BioWare has confirmed that two major features of previous Dragon Age games have been removed in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
In its latest interview with Edge Magazine (transcribed by user Felassan on Tumblr), The Veilguard‘s director Corinne Busche and creative director John Epler discussed the game’s combat system and how it differentiates to Dragon Age entries that came before, as well as how this plays into the overall world of Thedas you get to explore.
“Responsiveness was our first-and-foremost goal with this baseline layer of the combat system,” Busche said. “We very much wanted you to feel like you exist in this space, as you’re going through these really crafted, hand-touched worlds. That you’re on the ground in control of every action, every block, every dodge.”
This is where the developers revealed that for the upcoming game, the team decided to be rid of the tactical camera – a feature that would previously allow the player to pause the game during combat and make decisions for their party.
“We actually had a mandate on Inquisition, which was, ‘Don’t fight inside,’” Epler explained. “The amount of extra work on getting that tactical camera to work in a lot of those internal environments, it was very challenging.”
The BioWare directors also confirmed that this time around, players won’t be able to control their companions.
“On the experiential side, we wanted you to feel like you are Rook – you’re in this world, you’re really focused on your actions,” Busche said. “We very much wanted the companions to feel like they, as fully realized characters, are in control of their own actions. They make their own decisions. You, as the leader of this crew, can influence and direct and command them, but they are their own people.”
Busche continued, saying it’s understandable why the inability to control your companions might seem like something was taken away, but explained that: “in our testing and validating with players, what we find is they’re more engaged than ever.”
The director added that The Veilguard is a “much higher actions-per-minute game” and “more technically demanding on the player” so when the team tried allowing the ability to control companions as well, it found that it “wasn’t actually adding to the experience”.
“In fact, in some ways it was detrimental, given the demanding nature of just controlling your character,” Busche said.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard doesn’t have a release date just yet, but BioWare has confirmed it will share it this month alongside a roadmap. We can, however, expect the game to launch in ‘Fall 2024’ for PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC.
