After a less than well received reveal trailer, Dragon Age: The Veilguard appears to have curried some favour back thanks to its gameplay trailer, which confirmed a number of key details about the game. BioWare has since shared more information, including how this Dragon Age will be noticeably more linear than its predecessor.
Speaking with IGN during an extended preview of the game, director Corinne Busche explained how, for The Veilguard, the development team opted for a “mission-based structure.” By comparison, Dragon Age: Inquisition had a semi-open world structure, consisting of multiple areas players could freely explore. Given the industry’s slight obsession with crafting large open worlds for people to run around in, I’m surprised BioWare has decided to go in the opposite direction for the new Dragon Age, but Busche said this will be to the game’s benefit: “We believe that’s how we get the best narrative experience, the best moment-to-moment experience.”
That’s also not to say players will be railroaded from one objective to the next. Some missions will offer more opportunities for exploration than others, with optional content, hidden secrets, and branching paths to discover. As Busche said, “It does open up, but it is a mission-based, highly curated game.” In addition, she provided light details on The Veilguard‘s side-quests, sharing one example about investigating a missing family which lets you search for clues in a bog area.
I’m sure some will be disappointed to not get the opportunity to freely roam The Veilguard‘s setting of the Tevinter Imperium region. But this mission-based structure is not too dissimilar to what BioWare did with the much lauded Mass Effect 2. I reckon most players will be fine with it as long as the story and character writing are on par with the previous games. Plus, it means BioWare can avoid the issues some games with open worlds suffer from. For example, plenty of Ubisoft’s open world settings have been criticised for being littered with so many objectives that they feel like they’re only there to pad the world out and stop it from feeling empty.
We won’t have to wait much longer to see how well fans take to Dragon Age: The Veilguard as the game is scheduled to launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC this fall. Given it’s been almost a decade since Dragon Age: Inquisition came out, the wait will hopefully have been worth it.
