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Dragon Age director says every RPG in the series 'reinvents itself,' so The Veilguard takes 'fan favorite features' from Origins, DA2, and Inquisition
Dragon Age: The Veilguard draws inspiration from all previous entries in the series, including combat from Dragon Age 2 and character development from Dragon Age: Inquisition, to deliver a fresh experience that respects its history while pushing the franchise forward.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is apparently looking back on the series' long, eventual history, and taking inspiration from its many reinventions.
Speaking to Gamesradar+, Dragon Age: The Veilguard game director Corinne Busche says that "both the greatest challenge and the most interesting opportunity" in working on the game comes from dealing with how flexible the series has always been. "Every single edition of Dragon Age reinvents itself in some ways; the combat system, how we approach the world, the levels," she says.
"What it allowed us to do is look back on 'what are those fan favorite features spanning all the previous Dragon Age games, and do they make sense to pull them forward?'" Busche then explains that BioWare's newest foray is taking bits from every generation of Dragon Age to bring the series together.
For example, The Veilguard's "quick weapon swapping mid-combat" is pulled right from Dragon Age: Origins, and its backgrounds are "a love letter to Origins." Meanwhile, "you can see a lot of Dragon Age 2 in there" from the upcoming game's fast, hefty action-orientated combat. And finally, the "Inquisition DNA" comes in via the "depth of the companion and character arcs and how they integrate into the world."
"I think I can speak for the entirety of the team, that our hope is that this all comes together to respect where we've been, but also advance the franchise into this next adventure," Busche notes.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard's creative director John Epler also recently dived into how the fourquel differs from its older siblings, explaining that "technological restrictions" meant past games would frequently rely on cutscenes - but The Veilguard aims to give us "much more immediate control" more often.