Dragon Age: The Veilguard – A Departure from RPG Roots
I don’t know who Dragon Age: The Veilguard is for—it certainly doesn’t seem to be RPG fans. BioWare gave us our first glimpse of the game in action this week, and while it was a big improvement over the initial reveal trailer, it seems to have completely shed its CRPG roots. As Josh wrote in his preview, “Dragon Age becomes what it was probably always destined to be: A Mass Effect game”. If it wasn’t already apparent from Andromeda and Anthem, this really hammers home how out of touch BioWare and EA have become.
When BioWare introduced the world to Mass Effect, it was trying to find its place in a world seemingly dominated by consoles. It’s easy to forget that PC gaming was in a dire state not all that long ago, inundated as we were with poor quality ports and constant snubs whenever E3 rolled around. How things have changed. Now nearly every game launches on PC— frequently the definitive version—and instead it’s E3 that’s dead.
According to lead writer David Gaider, even when it outsold Mass Effect twice, first with Origins and then with Inquisition. This is likely one of the reasons why, since Origins, Dragon Age has struggled with its identity. With Dragon Age 2, we got an RPG with some of BioWare’s best storytelling, but it was shackled to a combat system that lacked any tactical nuance, and it was devoid of the meaty, interactive systems that make RPGs so compelling. BioWare eventually followed it up with Inquisition, a game that tried to satisfy both CRPG players and action-RPG stans. It was an improvement, certainly, but there was so much friction between its two competing game design philosophies. I still have a lot of fondness for it, but it never felt as confident or cohesive as Origins.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard seems to have resolved this friction by completely doing away with the CRPG side of things. Granted, this is just based on one demo and a gameplay reveal, but this is how BioWare and EA have decided to showcase the game to the world, and it doesn’t make a great first impression. What they’ve decided to show off is a game that frequently wrenches control from the player, offers limited dialogue options and features a combat system designed for the action crowd, complete with active dodging and parrying.
I’m hesitant to call it mindless, but as I was watching I certainly started to drift off.
Last year, when some early gameplay was leaked, the combat system got folks wondering if Dragon Age was taking inspiration from soulslikes. At the time, I prayed it wasn’t—and thought it seemed unlikely, since these mechanics aren’t remotely exclusive to that subgenre—but now that I’ve seen what The Veilguard looks like in action, I actually wish it had taken more cues from the likes of FromSoftware.
An earlier scene has left me convinced this sadly isn’t a one-off. After a fight against some demons, the party encounters a magical barrier halting their progress. One of the things I love most about RPGs is how something as simple as a locked door or blocked corridor can add texture to an adventure. Maybe you need to rethink your route and find a way around it, or hunt down the location of a key. Perhaps this is a door you’ll be able to open later, creating a shortcut through a dangerous area. Or it could be that you have some special skill that you’ll be able to employ—like a rogue who can pick locks—reinforcing the roleplaying fantasy. In The Veilguard, it’s none of these things. The player character just hits it with a sword and it dissipates. So what was the point of it at all?
EA’s myopic vision has blinded it to reality, infecting BioWare with the inability to make the kind of games people actually get excited about.
The Mass Effect model is just too simple. Andromeda failed for many reasons, from mismanagement to iffy writing, but the heart of the problem was that it had nowhere to go. Mass Effect 3 at least tried to do something new-ish with its war system, but the series’ framework is just so limiting, and the philosophy behind it places so little importance on the kinds of systems that allow RPG designers to flex. Hence why Andromeda’s big advancement was making the game a bit more open-world. We got three genuinely great games, but after the trilogy concluded BioWare should have moved on.
You could argue that my desire to see Dragon Age return to its CRPG roots means I’m stuck in the past, too, but there’s a crucial difference. Games like Planescape: Torment, Baldur’s Gate, Ultima, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura—the classics—were all built on the foundations of tabletop roleplaying, and with that comes infinite possibilities, largely because it gives so much power and agency to players. Disco Elysium and Baldur’s Gate 3 prove that there’s still so much more that can be done with this RPG model, and they are far from alone in bringing tabletop ideas into the digital realm. This is the future of videogame roleplaying.
EA’s myopic vision has blinded it to reality, infecting BioWare with the inability to make the kind of games people actually get excited about. This should have been a huge moment—a way to show that after years of missteps it’s actually listened. Instead, it seems to be doubling down on its mistakes. What started as a studio desperately trying to maintain its relevance and chase what seemed like the future of RPGs has become a studio stuck in the past, unable to adapt to an industry and genre at their most vibrant. And it’s the worst part of the genre’s past to get stuck in—a dead end with nothing new to add.
