BioWare's Dragon Age: The Veilguard is now available, after years of development and significant design overhauls. As reported by Bloomberg, The Veilguard began as a single-player game, before being rebooted with a focus on multiplayer and live service. After Gary McKay took over as CEO of BioWare, he began to question whether it was the right choice, which ultimately led to the decision to reboot the game, returning to a single-player design.
“We were thinking, 'Is this [multiplayer/live-service] This makes sense, does this play to our strengths, or is this going to be another challenge that we have to face?'” he said. “No, we have to go back to what we’re really good at.”
The good and the bad of Dragon Age: The Veilguard
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McKay spent months discussing the issue with senior executives at BioWare and EA, and it was decided that the game would return to its original design as a single-player game.
“Once we made that decision, a lot of things started to fall into place,” McKay said.
EA's live services business is booming, as the company announced this week that it made $1.3 billion from live services in the last three months alone. But not all of EA's games will be multiplayer/live service games. Before Dragon Age: The Veilguard, EA had success with the single-player game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which sold over 10 million copies. Its sequel, Jedi Survivor, was among the best-selling games of 2023.
Also in the interview, it was revealed that BioWare's other major internal team, which was working on the upcoming Mass Effect, had been called in to help finish The Veilguard and release it. EA's Motive Studio, which is creating a new Iron Man game, has also been brought on board to help BioWare, the report said.
McKay said he hopes The Veilguard can help BioWare regain its former glory as a “premier gaming studio” after the struggle that was Anthem.
It's still early, but there are already positive signs. On the one hand, The Veilguard gets generally positive review scores, while the RPG also sets records on Steam.
GameSpot's Dragon Age: The current Veilguard review gave the game a 7/10. If you're new to the game, you might want to check out GameSpot's The Veilguard guides hub.