Dragon Age: The Veilguard is finally here, and lots of people are liking it. And one person liking it very publicly is Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian’s outspoken director of publishing, Michael Douse – who’s been praising BioWare’s new RPG, calling it, among other things, “the first Dragon Age game that truly knows what it wants to be.”
Douse isn’t one to shy away from sharing his opinions on social media, of course, having recently fired shots at Ubisoft following Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown‘s underperformance, called out scalpers for “making [people] sad”, and spoken candidly about the games industry’s current layoff culture, noting, “None of these companies are at risk of going bankrupt… they’re just at risk of pissing off the shareholders.” But following the launch of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Douse is singing a rather more positive tune.
“I’ve been playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard in complete secrecy (behind my backpack at the office in front of a giant window, in the kitchen),” he wrote on X. “From me, you may be wondering, ‘Is this a game compatible with my experience during BG3’ so I’ll tackle it from that perspective. The answer is yes. It is to a heavy, nine-season-long show what a well-made, character driven, binge-worthy Netflix series is. It has a good sense of propulsion and forward momentum. The combat system is honestly brilliant (to me, a mix of Xenoblade and Hogwarts which is giga-brain genius). It knows when it needs a tentpole narrative moment, and it knows when to let you toy around with your class and exploit some of its stronger elements.”
“More important,” Douse added, “to me, it feels like the first Dragon Age game that truly knows what it wants to be… If you want some character-driven romping with a strong combat system in a universe you know, love, or have heard of, it is much better than the average action game, and much less heavy than the gargantuan RPGs that may intimidate at times. In a word, it’s fun!”
“I’ll always be a [Dragon Age: Origins] guy,” Douse continued in a follow-up post, “and this is not that. But at least it’s something it wants to be, and not a mishmash of everything. I respect that. I like action games, like RPGs, I like it when they collide. I like shooting baddies with mage magic. Your mileage may vary!”
It’s a positive outlook on The Veilguard shared by Eurogamer’s Robert Purchese, who slapped Dragon Age’s latest outing with five shiny gold stars in his enthusisatic review. “What BioWare has managed to accomplish here,” he wrote, “in the face of all the pressure it’s faced since Dragon Age: Inquisition came out 10 years ago, is extraordinary. From head to toe, wing to wing, The Veilguard is exquisitely realised and full of sophistication across systems and storytelling. It’s warm and welcoming, funny and hopeful, gentle when it needs to be, and of course it’s epic – epic in a way I think will set a high bar not only for BioWare in years to come but for role-playing games in general. This is among the very best of them.”
But back to Douse for one last observation: “I’m extremely happy BioWare gets to stick around – presumably – in these uncertain (because of moronic corporate greed) times,” he concluded. “[The Veilguard is] an existential game, and a fun one at that.”
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