Bioware has confirmed that it did play around with the “absent-minded boyfriend” meme a bit when adding multiplayer elements to the current Dragon Age: Keeper of the Veil game, but has since reverted to its old ways after deciding to stick with established strengths.
That’s from an interview with Game Informer about the game, which has the difficult task of following up on the news that Bioware won’t tell anyone whether or not the game includes any virtual genitalia, something we’re still dying to know.
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Bioware General Manager Gary McKay confirmed that the game’s developers did try a lot of different things during pre-production. “For a while, it was multiplayer – we looked seriously at multiplayer,” he revealed, “but we felt like we couldn’t really go back to our roots.”
“When we asked ourselves ‘what game do we want to make’ we really wanted to go back to our roots, which is great storytelling. It’s about having those memorable characters. It’s about having the opportunity to impact the world. We really felt like multiplayer wasn’t going to do that,” he continued. “The single-player RPG was really where we wanted to spend our time, so after spending that time in pre-production, we really honed in on the vision for this game, and [being] It provides an opportunity to fulfill the creative promise of this game. 1721374068 We are very excited about the products that are coming.”
This would seem to confirm a 2021 report from Bloomberg that Veilguard was initially focused on multiplayer but was later canceled. The report cited the success of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and the failure of Anthem as a factor in convincing publisher EA that single-player was the best approach for what was then called Dragon Age 4, rather than opting for the multiplayer route.
Returning to the roots seems to be the route Bioware is sticking to, and former series producer and Veilguard consultant Mark Darrah also talked about this when asked about the studio’s development over the years. “The most amazing thing about Veilguard is that we finally said out loud in this game that BioWare’s greatest strength is telling stories through characters. If you look back at Baldur’s Gate 1 and Baldur’s Gate 2, you will find that these games tell stories through characters, but there is no intention behind them.”
“We finally put that intentionality first in this game,” he added.
Are you glad that Bioware didn’t end up sticking with multiplayer in Dragon Age: Keeper of the Veil? Let us know below, and be sure to check out our hands-on preview of the game.
