Dragon Age: The Veilguard has finally been revealed, and judging from the gameplay trailer alone, it looks alright. Not amazing. Not terrible. It looks fun and has potential, which is what I want from a BioWare RPG in 2024, especially since the studio hasn’t produced a title worth playing since Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014. That’s a decade of mediocrity, which means it has a lot to prove as it returns to the fantasy well.
We don’t live in a world where BioWare is the cream of the crop anymore, not in RPGs or in open world games, two genres we have seen evolve significantly in the past ten years. Yet it still holds onto Mass Effect and Dragon Age, two of the medium’s biggest names that come with incredible cultural cache. Regardless of whether new entries live up to the hype, they’re bound to draw millions of eyes, which brings us to Veilguard and the laundry list of impossible expectations it must live up to.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Changed How We View Blockbuster RPGs Forever
We also have the mechanically complex, visually splendorous, and beloved elephant in the room, that is Baldur’s Gate 3. Larian’s masterpiece has been mentioned in the same breath as Dragon Age: The Veilguard countless times in the past week, because as a new high for the genre, BioWare’s latest effort will no doubt be expected to live up to it.
But hoping for this is not only foolish, but downright impossible. Games are often developed in a vacuum, made behind closed doors for years before finally being unveiled to the world. Major mechanics or narrative ideas are locked in at an early stage, and once you reach a certain point, it can be too late to turn back without throwing the entire production schedule into disarray.
I have no doubt that BioWare was looking at the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 and wishes for the same to happen with Dragon Age (especially as it made the first two Baldur’s Gates), but it wouldn’t have been wise to see what it was doing or try and translate it into its own project, at least not in major, all-encompassing ways. To think this is to set yourself up for failure, and to expect The Veilguard to live up to an image in our heads that it has no business trying to achieve.
Besides, Larian takes more than a couple of pages from the BioWare book anyway, especially when it comes to the increased focus on its companions and how the player character can get to know, grow closer, and even fall in love with them. Baldur’s Gate 3 wouldn’t be nearly as successful if its world and characters didn’t capture the imagination of its audience, and without them, it would not be where it is today. Yes, it has an accomplished 5e combat system and a great world to explore, but with no emotional connection underpinning it all, what does it really matter?
Dragon Age: The Veilguard Should Be Judged On Its Own Merits
I think our immediate comparison of Veilguard and Baldur’s Gate 3 also points to how utterly confrontational video game communities have become, and how it is impossible to enjoy a variety of different things in the same genre on a similar level, only to champion a single title and punch down on all the others. Moments after reviews drop and the game is released, I can see the common consensus being ‘Well, it isn’t as good as Baldur’s Gate 3’ or ‘It sucks it isn’t like the old Dragon Age games’ when neither of those conclusions are productive or fair to put forward.
Once you’ve finished the game and come to those conclusions yourself from a real place, by all means go wild, but right now they’re being drawn after two trailers and a handful of gameplay previews, some of which seem pretty positive. The Veilguard features a real-time combat system, will forgo an open world for larger hubs and linear missions, and is far more about building traditional relationships and making moral narrative choices over the freeform nature of Baldur’s Gate 3. Our own Stacey Henley said that Veilguard understands what it means to be a BioWare game in her preview, and I think she’s right.
But what it means to be a BioWare game has changed, and what it means to be an RPG has changed since we last got our hands on Dragon Age or Mass Effect. Those are key factors to consider when it comes to The Veilguard and how we’ve already drawn harsh conclusions about what it is and what it isn’t, and how it measures up to a masterpiece like Baldur’s Gate 3 which, by most accounts, will remain untouchable for years to come.
Lets at least wait for The Veilguard to come out before we pit it against Larian in this unfair gaming deathmatch. Besides, it looks pretty cool, and that’s all that should really matter.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.
