Summary
- Concept art for Dragon Age: The Veilguard shows griffons being ridden into battle.
- This is very different from the griffons we see in-game, which are too small to mount.
- It doesn’t seem that this idea got very far, as the artist says this was put forward during the “What if” stage of development.
All games go through different drafts, with stories tweaked and ideas cut during development. However, given that Dragon Age: The Veilguard came a decade after the last game, and after two different versions of the sequel were scrapped, this went through many, many changes, with a lot of ideas left on the cutting room.
Matt Rhodes, lead concept artist at BioWare, has been revealing some of these ideas through his work. Now, he’s shared another piece of concept art with us, this time depicting a character riding a griffon, charging into battle against a dragon.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard Concept Art Shows An Adult Griffon
Or at least a griffon that’s large enough to mount
During the ‘what if’ stage, we thought about the role griffins might take,” says Rhodes. “What if griffins and dragons had a mongoose/cobra relationship, and you could use griffins to even the playing field.”
Alongside this, we get a piece of concept art that shows two griffons, both large enough to have riders. While we can use a griffon in battle in the final game, this is exclusive to the companion Davrin, as some of his attacks involve his young griffon, Assan.
For most of the series, we’re told that the griffons are extinct, having all died out after the Fourth Blight. However, a clutch of survivors is found in 9:42 Dragon, which is exactly ten years before The Veilguard kicks off. This means that Assan is around ten years old and still too small to mount. It’s possible that there were plans for griffons to age faster, making Assan much bigger by the time of The Veilguard, but that doesn’t seem to have left the concept stage.
Who knows? Maybe the griffons will be all grown up by the time of the next game. Just don’t expect a follow-up to The Veilguard anytime soon, as BioWare is going all-in on Mass Effect 5 next.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.