Creative director Jonathan Epler explains what it took to rebuild the Dragon Age series, and how one infamous zone from Inquisition offered a key lesson going forward.
The upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard is not only a comeback for BioWare's high-fantasy role-playing series but also something of a return to form for its developers. Releasing ten years after the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Veilguard (formerly known as Dreadwolf) took some time to find itself during its lengthy development, which unfortunately saw key BioWare staff depart the company. During this time period, BioWare also released Anthem, a co-op multiplayer title that struggled to find an audience and drifted the studio away from its single-player roots.
But now, The Veilguard is shaping up to be a modernized take on a classic BioWare roleplaying game, one that leans into the dev's rich history of storytelling and cast of characters—all of which inform players' decision making as they navigate the political and social strands of the world of Dragon Age during dark times.
As creative director Jonathan Epler explained to Game Developer in a recent interview following an extended hands-on with the game, taking time away from Dragon Age gave the studio a chance to learn from its mistakes (and successes) of the last decade. He said that the team took inspiration from previous critically-acclaimed DLC releases—and that he has an aversion to the phrase "BioWare Magic."
Set years after Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Veilguard sees the world of Dragon Age facing an apocalypse. Playing as Rook, a new protagonist of the player's making, you assemble a team of new and veteran heroes to take on the evil gods causing mass chaos and decide the fate of Thedas in its darkest period. This all occurs after after the ritual performed by former alley Solas goes awry, shattering the barrier between the mortal realm and the Veil.
That sense of impending doom amid an apocalyptic event is at the forefront of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and right from the opening, we fight through the capital city, Minrathous, which is overrun by demons. It's a raucous cold open that accommodates series newcomers and chaotically greets returning players. The prologue serves as an effective opener for what's to come as well as a showcase of the game's pivot to a more guided, mission-based structure that blends faster and more dynamic action with character-driven storytelling.
Image via BioWare/Electronic Arts.
According to the Epler, this significant shift to a more tightly designed RPG without the open world sprawl was not only in response to player feedback following Inquisition, but also served the vision of the game's deeper focus on its characters.
"It's interesting, for a BioWare game we usually start with designing the world and story and go from there, but for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, we knew pretty much from the start that we wanted to make this game all about the companions and your relationship to them," said Epler. "Above all, we wanted to ensure that each character has a key role to play in the main story—we never wanted to have a companion that has one thing going for them in the party and just stays there for the rest of the game."
"After bringing the Dragon Age series to an open-world-style format in Inquisition, you’d be forgiven for thinking The Veilguard would take place in an even bigger landscape. In truth, it actually goes a different way, leaning more into the type of experience that feels closer to Mass Effect 3 or Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic—a more contained, mission-driven experience that hopefully is filled with less busywork."
After the opening sequence, Rook and their crew find themselves in a haven in the Veil known as the Lighthouse, an evolving base of operations where the party can coordinate and plan their next move. It also serves as the nexus point for travel to the different cities and zones in Thedas. The Lighthouse felt like a familiar headquarters—akin to the Normandy from Mass Effect—but with more incentive for internal exploration.
True to the developer's claims, The Veilguard effectively presents an endearing party and a sense of camaraderie, and you assemble a proper crew quickly.
When going into the different explorable spaces, this is where the game's more guided and mission-focused structure became clear. Instead of the Inquisition's sprawling open-ended zones, The Veilguard's different regions present more of a structured and focused space to explore—akin to the zones from games like God of War: Ragnarok or Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. While initially these zones felt smaller in scope—and they certainly are compared to Inquisition, especially its infamous Hinterlands area—they do open up throughout the story as Rook gains new abilities and learns of new threats.
Speaking with Epler, the choice to move away from the open-world experience and back to a more traditional story-driven progression was to focus on the game's cast of characters and their growth while avoiding a sense of aimlessness and fatigue that was present within Inquisition. Epler particularly mentioned the response to how players engaged The Hinterlands, which many players struggled to get past.
"The Hinterlands zone from Inquisition was something we really reflected on after the release," said Epler, "We realized we needed a stronger narrative hold to get you out of that zone because, at the time, we wanted players to experience the space how they wanted to in Inquisition, but it ended up making it easy to lose track of the main story arc for that game and feel somewhat aimless. So, for The Veilguard, we wanted to ensure that no matter where you go and what you do, there's always this looming threat of the ancient gods or the end of the world coming."
"We made sure that the game's content was much more focused and anchored by that narrative hook."
Image via BioWare/Electronic Arts.
He explained the team was greatly inspired by the beloved downloadable expansions from previous games like Trespasser from Dragon Age Inquisition and The Citadel from Mass Effect 3. "I think a lot of the lessons we learned that helped us with building up The Veilguard was from Inquisition's Trespasser DLC," said the creative director. "The full game is a big, big adventure and a big open world, and we got a lot of feedback about how going open world made the story and narrative feel diluted, and like they didn't matter as much. Trespasser for us was putting more of a focus on the story, the villain, and building the experience around that tighter and more contained story."
"BioWare has always been about its cast of characters and its tighter story, and we learned from Trespasser, along with Mass Effect 3's Citadel DLC, that it was OK to focus things down a little bit from the open world structure and put the story, the side content, characters into a tighter experience."
After playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard I was really impressed by the player companions, a feature BioWare has long specialized in. One stand-out character was Lucanis, an assassin specialized in hunting rogue mages who also happens to be haunted by an evil spirit that only he can see. The interactions with Lucanis, and how he plays off player choices and the reactions from his dark passenger felt very much like classic, multifaceted BioWare-style character growth—but with a pretty fantastic sense of gravitas layered on.
Image via BioWare/Electronic Arts.
Epler acknowledged that The Veilguard took some time to find its vision during development—especially as BioWare was in an awkward transitional period following the 2014 release of Inquisition.
"The phrase 'Bioware Magic' is something I kind of have an allergic reaction to at this point when I hear it, but for us when it comes to making this game, it was all about the characters of this world and building that world up," said Epler. "That's what we're best at, and it's also a reflection of the people who made this game. This team has pulled something truly amazing together and I think people will see that excitement and love that's been poured into every detail of this game."
For now, Dragon Age: The Veilguard presents an exciting return to the series that's more of a punchy and character-driven take on a high-fantasy epic. For the creative director, the game represents a big moment for BioWare and its focus on moving back to its roots and bringing the studio back to what they have done best.
"Honestly, the big lesson we learned during the making of this game was that we just need to focus on what we're built to do. BioWare has always been about building strong, character focused role-playing games throughout. We did certainly try other things during the development of this game, but once we really focused deeply on what BioWare is really all about, that was when the game really took shape for us. I want this game to feel like you're coming home to the Dragon Age universe, and setting foot back into Thedas."
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