Dragon Age: The Veilguard shouldn't suffer from the same camera issues that plagued some of Inquisition's conversations.
In a recent Q&A on Discord (shared by BioWare expert Kala Elizabeth on Twitter) Dragon Age: The Veilguard creative director John Epler was asked whether in-game conversations would "be zoomed in like a cutscene [...] or zoomed out like in DAI?"
That question seems to be referring to the way the camera worked in certain conversations in Inquisition. If you were talking with a character who didn't necessarily warrant a full-fledged cutscene - like a trader, for instance - the camera would zoom out. The intention was clearly to offer some degree of framing for both characters, but the camera didn't always seem to have the player character's best angles in mind. That could occasionally result in conversations playing out like this one:
- Dragon Age The Veilguard's playtesters were initially confused about almost every aspect of the game's combat: "It's OK, sometimes we have to let it go"
- Legendary Dragon Age writer looks to Baldur's Gate 3 devs while giving EA advice after The Veilguard: "Follow Larian's lead and double down on that"
It was a notable bugbear for the Inquisition community, and plenty of mods surfaced aiming to help fix the issue. Thankfully, it doesn't appear to be returning in The Veilguard. Epler explains that this kind of conversation will still feature, but that they will now "use a more traditional over-the-shoulder cinematic camera."
Epler goes on to admit that the issues in Inquisition were his fault: "I created the simple conversation system in DAI," he explains. Epler was a cinematic designer on Inquisition, and moved up into a lead role for two of the RPG's DLC releases - The Trespasser and Jaws of Hakkon - before stepping up to creative director for The Veilguard. While he offers some defense of his camera system - "it did what we needed it to do", he also suggests that he knows it was unpopular, saying BioWare "heard the feedback on the camera loud and clear." Hopefully, you'll now be much more likely to capture your good side when chatting with a merchant.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard as a title speaks to what I love most about BioWare's RPGs.
