After that less than popular reveal trailer for Dragon Age: The Veilguard at the Xbox Games Showcase, the subsequent gameplay demonstration on June 11 was BioWare’s chance to win favour back with displeased fans. At the very least, Dragon Age series creator David Gaider likes what he saw, saying the development team have done a “great job.”
Gaider, who served as lead writer on the Dragon Age games until he left BioWare in 2016 (making The Veilguard the first entry without his involvement), recently got round to watching the gameplay trailer for himself and shared his thoughts on Twitter. Said trailer covers a curated segment of an early mission, with new player character Rook and their party doing some exploring and combat before confronting antagonist Solas. It honestly does a better job of demonstrating what The Veilguard is like than its weirdly Borderlands-esque reveal trailer; something Gaider also feels is the case.
“I’d say this made for a better introduction than the reveal trailer,” says Gaider. “We see some story, and tone-wise it feels a lot darker and more Dragon Age. Like I said, trailers often need to be taken with a grain of salt, and my impression is that many fans are relieved. Which is great.” He does admit the new art style will take some getting used to, but acknowledges this is an aspect that has “changed every game so that’s nothing new.”
However, Gaider has nothing but praise for the environments, calling them “utterly gorgeous,” adding, “To see the sprawl of Minrathous—wow. I wish we could have done this for Kirkwall or even Val Royeaux.” He wraps his thoughts up by saying it was lovely to see Solas again and the teases for The Veilguard‘s story have left him eager to see how things will play out: “Could probably chatter about the implications for days, and how this aligns (or doesn’t) with where I thought the story would go… but I won’t.”
While Gaider has plenty of nice things to say about The Veilguard, it does seem like the gameplay has done little to appease a significant number of fans. At the time of writing, the gameplay trailer on YouTube has approximately 199,000 dislikes compared to 72,000 likes. Although that’s still a better split compared to the reveal trailer, which now sits at 234,000 dislikes and 41,000 likes.
The fact that the gameplay trailer has scored more likes than the reveal trailer does suggest it’s won over some people, and a quick glance at Twitter shows, amid the harsher criticisms, there are plenty of fans still excited for The Veilguard‘s launch later this year. Early previews of another demo shown to press at Summer Game Fest have been mostly positive too. VGC called it “exciting, and engaging and made us desperate to see the next 50 to 100 hours of game,” while Inverse said it’s “hopeful the secret sauce of Dragon Age is still there.”
