Sorry, Dragon Age Fans, Don't Expect Another One Anytime Soon

EA is where IP goes to die. The best we can hope for is the Saudi's to sell off the rights to IP they can't monetise to the high heavens.

Sorry, Bioware, but this is entirely your fault. Veilguard was so tonally off from the rest of the franchise that it came across a bad fan-fiction. It single-handedly killed the franchise.

A remake or remaster of the original trilogy is all that's needed. Don't let anyone do any new writing.

I haven't played Dragon Age (any of them) but from what I understand, Veilguard was far more sanitised game, which in turn made the whole story and character building significantly more boring.

Veilguard was such a massive fail that it destroyed all chance of a new DA game for at least a decade.

Good. You're all risk adverse and boring. The games you make are marginally improved versions (graphically) of games I've already played a hundred times before in the last 20 years. Come back when you've got some fresh ideas. Though you won't. You'll do remakes and people will lap them up because nostalgia is powerful, and games from 20 years ago are more interesting than the slop we get these days.

I would rather see more Dead Space, but honestly with Capcom doing Pragmata now, or even the Chronos studio, like I’d just rather wait for them. Need For Speed has been outclassed by Forza coming to PS. Like other studios are doing all of their dormant IP better anyways.

No real loss tbh

Veilguard was the first Dragon Age game I played in a long time, and it was ok. Only tried it because it was free either with the monthly free games or the Extra PSN+ games list (I forget which). Sad to see franchises like this just disappear into distant memories because this latest attempt failed.

Nothing of value lost here.

The team that made the Dragon Age series great is long gone.

Well after what they did with the last game I would rather it stay dead. A dark fantasy epic this series certainly isn't anymore.

That's okay I keep forgetting to play the last one. It's one of those 'I need to play that' games which keep falling by the wayside and I'll probably never get to. I did like Inquisition and I have the originals on PS3 too. If anything I'd ask for remasters of the originals, there's definitely a market for the originals.

If Veilguard was a standalone game (Not a Dragon Age game) it would’ve come across a lot better. I played it twice and liked it. But were it not for the mess DA2 was, Veilguard would be the worst Dragon Age.

Has any game ever been improved by shoehorning in preachy identity politics where previously there were none? Genuine question. I'm just trying to work out why they keep on doing it.

Bioware is basically dead for ages. I mean cmon, even Inquisition was insanely boring with its flat characters and mmo-like busy work. Origins was phenomenal tho, hope they dont try to remaster it.

Now the final nail in the coffin will come in the new Mass Effect. If they dont cancel it alltogether, one can hope.

@AgentMantis This, i will never forget EA for Westwood Studios.

@ShadowRJ they basically had 15 years of world building and a really rich lore and decided to either disregard or outright destroy most of it. It seemed like the game was meant to be a soft reset for the franchise, but the major drop in narrative quality basically killed any reason to be excited for that.

I don’t think Veilguard was that bad at all, it was definitely better than Inquisition but I’m not too bothered if I go to the grave never playing another Dragon Age title (unless it’s a remaster of 1)

@ShadowRJ It's not that it was boring, in its own right it had a lot going for it, it's just the execution was tonally like night and day compared to what had come before and it was whiplash-inducing — it'd be like going from Game of Thrones to She Ra and the Princesses of Power.

Also from what I believe, the game started out of more of an MMO/live service entity, and having to retrofit that engine and assets into a single player experience didn't do the overall production any favours.

@LifeGirl because they are privileged narcissists who have been completely and utterly brainwashed into believing they are victims and we are the worst people to have ever existed.

I mean, I would be happy with a PS5 port of DA:Origins / Awakening.

(Also, I thought the gameplay of Veilguard was pretty fun.)

Hardly matters. When Mass Effect fails, EA will shut it down

@LifeGirl they do it because the industry was hijacked by activists.

Unpopular opinion but I loved Veilguard and thought it the best in the series (just ahead of Origins), so a bit sad they won’t be any more soon.

Mind boggling there are so many famous IPs just sitting there. I absolutely loved Mirrors Edge and a third one would be great but realistically it won’t sell so I can see why.

Dragon Age: Origins deserves a quality of life remaster. That's one of my fav RPG's.

@wildcat_kickz Yeah they have no one but themselves to blame for that terrible misfire.

I give one point to Veilguard, the gameplay was kinda fun. But holy ***** did the characters and story suck. They shot themselves in the foot with this one.

Mass effect has to come out and be successful to determine if the studio doesn't close people are reaching really far asking for another dragon age game 😅

Have they tried to make a game instead of making a political point? That might've worked well in their favor y'know...

Meanwhile, there is a new mod for BG3 that makes it play just like Dragon Age.

@Neuromancer yup and I'm hoping it doesn't I really want to see the asspull they do for the story and hope it sticks 😅

They couldn’t even give this game away for free as a monthly game on PSN shortly after it released Why would they make a sequel?

Even if they made a sequel, we will all be collecting social security benefits by the time
it is released.

I'll certainly miss it. Veilguard was peak for me.

@CielloArc indeed. Considering that every other game without a "political point" has made a profit in the history of gaming. Especially the last couple of years. Developers are fed up with all the success.

Thank goodness. It's not like we'd be getting a good one anyway. Playing Origins again was great but also sad to see that the series fell so far.

I played the hell out of DA: Origins on my 360, doing a playthrough with every permutation of race and character class available. I'd probably pick up a remake of that with modern conveniences put in.

I thought Veilguard was fine. It is right in line with the other dragon age games.

Dear EA,
Before you kill off this IP could you please at least do a remastered version of Dragon Age Origins (you know, the best one in the franchise) thank you very much, hope you step on Lego

One of my friends is a huge Dragon Age Origins fan. She played hundreds of hours. Then I noticed that she is the only one of my PSN friends who played Veilguard. It was a very sparse, shortlived thing. Veilguard seems to have disappointed long-time fans.

I really enjoy Origins. The rest are just all over the place, and none hit like the first.

They made a dark fantasy into a quippy teenage Marvel adventure.

It's BioWare's fault Dragon Age died.

@BacklogBrad the series is all over the place, how can any one game be considered "In line" in the series?
Maybe because it is an outlier in its tone, just like every other DA game when juxtapozed against each other?

Veilguard was utter rubbish. EA is doing us a favor by not ruining it any more than they already have. There are many ways to advocate for inclusion, equality, and empathy, but Veilguard chose the worst possible way to shine a light on all of them. Beneath the awful dialogue, there is a decent action game, but it isn't worth having to endure the terrible writing

I'll also say that I thought Veilguard was actually ok. I like it more than Inquisition fwiw.

I think Dragon Age was always a contentious IP (outside of Origins, which the consensus is that its the best one). 2, Inquisition, and Veilguard all have their detractors. I was working at a Gamestop when 2 came out and people hated that game.

Unfortunately I don't think BioWare's getting the boot until after they re-ruin Mass Effect for the second or third time depending on who you ask.

@LifeGirl because Hollywood and game development has a significant number of creators who do not think they should create products that we want but rather create promotional tools for their own worldview, expect us to thank them for bringing their politics into our films and games, and then get upset and blame us when we don't because all we wanted was to be entertained.

Like it or not, they pretty much tied up the storyline. Yeah there is the “hook” at the end but it is so vague and illuminati-esque that it can be easily ignored.

The primary world lore issues have been resolved. We know the true source of Blight and Archdemons, the Veil has been restrengthened (I sorta hate that even though I understand restoring Thedas to its Original state would likely kill most of the elves as is (and probably cause damage as more spirits get in contact with humanity and corrupted.)), and most of the nations aren’t prepared to go to war/conquer anything after all that has happened. Not much story left to retread unless you just want a fantasy romp in Theadas. But each of the games (books, mobile games and comics) were designed to solve the over arching Veil/Creators/Dread Wolf/Blight problem at various stages (because from a world perspective people didn’t understand the root cause until Inquisition and Veilguard.)

A lot of the immediate supernatural plot is wrapped up so any other games that aren’t set earlier will just be standard war/political intrigue/world restoration. Technically if the Veil is at its strongest (doesn’t have its batteries trying to break out), a lot of the “magic” is gone from Thedas. Like I’m sure there will still be mages but short of standard possession, most stuff will stay beyond the veil and the Blight issue is resolved. Better to leave it as a complete story told end to end. Just because the last game wasn’t a critical darling doesn’t mean it didn’t actually finish out the story.

That image at the top of the article is enough of a reason to see why this game failed. The art style was already so dissonant with the series' previous direction, and everything else followed suit. Game was a whole load of waft.

The issues I have with both ME and DA is they were originally set up to tell a story. ME did it end to end with the same main character while DA did different characters/factions/perspectives but bot had the same general idea. There is a problem that impacts the world the game is set in and it is ancient and deep rooted. Over the course of the franchise that problem’s source will be discovered and the issue fixed. There will be smaller radiating issues due to the OG problem or world building that may or may not get resolved.

That type of storytelling has an end and is not best suited for a franchised to have infinite sequels and media spinoffs. But because this is an EA franchise they want it to sprawl and last forever to make profit and honestly there wasn’t enough story motivation for that. For either franchise. It would have ended up like Assassins’ Creed where the actual plot (modern day story) creeps along to keep the profit maker (the past assassin stuff) going. (Which I don’t think is a good thing.)

Instead in many ways the games for both series lost part of their identity trying to mold and remake themselves based on profit while many storylines were shelved, shoved into other media or redone.

That is before you get into the drama of the studios themselves.

They say this but then mass effect andromeda happened and mass effect 4 is being made… yet it’s been ages since we had an update on that…

I know loads of people that loved Veilguard tbh

@LifeGirl Ultimately, I don't think the failure of Veilguard had to do with the social messaging in the game. It was more how ham-fisted that messaging was. Though, I think the writing and tone of Veilguard were just "not it" for Dragon Age, which is the real reason it failed.

I can give you plenty of examples of social messages being in successful video games: Detroit: Become Human, TLoU: Part II, BioShock, MGS2, Life Is Strange, Far Cry 5, Horizon Zero Dawn, etc.

The difference in those games, as opposed to Veilguard, was that the messaging was buried in allegory. They didn't treat their audiences as so stupid that they had to flat our tell you what the subliminal messaging was supposed to be.

Cast my vote for Dragon Age Origins on modern consoles. Add some modern features and improved graphics.

The newest one sucked so bad they may just need to let it die

Veilguard is also a casualty of that mess, given it was thrown around and pulled in ton of different directions before ending up the way it released, but it's also too recent.
Let some space exist from Veilguard and people will start missing the franchise and only remembering the good stuff, we already went through this with Inquisition. Then someone will pitch bringing Dragon Age back to it's roots, then it's a matter of praying that EA actually lets them rather than start telling the team they want to make it fit into whatever genre is super popular at the time.

I really loved DA Origins and thought it was one of the best games during PS3 days. Replayed it many times and enjoyed it like it was a first.

DA2 was a horrible disappointment and remains the game I never finished.

DAI was great and I loved every minute of it but it didn’t have that same greatness DAO had.

DAV, what a disappointment too. I was able to finish it but didn’t care for anything in it. Didn’t care for any character. Just felt like a fan made project.

I’d like more DA for sure but that comes out of love for DAO. And if they make any more I’d like to see more greatness like it. If they can restore the IP and make it great like DAO then I’d welcome it and cheer for it. But if they want to make more fan made projects then please don’t. Better to let the IP die and make something else.

@LikelySatan In overall quality it is right in line with every other dragon age game. Metacritic seems to back that up with it being within 4 points of the best and worst scores. I thought it was a solid game and felt it was worth the 45 hour playthrough. To me it felt like the other 3 games.

They destroyed it Veilguard was an abomination!!! To what came before.

This is what happens when the gaming community decide they hate a game before it's out. Give new games a chance.

It's so frustrating because all they need to do is return to what worked. The reason people still care about Dragon Age is almost entirely because of Origins, and the three games since could not have been more different. If they went back and did it right, from the start, and made a game in the same vein as Origins, it would be a massive hit. It's almost like because people rejected their generic slop, they're like "oh we can't make DA games any more" when really it's the fans saying "please stop making ***** DA games!"

But we all know they won't do it.

No thanks. The last one was garbage. There's a declining quality in every DA game released. Only the first one really shined back in 2009 despite low graphics even for that time. The rest were some shallow repetitive hack and slash BS

@wildcat_kickz 2 and 3 were also hack and slash trash, not as bad as 4 though. The jewel was the Origins imo

Surprise to no one. They absolutely demolished this series. First game one of the best ever

There still needs to be a reckoning for the games media.

An explanation as to how they all scored the game highly and used the exact same gushing phrases.

Their entire existence is at question, as if they don't know what a good game is, what is the point of their reviews?

It was obvious to me in a short play that like Gotham Knights it was a failed and repurposed game as a service.

Also despite the media slating Ubisoft for saying producing female animations was too hard in AC, my dainty woman walked like a WWE wrestler jacked up on roids.

Tumbleweeds and crickets in the 9/10 "return to form" reviews.....

I'd also question why EA would pay these people for dummy reviews, when clearly they are clueless and their feedback would lead them down the garden path.

As you can tell from my name I am a big fan but only of Origins. 2 was ok, 3 was meh. and couldn't get into Veilguard. I know people like 2 and 3 but I think they should have continued with the Grey warden story arc like Mass Effect did with Shepard. Every game almost feels like a separate game in a separate world.

I'm not surprised. I love Dragon Age, and I actually did like Veilguard, but it had some pretty huge issues that non-diehard fans wouldn't be able to overlook. It's definitely the worst in the series without having to even think about it, and that's not good for the newest entry that took a billion years to come out.

Veilguard was OK - a bit strange in places and frustrating in others.
Trouble is, it is always going to be compared to Dragon Age: Origins (which was a true epic), DA:2 which was OK but the samey scenery destroyed some of the story and DA:Inquisition which was also rather good, better than DA:2.