“I don’t think we’re ever going to make everyone happy.”
You canread my much lengthier preview impressions of Dragon Age: The Veilguardelsewhere on the site.
This is what we need for this Dragon Age game."
There have been rumours the game has undergone some fairly major revisions during its protracted development time.
“Absolutely,” says Epler, when I ask him.
EvenDragon Age: Inquisitionhad a dungeon-delving, four-player co-op multiplayer mode.
“We tried a bunch of different things - multiplayer is one of them,” Epler says.
“We tried a few opportunities, how it would work and what didn’t.
“We’ve basically broken it down into essentially a three-act structure,” Epler explains.
“Each act is different though.
In other words, Act One may be larger and longer than the others.
The Hinterlands was one of them.
The difference in The Veilguard is it won’t be an open-world game.
You don’t play as them.
In previous BioWare games, this hasn’t been the case.
But it sounds like there may besomepreference and differentiation after all.
They don’t adapt their personalities to conform to the player and that’s fundamentally the difference.
There’s merits to it and challenges.
In a broader sense, I also didn’t see much differentiation in dialogue outcomes.
There was a sense that my responses were variations on pre-destined outcomes rather than differing courses altogether.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t some major choice moments, though.
“We wanted to focus on base reactivity,” Epler says.
The reason why it’s done this way is two-fold.
The other reason it’s been done this way is to serve as an onboarding tool.
So I really view it as a beautiful onboarding tool as well.”
The art style, for one, he believes is timeless.
“It’s still going to look striking in 10 years, 15 years,” he says.
For what it’s worth, I agree.
The Veilguard was gorgeous when I played it and one of the best looking BioWare games I’ve seen.
But a byproduct of being around for so long is, inevitably, change.
Key personnel have changed, the company has fundamentally changed, and so have the games being made today.
Larian made a great success of a traditional CRPG after all.
“I don’t think we’re ever going to make everyone happy,” he adds.
“There’s always going to be someone who’s unhappy.
