Dragon Age fans are rejoicing as the next game in the series, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, will fix an irritating problem rampant in the last entry. In Inquisition, if a player’s party members were speaking, their banter would be interrupted if an enemy appeared or an NPC began to talk. However, The Veilguard, companion banter will be paused rather than lost forever.
“Resumable banter is one of my favorite little [quality-of-life] features the team got into DATV,” said the game’s creative director John Epler. It will also be possible to pause cutscenes.
An eight-part narrative podcast series, Dragon Age: Vows & Vengeance, is currently ongoing, with each episode introducing players to the game’s companion characters. In July, it was announced that The Veilguard would include over 140,000 lines of dialogue, up from the 88,000 lines found in Inquisition. The RPG will include over 700 characters.
The tactical camera, a staple in the Dragon Age series, will not make an appearance in The Veilguard. According to Epler, the camera mode is a pain for developers to enact and also causes issues with environments.
“We actually had a mandate on Inquisition,” he said. “Don’t fight inside. The amount of extra work on getting the tactical camera to work in a lot of those internal environments, it was very challenging.”
The new entry will take place ten years after Inquisition and 22 years after the Battle of Ostagar, seen at the start of Dragon Age: Origins. The Inquisitor from the previous title will return in the upcoming game, with players able to customize their appearance.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be released on PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S on October 31, 2024, almost a decade after the release of the last game in the series.