventures Luddy and his party have, which Eppler says are individual events off the critical path.
“One of the big things we wanted to do Covered to make the entire game feel like a crafted and authored game,” Eppler said further after the presentation. “While the game has a lot of content that isn’t part of the critical path and various side missions, it’s all hand-crafted by the team.”
This once again hints at a return to form for BioWare, which experimented with fewer handcrafted parts in the Hymn and Mass Effect: Andromeda. If it’s successful here, it’s an unfortunate rebuke to the studio for the shifts in direction of its previous two games.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard looks more like a stylized grand adventure for the series that fleshes out the cast of characters, though we’re not quite sure how many of those options will come into play as your party begins exploring Thedas during the Chaotic Period.
It’s been interesting to see where BioWare is as a developer right now, and it’s no secret Dragon Age: The Veilguard development problems arose as various personnel changes extended the development time. However, the upcoming game has intriguing features and a tone that could be a good anchor for the series.
With the recent successes of other fantasy RPGs such as Baldur’s gate 3 show that creating a great cast and watching them develop with each other is of great value to an RPG, Covered seems like it’s doing the smart thing by focusing on what BioWare has traditionally done best, and that’s putting its characters in the spotlight.
It was interesting to see a much more stylized adventure tone Dragon Age, which began its life as a gritty adventure with its own denominators. The art direction and tone has now changed to look a little more like Criminally Underrated Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
But for every fresh choice you find Dragon Age: The Veilguardit certainly seems like BioWare has recognized that it needs to get back to what it does best, which is to focus on the character-driven adventures that the studio has built its legacy on.