One of the largest criticisms I and plenty of different Dragon Age followers had about The Veilguard was that it failed to hold over most of our selections from the earlier video games in BioWare’s fantasy RPG collection. In truth, the fourth recreation within the franchise solely imports three selections from Dragon Age: Inquisition, a stark departure from its predecessor which used a complete separate app to allow you to craft a world state primarily based on tons of of earlier selections. While that limitation lingers over The Veilguard, BioWare says this shouldn’t sign to followers that selections from video games way back to the unique Dragon Age: Origins can’t issue right into a future recreation.
In an interview with IGN, Game Director Corinne Busche was requested if BioWare’s builders wished they’d included extra selection carryover in The Veilguard. The ultimate recreation solely implements three selections particularly relating to the Inquisitor, the protagonist of Dragon Age: Inquisition. These selections primarily find yourself affecting just a few strains of dialogue, and in the meantime, The Veilguard goes out of its method to keep away from truly addressing the rest the participant might have executed in earlier video games. Every returning character’s dialogue is written in a manner that they might have feasibly ended up the place they do within the sequel no matter no matter selections you’ll have made. Some trivia falls by way of the cracks, like Isabela speaking as if she joined the participant in Dragon Age II, when it was attainable to play that recreation with out recruiting her. But broadly, BioWare selected to take extra care to not contradict gamers’ selections than to symbolize them. This was a far cry from the studio’s earlier work, and whereas I recognize the care the staff took to not step on toes, I feel most followers had been stunned to seek out one thing that felt so severed from earlier video games, particularly as The Veilguard’s story ties up so many free ends from throughout the franchise.
The studio has stated that it deliberate on utilizing the geographical distance between the occasions of the southern areas of Thedas in earlier video games and the northern setting of The Veilguard to get narrative distance. However, Busche defined to IGN that simply because a choice from Origins, DAII, or Inquisition didn’t issue into The Veilguard’s story, that doesn’t imply it could actually’t be imported in a future recreation.
“The massive factor for us is we wished to make this story, each single selection you make, really feel related to it,” Busche stated. “One factor that we may have acknowledged extra clearly or possibly alluded to extra clearly within the recreation is the concept simply because these selections from the previous library of video games didn’t essentially affect this explicit story, that doesn’t imply they’re gone. This is an opportunity for us to actually key in to what issues with these occasions and what’s taking place in Northern Thedas. I do absolutely count on that these selections going clear again to Dragon Age Origins will once more matter. So simply wished to be on file with that. Every considered one of your selections that individuals have made all through their Dragon Age journey, these are nonetheless your selections. And in case you’ve seen the key 2D ending we talked about, a few of these occasions being fairly pertinent. It’s straightforward to see how these selections can and will probably be related into the long run.”
While a hypothetical Dragon Age 5 is years away at this level, what we do learn about the way forward for the collection implies that previous selections might be extra related down the highway. The Veilguard’s secret ending specifically has ramifications for the entire franchise, relatively than simply that recreation, so I may see BioWare circling round to older recreation selections whereas plotting the collection’ path ahead. Will or not it’s sufficient to make up for The Veilguard’s relative disconnect? We’ll see in just a few years, as for now, BioWare has pivoted its focus to the subsequent Mass Effect recreation.
