Electronic Arts have shared the official launch trailer for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and we think you’re really going to like it.
If you couldn’t tell immediately from our featured picture on this post, it’s because the trailer has confirmed the return of Morrigan. And even more importantly, once you hear the trailer, you’ll realize that Morrigan’s voice actress, Claudia Black, has returned with her.
As reported by GosuGamers, Claudia Black flat out lied about not returning for this latest title. Don’t get too mad at her for that; different actors have different ways of dealing with NDAs. In any case, wouldn’t it be perfectly fitting for Morrigan to do just that?
Morrigan is a core character to Dragon Age’s history, as she appeared on both Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Inquisition, as a traveling companion for The Warden and a liaison for The Inquisitor, respectively.
And yes, Morrigan was a romance option for The Warden, and the choices you made if you played Dragon Age: Origins could play into what events played out when you then played as the Inquisitor in Dragon Age: Inquisition. No spoilers here, but for those who played those games in the past two decades, it meant a lot.
On the real life side, of course, Claudia Black is a popular talent with Bioware fans, and gamers in general. She was in cult movies and shows like Pitch Black, Stargate SG-1 and Farscape. She was also a high profile actress in the seventh console gaming generation, and beyond.
Among Claudia’s biggest roles in video games include Admiral Daro’Xen and Matriarch Aethyta in Mass Effect, Chloe Frazer in Uncharted, Whitney Chang in The Amazing Spider-Man, Tess Everis in Destiny, and Samantha Byrne in Gears of War.
Morrigan’s return hints at some interesting things to Dragon Age’s story moving forward. Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s creative director, James Epler, revealed in an interview that they always intended to continue the story from Dragon Age: Inquisition. In particular, the story was always going to pivot based on Solas’ future actions.
On the other hand, Epler also stated in a different interview that the Dragon Age franchise doesn’t have a real canon. This is a deliberate choice on Bioware’s part, as they want players to have their own personal experience of this game. That includes their own stories.
While previous Dragon Age games allowed players to import their saves so that their past game decisions could affect outcomes in future games. Since that isn’t an option here, we imagine they could do some creative writing so that Claudia won’t be saying anything alluding to any possible canon between all the different stories players could tell about her. Or maybe we’ll get new choices for that too.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be released on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows, via Steam and Epic Games Store, on October 31, 2024. It will also be fully playable on Steam Deck. You can watch the official launch trailer below.