Perhaps more so than any other action-adventure role-playing game, I wait with bated breath for the release of BioWare’s Dragon Age: Veilguard. Ten years after Dragon Age: Inquisition released, my pining for every little detail about what’s coming next (friendly reminder: this is BioWare, the creators of the Mass Effect franchise) is at an all-time high. Recently, at a Q&A on their Discord, the creators dropped knowledge bombs that we’ve been drooling over ever since. Ranging from how gameplay will play out to the narrative of the upcoming game, and straight to a promise of a fully single-player experience.
BioWare describes Dragon Age: Veilguard, an upcoming Massive Online Multiplayer game (MMO), as a ‘commitment to an emotional story’ in which gameplay is ‘driven by narrative, not numbers’. The game is said to feature fresh, intricate worldbuilding ‘that teems with lore and expansion opportunities’. The hype is palpable. A BioWare session on Discord cries: ‘Back to the heart of storytelling. Free from the monetisation of modern gaming … You don’t have to grind, you don’t have to buy’ When will storyselling arrive in video games? When will the term ‘interactive story’, so loaded with possibilities (perhaps too many possibilities), transition into the realm of fully realised, high-stakes interactive narratives? Within the world of video games, Dragon Age: Veilguard carries the promise we’ve been waiting for.
One of the big things we talked about was the character creation – the approach to that and how we’re picking up decisions from the previous Dragon Age games.Here, the lead Corinne Busche explained that there is a dual-purpose character creator that’ll also bring new players up to speed on major past events. She said: ‘Say, if you’ve been playing other Dragon Age games before, we’ll try to bring you up to speed on what’s important to you. Like, if you made a specific companion romance in the first game, we might not let you romance one of their siblings this time. But if you do pick up the new companion, the old one will pass away. It’s a cool approach that does two things: it refreshes players so they’re not ignorant, but it’s going to work without web connectivity. No linking into an EA account or anything like that. So people can play as their character and not be impacted by things from other games. They won’t be forced to make that specific choice, but also they won’t have the old save file disappear when they download a new one.’ She continued: ‘That’s a cool creative opportunity for character creation and story, but also for people who are new to the series but also people who are veterans and want to be Veilguard and not anyone else.
For somebody who lives in a climate where microtransactions and battle passes are all too commonplace as ‘innovations’ in how games are frequently experienced, BioWare’s example is refreshing. When Corinne announced that there would be no monetisation this way, the community erupted in a flood of support. Dragon Age: Veilguard has emerged as a rallying cry of the offline experience, free from the pressures of online connectivity or additional spending. Instead, BioWare is committed to a simple thing: a full game in the hands of a concerned developer seeking to please a very hungry audience.
With commercial considerations looming large over today’s video gaming landscape, BioWare’s commitment to maintain the sanctity of the single-player experience is admirable. Dragon Age: Veilguard’s developers consciously decided not to segment their player base into small groups that had to grind for incremental progress in order to share in bonus content. They also chose not to deliver the game piecemeal, or to position demon-slaying as purely a vehicle for racking up cash or competitive social bragging rights. Instead of allowing themselves to become another platform mired in monetisation, the developers compensated in terms of design integrity. This decision stood in stark contrast to the pressure that companies face these days to include either microtransactions or battle passes within their software. In doing away with those trappings, BioWare communicated a belief that storytelling and player agency should be at the core of the experience, promising a game that rewards process rather than outcome, and that lends itself to exploration, choice and attachment to the world they create.
If you have your eye on Dragon Age: Veilguard, it really is hard to hold your excitement in, and some stocking-fillers or strategic purchases really could make a difference. When it comes to gaming laptops in 2024, there is no lack of the best laptops for gamers on the market. Grabbing a couple is not going to be a problem, and they can be a great partner for BioWare’s upcoming masterpiece, along with a top Xbox headset, Xbox controller, top hard drive or SSD, and other accessories that will make for an incredible sci-fi gaming experience free from any technical issues.
The entertainment world has been buzzing recently with news of the upcoming Dragon Age: Veilguard, a new instalment in the long-running franchise from BioWare. With their announcement that Veilguard will focus on a player-driven experience, backed by their recent gameplay and monetisation decisions, it looks like BioWare’s game will push the boundaries of the action-adventure RPG. Coupled with BioWare’s pledge to deliver great story and character interaction, this could be a landmark in video game history.
When it comes to gaming, especially with epic titles such as Dragon Age: Veilguard coming up, you need your hardware to be top-notch. A good gaming laptop is the perfect combination of power and utility: you can take your favourite worlds with you wherever you travel. These machines will have graphics capabilities to make every texture come alive, fast processors for split-second gaming decisions, and enough memory that you can make your way through a fantasy realm with a minimum of lag time. With Dragon Age: Veilguard on the horizon, your gaming setup needs to be top-notch lest you invest in such a new computer game and can’t enjoy it because you got a cheap laptop that can’t run the game properly.
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