After 10 years, Dragon Age fans finally got a first look at a fourth entry in the RPG series during this year’s Xbox Games 2024 showcase. However, Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s first cinematic trailer revealed an art style that left many die-hard fans confused and disappointed.
Shortly after the official reveal trailer for Dragon Age: The Veilguard dropped on June 9, 2024 during the packed Xbox Games showcase, fans took to X (formerly known as Twitter) and Reddit to decry the game’s surprisingly cartoonish art style.
Longtime Dragon Age fans are particularly upset about the trailer’s oddly upbeat tone, bright color palette and quirky reworking of David Bowie’s classic song “Heroes” interspersed with witty one-liners from the game’s new cast of quirky characters. Indeed, it is seriously out of line for the studio and, most importantly, the franchise.
While Dragon Age 2 had a a little bit cartoonish in feel compared to the rest of the series, the Dragon Age games continued to pride themselves on their serious commitment to high-fantasy lore and aesthetics. Fans were therefore quick to point out that Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s art style and characters would feel more at home in a free-to-play battle pass shooter like Fortnite or Overwatch rather than the latest entry in this beloved fantasy RPG series. But when you consider the game’s empty development cycle, things might start to make a little more sense.
Dragon Age The Veilguard was almost a multiplayer focused title, now is an exclusively single player title
Dragon Age: The Veilguard went through what we call in the industry “development hell” – an overly long development period with multiple stops and starts, sudden changes in direction and, eventually, many hits. layoffs which further delayed the release of the game. In many ways, it’s a miracle that the game is even (supposedly) coming out in Fall 2024.
But what’s worth remembering when trying to explain the game’s art direction is that, at some point, it will be a live service multiplayer game. With news of the recent name change from Dragon Age: Dreadwolf to Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Bioware admitted that they were considering bringing a multiplayer component to the game, before pivoting back to focusing on a classic single-player experience (much to the relief). of fans).
We brought everything to the table, which, yes, even included a multiplayer concept. The time we spent experimenting and iterating gradually taught us a lot. This work, and the amazing support from EA, helped us refocus on creating an incredible single player game, with all the choices, characters and world building you’d expect from us.
Bioware blog post, June 6, 2024
Given that Bioware played around with making the fourth Dragon Age title a live multiplayer title, it shouldn’t be too surprising that we’re seeing a more accessible, if not generic, art direction for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. We’re just speculating, but reinventing the supposedly already existing entire art style from scratch after the decision to pivot back to single-player would be a costly move, causing even more delays.
If the game’s previous status as a survival game doesn’t clear things up, then I’m lost here, especially since Dragon Age 2 was the franchise’s worst-selling game, while the more traditional fantasy RPGs Dragon Age: Origins and Inquisition fared better. .
What remains to be seen is whether the outcry from fans will be severe enough to force Bioware’s hand as it was for the Sonic character in the 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog movie (so far it looks very plausible).
There are still many ways Bioware could have saved Dragon Age: The Veilguard from a horde of angry fans: compelling gameplay, deep RPG systems, an engaging story driven by complex characters – the list goes on. You never really know what you’re going to get until the game fully arrives, but we’ll get a taste with the gameplay reveals set for June 11.
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