Dragon Age: The Veilguard won't let players have full control over their companions, but BioWare says that's because there's so much to do that it doesn't want you to be overwhelmed.
Speaking to Edge magazine, game director Corinne Busche explained why Dragon Age: The Veilguard is dropping the party-controlling formula of previous games, even as it drops your companion count from three to two. "On the experiential side, we wanted you to feel like you are Rook," Busche explained. "You're in this world, you're really focused on your actions. We wanted the companions to feel like they, as fully-realized characters, are in control of their own actions. They make their own decisions."
That's a major deviation from the rest of the series, but Busche says there's a simple reason for that - Dragon Age: The Veilguard "is a much higher actions-per-minute game. It is more technically demanding on the player. So when we tried allowing you full control of your companions as well, what we've found is it wasn't actually adding to the experience. In fact, in some ways it was detrimental, given the demanding nature of just controlling your own character."
Our sister publication Edge sat down with three Dragon Age directors, who also revealed how Veilguard won't repeat Inquisition's biggest mistake and how Dragon Age's biggest-ever city was shaped by a single line.
Busche admits that the substantial nature of this change might seem jarring, but it's backed up by BioWare's playtesting: "I will admit that, on paper, if you just read that you have no ability to control your companions, that might feel like something was taken away. But in our testing and validating with players, what we find is they're more engaged than ever."
While you won't have full control of characters, you will still be able to shape some of their movements in combat. Busche references returning rogue Lace Harding, saying that "she is her own realized individual. She's got her own behaviors; how she prioritises targets, whether she gets up close and draws aggro or stays further back at range. But you'll be able to direct her in combat by activating her abilities from the wheel."
Those abilities are part of BioWare's big push towards combo-based combat. The developer offers an example - one companion uses a gravity well-style spell, another slows time, and then the player drops a big AoE nuke on top of your grouped, slowed enemies. Busche says that she thinks about "this strategic layer to combat as a huddle. Where you're figuring out how you want to handle the situation, based on the information you have on the encounter, and how you and your companions synergise together."
It's an undoubtedly big change to the traditional Dragon Age formula, but Busche's suggestion that that change has been almost forced on BioWare by The Veilguard's added complexity is certainly an intriguing one. The added combo system also suggests that you won't feel entirely without that tactical layer, and if what she says about testing feedback is true, then perhaps this will have a bigger impact on BioWare RPGs going forward.
Get a better sense of BioWare's world with our Dragon Age: The Veilguard preview.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard creative director thinks there'll come a point in the games industry "where we can't make graphics better," so the focus will be on giving players "freedom" instead
Dragon Age: The Veilguard still isn't an open-world game, but new gameplay footage makes the RPG look way less linear than we feared
