Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the latest in a string of BioWare games that failed to impress. The once-lauded game developer, known for its groundbreaking RPGs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins, once again fell short of expectations and the game’s sales reflect the general sentiment amongst consumers: Veilguard only sold half the number of copies that BioWare parent company EA predicted.
It didn’t have to be this way. There’s a simple path toward success for BioWare games: Going back to the developer’s roots. Here are a few ways that the game fell short, and simple solutions if BioWare is given the chance to make another Dragon Age title (or any other RPG, for that matter).
The Combat Was Fun . . . For Awhile
While I do think the action-based combat in Veilguard was pretty fun, it was ultimately the worst of both worlds. As an action game, it lacked the kind of depth that makes other titles in the action genre stand out. As an RPG, it also lacked the depth found in many competitors such as Baldur’s Gate 3, or many of BioWare’s past games. Discarding most of the team-based tactics used in past titles made the combat feel shallow by comparison.
As a longtime Dragon Age and RPG player, I very much missed the ability to switch between characters during combat and exploration. I think there is a game where you could combine the more action-based moment-to-moment combat with a great deal more tactical depth. There’s no reason a pause-play option couldn’t exist alongside the flashier melee and magic. There’s no reason to limit the player to just their main character. Too often, playing Veilguard felt like a truly solo experience where your teammates were just there for show rather than as actually useful participants.
I’m not saying go back to Origins combat. But go back to Origins tactics paired with the fun action elements and you have yourself a winning combination.
RPG Elements And Writing Were Sorely Lacking
As mentioned above, the RPG elements are mostly very watered down in Veilguard. This is a broad statement, but it applies to so many aspects of the game, from the leveling mechanics to interactions with characters—companions and NPCs. The writing was incredibly uneven, and while you are given some choices, it too often felt like the game was on rails, and that regardless of how you interacted with various dialogue options, the same outcomes were bound to happen.
What this leads to is a lack of immersion. It feels like you’re playing a game rather than embarking on an adventure. Even the small details—the way you open chests, for instance—feel gamified in an unsatisfying way. Far too often, I felt like I was playing bits and pieces of other games such as the rebooted God Of War (which clearly also influenced combat).
And while there are some good moments of dialogue, too often it felt hamfisted and dumbed down, with cheesy jokes. The script is riddled with cliches. The writing in general felt designed by committee to be as inoffensive and unoriginal as possible. One commenter on my YouTube channel said it felt like HR was in the room throughout the entire game, and I think that sums it up nicely.
The Tone Was Completely Wrong
Along the same lines, tonally The Veilguard was a complete disaster. Far too many characters were chipper and happy-go-lucky all the time. The grimdark feel of the first games was all but gone. Despite dire, potentially cataclysmic events at play, the game’s upbeat tone was relentless and suffocating. The game rarely feels like its predecessors, not simply because of the gameplay itself, but because the tone has been so drastically altered.
BioWare is clearly targeting a younger audience here, but they want to have their cake and it, too. They want to explore mature themes in an immature way. They want to create a serious story but make it bloodless. This is a game designed for a vague “modern audience” (more on that in a minute) but in trying to be everything for everyone, it becomes a game with no actual target audience at all. You just can’t play it this safe and hope to succeed. The inability to be at least a little bit evil, to make bad choices, to treat your companions rudely etc. all conspire to make Veilguard feel sanitized in the worst way possible.
This extends to the game’s lore, which departs heavily from past titles in order to make the safest and least offensive choice at every turn. Past racial tension between elves and humans is all but ignored in the plot. It’s very puzzling until you see interviews with the game’s developers who can’t even recognize one of the most memorable Origins and Dragon Age II characters.
The Aesthetic Was Completely Wrong
The game’s aesthetic simply reinforces its problem with tone. It’s too bright and colorful. Monsters are essentially color-coded in neon hues. The character design itself felt inspired more by Fortnite than by Dragon Age. While some of the levels are quite pretty to look at, they also felt hollow and empty. Nothing about the world felt truly alive or lived in. Cities are weirdly static and exploration boils down to simple puzzles and uninspired loot. There are too few things to interact with in the world that actually matter. The aesthetic alone likely turned off many would-be players who might have been drawn in if it looked like a modern take on Origins or even like the concept art.
The Culture Wars
Probably the most contentious debate surrounding The Veilguard was the inclusion of a non-binary companion. While I think this is largely overblown in terms of the game’s problems, it’s worth noting that the companion in question was problematic not so much because of their gender identity but because of the clumsy way in which the game handled the issue. Using a modern term like “non-binary” in a fantasy setting is incredibly boneheaded and immersion-breaking (especially when there’s already an in-universe term that would have worked better). And some of the scenes—including one instructing the player on how to properly apologize for misgendering someone—felt more like scolding than authentic story moments. The truth is, you can include progressive themes about acceptance of “outcasts” in society without beating us over the head with the writing equivalent of a sledgehammer.
As I noted at the time, this type of clumsy, preachy writing does more harm than good. You have to work a little bit harder to include a more subtle message, but the results are almost always better. When you invite someone to think critically, you help cast complex ideas in a new light. When you simply tell people how to think, it’s only natural to be met with pushback. BioWare shouldn’t remove LGBTQ characters from their games, but they should do a better job at making those characters feel complex and authentic. Part of that means allowing the player to make the same type of choices they’d make with any other character, good or ill. Anything short of that is condescending.
This Didn’t Feel Like A Dragon Age Game
Ultimately, Dragon Age: The Veilguard simply didn’t feel like a Dragon Age game. The bizarre tone, the lack of depth in RPG and combat mechanics, the sloppy writing, the mobile game UI, the preachiness, the lackluster story, the lore-breaking, all of this created a sense that BioWare and EA weren’t actually releasing a sequel at all. They were undoing what came before, abandoning the Dragon Age we knew and loved, and replacing it with something else entirely—built for an entirely new audience.
An audience, it should be noted, that did not show up to play. The old audience was spurned and the new one did not materialize—which is something I keep seeing across different franchises and mediums. Star Wars and Marvel have faced similar backlash and apathy.
If there is another Dragon Age, I hope it goes back to its origins. It should be darker in both tone and aesthetic. It should capture the feel of a grimdark fantasy world. I’m fine with a more action-based combat system so long as we are still given tactical depth, control over companions and less repetitive engagements. Baldur’s Gate 3 proves that there is still a huge, passionate market for RPGs with depth and soul—the two ingredients most lacking in Veilguard.
Still, as with Mass Effect, I do believe there is hope for this franchise. The world BioWare created is rich and fascinating and deep. All they need to do is go back to what made Origins so special. Put the work in that’s required to craft a compelling story filled with branching paths, complicated characters and hard choices. Give us lots of different character-creation options, each with his or her own unique backstory. I’d go so far as to say that the next game should include different prologues for each “origin” just like the first game. It would be a massive hit.
Whether corporate meddling and misguided political ambitions will ever allow this franchise to become great again remains to be seen. But I am always hopeful that once-great game studios like BioWare can reach their former glory.
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