Dragon Age: Veilguard - Bioware Game Informer Interview Drops Massive Gameplay & Story Details 

No McGuffin but Rook's blood connects them to the Fade and to Solas. Got it.

17:01 Healing magic was in DA2 and Inquisition taking that away along with other types of magic was one of my biggest pet peeves with it.

Lmfao that corporate impression took me by complete surprise ahaha

the “tone deaf” chapter is brutal and funny at the same time 😂 Other than that excellent summary of the information released the past few days.

Mark Darrha? I mean, I wouldn't take him as a guarantee of anything. He was there during DA2 (I love in the game, but I am not blind to its many flaws). He was there during Inquisition, mediocre game at best. He left Bioware and started trash talking them, and immediately after being hired by them again (as a consultant) he begins licking their boots again. That man has no credibility in my book.

This has been grinding my gears for awhile . Dragon Age Origins has four schools of magic. In Dragon age 2 primal magic was spilt. Ice and fire were elemental. Everything else remained under primal. Inquisition threw out the baby and the bath water. Veilguard seems poised to follow Inquisition.

Oh, the way the main story goes after the prologue sounds like a bit of a bummer to me for sure. It already irked me how the whole "epic hunt for Solas", featuring a lot of intrigue and maybe even a long awaited full Elven uprising led by him, was skipped over right to the end. Which was exactly how (poorly) the mage-templar war was handled in DAI after it was setup up for the whole of DA2. Which is to say : crammed right in the beggining to be resolved as quickly and possible, thus largely inconsequential. But what we seem to have currently is that we fail automatically because of sheer incompetence on the team's and/or Solas' part? Varric and friends were 100% sure this ritual was the big one where Solas breaks the veil forever. And since it apparently wasn't, why didn't Solas tell them as much? Pride doesn't equal stupid. Who would be opposed to making sure the evil Elven gods stay locked up, especially as they are supposedly close to breaking free whether the Egg destroys the Veil or not ? It had to be confusing for the plot twist, I get it, but it just sounds contrived. And then Solas gets sidelined into supporting character hell AKA the Fade probably for 80% of the rest of the game? Some decisions were already starting to seem motivated by "let's copy random stuff from Baldur's Gate 3, a fundamentally different kind of RPG, because that game was critically and more importantly, financially successful". But making Solas the Dream Visitor 1:1? Come on now... Also what's this about "your faction choice influencing which companion you start out with" when it's always Harding-Neve-Bellara due to obvious narrative reasons? Did I just misunderstand that point?

The only thing i dont understand is the only 3 skills battle

The background choices are huge for me as a DAO lover, and I’m really hoping it leads to lots of reactivity and unique dialogue.

The “Tone Deaf” chapter really solidified you as my favorite channel covering RPGs. Quality, important coverage

I wish instead of releasing that horrible trailer and the gameplay reveal merely showing a level 1 character with no abilities or anything Bioware would show us more of what they talk about in the GI article. The article is doing a much better job at selling the game to me then anything else so far but I need to see it before I can really believe it at this point, for all I know this is just them taking a page out of Peter Molyneux's playbook.

No preorders.

I haven’t been overly excited about this game, I had a feeling it would be a severe letdown after learning about the layoffs earlier. I hope they can pull something together to make the game enjoyable, but I doubt I will be supporting it.

Man, when you started describing the hatchet man verbiage, I swear I was listening to Kana Rua talk!

i'm very concerned about this three skills and one ultimate. I can't get casting the same three spells all game

Oh, so shops and so on send their Anthem stuff back to them and they were unwilling to toss it? :D ^^ ps: Anthem's core mechanics weren't bad - the story however was! Frankly, I'd love to turn back time and somehow force them to make Anthem into a single player experience (so basically the only thing that would STAY is the the flying mechanic - rest? Can it, start new!)

Honestly? This article has moved me to being at least hopeful. I’m not 100% on board because A. It’s been 10 years and B. I don’t have a release date so it’s hard to get really excited.

thanks for sharing your thoughts in this vid!! i bet a lot of us will be stuck at the character creation part for 3 hours or so haha

McKay sounds like a dbag. I'm sad that employees at BW have to deal with that kind of blase attitude about the layoffs from C suite. I'm going to play despite his crap attitude, because I love the writing and the devs and because I love DA. I hope we get a release date soon!

Overall the article left me cautiously optimistic about the game, although was surprised by the amount of massive spoilers in it. Also while there was good technical stuff there, at times it felt almost like a press release, which did make me a bit nervous. There were things, though, in it that irritated me. First, the legacy of the Dragon Age games is a massively complicated one. Like you can't really talk about the development decisions and response to Inquisition without bringing up the initial backlash to Dragon Age 2 as a lot of the design choices were seemingly to do the opposite of DA2. Which was fine, except in that decade after the release of the Inquisition the discussion on the second game has changed drastically, which in turn has also shifted how Inquisition is viewed. Not claiming in anyway that DAI is now hated or anything, but I also don't feel that in general discussion it is considered as great as it was during launch. Now while ignoring this complex history of the franchise is kind of understandable, if tragic as it is a fascinating topic, the depth of pretending here is weird. Especially because of my second issue, which is dragging out the reception to Mass Effect 3 and its ending in that utterly passive aggressive manner. Again, while there is still disagreement about it, the Extended Ending and especially the Legendary Edition did again change how that Trilogy is looked upon, so why throw it under the bus again to put over this game a decade later? Sorry about the ramble, it is just that while writing this, I realized what I found so off-putting, aside from that bizarre tone-deafness, is how the writer of the article is almost forcefully asserting that the context that existed when Inquisition came out has remained completely unchanged. Which is just such a weird thing as I don't see what would be the harm of discussing it drawing inspiration across all the games?

Huh. I'll wait and see

There is audio now!!!

Yeah this confirms all my worries of veilguard no story pay for solas, A focus on over top marvel style bs, and basically an auto battler combat. If was a BioWare developer I be looking for new job because regardless if this is a success or not you likely be layoff anyway. Man it just me or does feel like AAA companies have given up and are trying to cash one last check before dipping.

Hear me out, everyone. If your Grey Warden survived DA: Origins, do you think he/she went on the Calling process? Or will be? It's been many years..Maybe found a cure? As much as I love the Grey Wardens, maaan - I can not have two protags going future darkspawn or ghouls going out against darkspawn underground.. It felt natural in Origins due to it being a center piece in the story. This time, with a choice, would you pick it knowing your doomed to the Calling? Nothing against the Order but if you can choose a different background, you're just as powerful. I guess I'm looking for a different POV to convince me.😅

That Origins music in the background is ace!!

Thanks for the breakdown. Fantastic work. I really hope they're not blowing smoke up our asses because.... this sounds like it's gonna be worth the wait!

Okay so you’ve convinced me to not entirely write this game off. Not gonna preorder (anything ever again really), but I’ll keep an eye on it and maybe consider getting after a couple of months if the consensus is that it’s decent

Great video!

The corporate impression took me right back to Wrath of the Righteous. Well done.

The collected trash demons do indeed look like collected trash. I hope there is a mod to change them back into Dragon Age demons. Another ritual went wrong and rook is marked just like the Inquisitor with a magical mcguffin that let's him freely travel into the fade and whatever else. I hope the story answers why only Varic and a scout were sent to stop an elven god terrorist preparing to destroy Thedas. Unless Thedas is stupid, I assume a force strong enough to maybe challenge a god was ready once Solas was located. Rook makes no sense yet with the limited information we have so far. i assume we will get some prologue to explain the unrelated nobody suddenly being only one of four people in the world trying to save the world from imminent destruction. Looks like it might be a good Bioware game if the writing is good. I'll definitely be checking out the reviews at launch.

Disappointed that virtuosso didn’t make the mage specialization from inquisition multiplayer always wanted to try it but unlocking it in the multiplayer was an even bigger pain then playing multiplayer

Shadow of War! That’s what the combat reminds me of. Been thinking about it, and that’s what we have here.

I'm becoming more excited. I just hope it's not broken at launch.

Fantastic analysis

I love how it’s always, the content they show US is good trust me bro it’s much better than what they are showing you. Which just leaves me going wtf. So I am to believe they have good stuff to show, but for some reason are not showing that to you know the people who would be paying for it… sure sure

Sounds intriguing and convinces me to stay tuned. However its EA and I will stay sceptical to the end

The best part about playing a mage in the first 3 games is the utilities mages can bring to a battle. You have a spell for every situation but now its going to be limited down to 3 abilities? Sounds like picking a class is merely cosmetic. Guess we'll have to find out.

The hatchet man CEO should be a recurring character 😂

Quick not, gealing magic as a spell was avaliable in Origins and dragon age 2, only merill merill didnt had access to healung tree due to her being blood mage. Inqustion had focus skill of knight enchanter and regen potuon/granade byt those dont count.

You went full on Mephistopheles on that tone deaf chapter 😂😂

As far as the article, people who have a vested interest in the game succeeding saying its going to be fantastic isn't particularly compelling. I heard very little in terms of specifics that persuades me this is going to be an outstanding game. Several specifics are somewhat discouraging. A party of 3 and the footage we have seen suggests combat that is neither skill based nor strategy based. For combat to be engaging, either you need a wide range of options, time to consider the options and an interface that allows you to effective control the entire party with precision, or you need a game that requires skill and timing on inputs. This appears to do neither. They talk about non open world zones of presumably limited scope. I have got to be honest, ever since they moved on from the infinity engine, Bioware have been quite bad at making decent environments. They overwhelmingly feel contrived and gamey, not like real places and at least part of that is that they feel implausibly small in scale. This has been true even of their good 3D games like DAO and KOTOR. This just sounds like more of the same. And character building sounds rather limited. The listed options are fewer than in DAO and this 4th instalment. It feels like a sequel to Wrath of the Righteous having the mechanics of the vanilla release of Neverwinter Nights.

Did he say they're releasing the character creator before the main game? Great!

Unfortunately it looks like Varric might be dead. The whole article talks about the companions who are in the scenes. After the scene with Solas he is no longer talked about or referenced

I am not gonna lie, I still feel like the Inquisition should be a hidden 7th faction. I know it’s either disbanded or a small group now. But still would been nice for that option, they gave us the Grey Wardens so I don’t think it would be to far fetched to be apart of the inquisition especially if Harding is still part of them

at least its sound like they didnt fuck up character creation

Looks great to me. I'm not sure about the action combat stuff as I'm terrible at it. If I can mage my way through I should be OK but I got stopped in Witcher 3 when I had to okay Cirri with no spells😅. OTOH the garbage collection quests in Inquisition (and Andromeda) meant I lost the will to finish that so I hope those have thoroughly disappeared.

No audio.

Being a guy who works for a corporation I would say that the response from the studio head is a typical nothingburger. It doesn't address anything and shows they consider it a priority to get away from such questions as soon as possible. I dislike these types of answers and/or comments because most of the time these people only fail upwards. When it comes to game I will wait for your review. I trust your opinion while I don't trust gaming outlets at all. You are honest about what you have to say and why while gaming outlets quite often write stellar reviews only to keep their access to studios. Edit: Fuck. They are still using Frostbite? It seems that EA didn't learn anything. This is the reason that many of the games failed to meet "targets" because this engine always got in the way. It would be much better for Electronic (f)Arts to either develop a specialized engine for RPGs or allow their studios the possibility to use something else. Why? Let me compare it to something else - technically you can use screwdriver to put nails in wood if you strike with the handle properly but hammer is much better at that.

i just really hope they don't screw up the Anderfels... i've been dying to that region for over 15 years. ffs.

26:30 anyone getting a Bloodborne feels from that location ?

Maybe... And hear me out. They have a lot of anthem stuff because it was their Last released game?

The three skills will be very limiting and annoing. I played ME:Andromeda. Previous Mass Effect games were fun and you had a bit more skills to play around. That is why they worked with 2 additional party members. But in Andromeda you only had 3 skills to use at a given time for your main character. (You were able to switch during combat to 3 other skills but it was tedious. I ended up just staying on my primary 3 skills in the end.) As a result I constantly wanted the old system back with more skills to use. So this direction did not work in my opinion in Mass Effect. And now the same mistake is happening in Veilguard. Sure 3 skills can work. But in good rpg's you can have a range of skills that fit with different needs and situations like dmg, control, defence, support, heals etc. You do not need all of them in the same fight but the tools are there. Healing potions as main way to heal is also really awfull as we lose a support healer role as a option. This 3 skill system on the other hand will in high likelyhood boil down to a system where you use them every fight as often as possible. Sure the party member synergy will be there but we have had that in previous games too. Maybe the combos were not as defined but making combos better should not be the reason to limit the skill amount.

Hmm.. y'know I do wonder what Game Informer had to say about Anthem and Andromeda back in the day... I have zero faith in game journalist articles and puff pieces anymore.

Why do all the mages control time now like evil Venatori blood mages?

Comment for the algorithm

What do you know, I'm getting cautiously optimistic after all.

I think her name is Neve like Campbell not Nevay based on the gameplay reveal how it was pronounced by the characters. Super excited for this game because they’ve really tried to make Rook stand out amongst the protagonist with the customization. Also the fact that there’s basically 9 origins is super exciting and I’ve seen the skill tree that looks like it’s gonna make every build vastly different! The limit on companions makes perfect sense, you are not an army, you are a unit… having too many companions takes away from the intimacy that’s what the companions work in Mass Effect so well. Crpg’s are made to have a large team of 4-6 teammates because of the way combat works.

so now we judge a game from the posters in the office. great.

I don't like the look of the combat. And those arrows warning you of incoming missiles just seem really strange.

Freaking hilarious.

What I don't understand is why in hell they changed the game from a cRPG to whatever this is. Sadly not for me, hope you enjoy it thought! 00:18:24: Having worked in corp world for 10 years making games, i can say that the reason is bs :D the truth is "our engine cant cope with it, gameplay felt like ass and/or we didn't know how to manage this many things at once storywise, so we had to reduce the number of active companions and we will give an excuse that this somehow makes us better at focusing on them". Honey, you can give mad focus to 5-6 companions without detriment if the writing is good. Plenty of games have done it.

So why is Savathuns ship from destiny floating around in the sky in the clip shown…?

This article made me a lot more excited. Also dragon age 2 healing magic. Anders and hawke could heal

Yeah this is a no for me and this preview solidifies it. Rip Dragon Age. Tactical combat works and this looks like a hack and slash.

I am not rooting for this game to fail. I have honestly been rather indifferent to Bioware for the better part of a decade. DA2 was disappointing not simply for it not being all that good a game, but the obvious cynicism of a short development cycle and a conscious abandonment of the PC first older audience of DAO for a clearly younger console first audience for DA2. Inquisition, which I did put 30 hours into, had irredeemably bad combat, again, because it was console first. DAO is the only game I have finished (I have done so repeatedly) and honestly, Bioware has not produced decent games since around this time. I am not a massive ME fan, but ME2 was good. SWTOR on release was a great levelling MMO if not endgame. And those are the last very good games the studio produced, now well over a decade ago. I wasn't even tempted to try Andromeda or Anthem, but I have heard about the stink they created, so presumably, not good games. If DA4 proves to be a good game, I will be pleasantly surprised. But if not, I wont be surprised or disappointed. My assumption is that it will be console first, mindless combat and overall mediocre. Unless that is what people want, I am not really sure why anyone would be excited by the game, because there is really no good reason to anticipate anything else.

Well, maybe I'll pirate it and give it a try at this point. Because honestly before that info i wasn't interested in playing it whatsoever. We'll see how it turns out on release, because i still have huge doubts about bioware interesting action combat and good story

Have you looked at the Bioware roster? They are not naysayers these are facts. Bioware is only in the name now. No one there cares about what made Dragon Age the success it is today.

Its disgusting ea chose this route

That trailer TOTALLY put me off this game. While YOU convinced me to give it a try. I was hovering on the unsubscibe button at the start. I was waiting for some reason for me to stop support. Thankfully, you stuck the the material and the gameplay. What I subscribed and supported you from the get-go for. Bioware OWES you, Slandered. They should have called you to promote this game. For real!

I know I'm definitely in the minority of players when i say this, but of the hybrid classes in Mass Effect 2, my favorite was always the Sentinel (they ruined it in ME3 though) It was essentially an unconventional melee specialist in a game about shooting things, which felt amazing in every encounter across the entire campaign and DLCs, so as long as the player ability design philosophy in Veilguard is intended to allow for off-kilter builds, then it should be fun 😅 That said, Sentinel was the worst class in ME3, to the point of being nearly unplayable, so they're going to have to walk a very fine line when Mass Effect-ifying Dragon Age in order to avoid the pitfalls of creating interesting playstyles that ultimately don't work when put to practice. No EA Origin on PC please 🙏

15:50 Yes its nice to change your main character every once in a while but truth be told most humans are not born leaders and making your character the ultimate leader that is competent wont resonate with a lot of people examples Geralt of rivia not a leader very good fighter very good with magic and was able to withstand extended mutations, immediately you get into the role of you been a good fighter because kek we are simple creatures we like violence dragon age origins you also play as someone who survived the ritual also good fighter or mage not a leader yes you lead the party but its not like leading an organization mass effect Shepard you have a ship true but you also have guns what is more important to you in that game leading the ship or going into the missions and shooting even dragon age 2 had something special hawke survived darkspawn and seen one of your siblings die gets you more emotional invested in the character because you think of your own family what i would do if that was XXXXX etc etc now rooke just... been there no attachments to anything ..i mean i dont know i dont think it will work

Are we still mad at bioware?

Honestly, I didn't want to spoil the game for everyone. But here are some hints. The game is bad, It's really bad. The level design that you saw in gameplay is consistent through the entire game. Witch makes it feel like a dungeon crowler. And sidequests feel like out of place things. The main story is relatively bad. It is not about Solas, or rather not directly. You go after him but not for the reason that you might think. Which is why they had to change the name of the game, as it was misleading.

I want to hold out hope but Game Informer hasn't had a good opinion in like 13 years and this new art style really pisses me off for some reason. After watching the gameplay footage several times now honestly it just looks like a shell of what it once was. Maybe it'll be fine though.

I have zero faith in this. Dragon Age died to me with DA2. Even DA:O Awakening was a step down and after that, it's all been shite. :)

It does seem like the best gameplay of the serie. Yes it looks like mass effect. No, that's not a bad thing.

Wait for steam reviews dont trust the shill media. Story railoaded. Art peter pan. Fan service is like the star wars Acolyte. Dont pre-order and wait for non shill reviews.

First

Bioware had better get the story right.

Bioware = Electronic Arts. Bioware as a company does not exist anymore since 2007. EA acquired the whole company back then. They removed Bioware as a company, but they left the brand name intact, however, the studio operates under EA's supervision and all employees are EA employees, under official contracts with EA. So, remember, when you're talking about Bioware and calling this studio name, you're actually talking about an Electronic Arts office in Canada and Texas.

Okay, I'll play devil's advocate then. What if McKay said what he said because while it might have been nice to engage in an open and honest discussion about what's been going on behind the scenes that lead to the termination of 50 staff, those people are gone one way or another and they're not coming back. The only thing that _could have_ saved those staff is if Bioware had made games that people actually wanted to play, and if they'd done it _one game ago_ . Now, the only question is: Is what Bioware is doing with Veilguard _actually_ course correcting? Or are they just slowly doubling down? I guess we'll have to wait and see. (EA CEO getting paid out while terminated employees are getting stiffed on severance I'm not touching. Some things are just indefensible.)

This is the most cookie cutter RPG I have ever seen did they pull it out of kit and build from there. I won't say the story will suck but let's face it, this is no Dragon Age game. If they had released this without the Dragon Age name attached to it people would be happy. Instead, they used the name Dragon Age and the clout it built to give us this shit. Drgaon Age started nice and Mature and went to cookie cutter PG.

Little disappointing also if we don’t see the inquisitor make a return

From all the details I heard this game sounds WOKE AF!!!!

I don't believe one second Bioware is coming back from Anthem disaster. EA is rotting everything it touches. Game journos always pander to big companies to ensure early access and ads revenue.

Terrible.Another bad take from you.

this is no long The OG Bioware from DAO (By want good staff go read Berserk) , this is Modern Gaming Bioware now want everything is soft and safe :( time to let go let go

Bioware is going all the way down with this one.... i made a video about it myself if yall care to check it out :)

News you just released yesterday from nearly 12 months ago omg get a proper job your review is so far wrong om going on about things from the past

Mark Darrah is a sellout.. playing professional, instead of being honest.. game looks terrible

This game is doomed. They laid off the OG devs because they wouldn’t bow to the woke identity politics. Sad

I am looking forward to ignoring DragonAge: The Wokeguard when it releases. Trash.

if they wanted to limit your character to only to players they should have given you a beast to help you fight