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Dragon Age: The Veilguardwas supposed to be the game that brought back the iconic franchise to life. Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons, it failed to generate hype and couldn’t reach its financial expectations.
According to EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson,The Veilguardwas a financial failure because it didn’t feature any kind of live-service components. However, if the company takes a look at Larian’s approach withBaldur’s Gate 3, it would’ve been a profitable single-player title.
Dragon Age: The Veilguardshould have followedBaldur’s Gate 3
While speaking in a recent BlueSky thread, the original writer and creator ofDragon Age, David Gaider, addressed EA’s quarterly earnings call, where the company stated thatThe Veilguarddidn’t set in with the audience due to a lack of live-service elements that led to it missing sales expectations.
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Gaider explores the idea thatthe RPG would’ve performed better if it was a live-service game. While admitting that he can see how EA’s top executives might come to see live services as an obvious trend to change, he doesn’t believeDragon Ageshould head in that direction.
My advice to EA (not that they care): you have an IP that a lot of people love. Deeply. At its height, it sold well enough to make you happy, right? Look at what it did best at the point where it sold the most. Follow Larian’s lead and double down on that. The audience is still there. And waiting. ❤️
Gaider also advises EA to recognize the deep love fans have for one of the best IPs and focus on what made it so popular in the first place. According to him, EA must look atLarian Studio’s approach forBaldur’s Gate 3, as even though it wasn’t a live service slop, it broke records upon records in the industry.
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Baldur’s Gate 3is one of the best RPGs we’ve seen in the last couple of decades. Even though it was released two years ago, it’s still going strong, and there’s a reason behind it. Larian’s developers wanted to make a game that they would themselves play. The studio wasn’t chasing market shares or looking to achieve target sales.
That’s not how things are withDragon Age: The Veilguard.EA kept on interfering with adding and then removing live-service elements to chase trends and make profits. When the constant disturbance in development backfired, and the game failed to hit sales targets, the blame was passed on to BioWare.
Dragon Age: The Veilguardcreators have left BioWare
Due to the failure of the latestDragon Agegame, EA has decided to makemassive changes within developer BioWare. Among the most shocking of these is the loss of the entire studio’s writing team forThe Veilguard, including lead writer Patrick Weekes.
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Weekes recently announced his departure from BioWare on BlueSky. It’s quite sad to see that developers behind the studio who gave some of the best games in the genre being treated like this by EA.
I’m now looking for a new writing/narrative position. It’s been a privilege to work with so many amazing devs over my 20 years at BioWare, and I will cherish the memories of the wonderful folks in the community I’ve met along the way. Thank you all.
With all this chaos, one might think that the upcomingMass Effect 5would surely take a hit with all these losses. However, that won’t be the caseaccordingto BioWare executive producer Michael Gamble, who has assured gamers that his team is still working hard on the next chapter in theMass Effectseries.
Gamble hasn’t said much about the details ofMass Effect 5or the studio itself right nowbut has confirmed that the title is in the pre-production stages. Only time will tell how these layoffs affect BioWare’s work onMass Effect 5in the long run.
With that said, do you thinkDragon Age: The Veilguardshould have been a live-service game? Let us know in the comments below.
Dhruv Bhatnagar
Articles Published :1195
With over 4 years of experience in content writing and more than 1,000 articles published for FandomWire, Dhruv is a seasoned writer when it comes to the gaming space. He’s deeply passionate about titles such as GTA Online, Forza Horizon, and Pokémon Go, committed to bringing readers deep dives and latest updates.
