Dragon Age: Inquisition players remember the sheer amount of time it took to gather each and every Shard, along with the other fetch quests that somehow managed the length of the game. According to reports, Dragon Age: The Veilguard will take a different approach, featuring less gathering and resource hunting and more meaningful story moments.
“The message of The Veilguard is you’re not saving the world on your own – you need your companions, but you also need these factions, these other groups in the world, said John Epler, the game’s creative director in a new Game Informer interview. “You help them, they help you now.”
In the upcoming game, players will be able to align with one of six factions which will shape their gameplay experience. Each companion will also belong to a specific faction.
“Gameplay-wise – each of our classes has a specialization, and each of them is tied to a faction,” Epler said. “But beyond that, each faction has a [companion] as well as [people we’re calling agents, ancillarily] who exist as the faces of these factions.”
Some of these factions will be familiar to longtime fans of the franchise, with the Antivan Crows and Grey Wardens appearing extensively in past titles.
“We didn’t want to just say, ‘Here’s the Grey Wardens, go deal with them.’ We wanted characters within that faction who are sympathetic, who you can see and become the face of the faction, so that even if there are moments where the faction as a whole may be on the outs with you, these characters are still with you; they’ve still got your back.”
Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be released on PC and Xbox Series X/S this fall.