The next Dragon Age game might be another "reinvention", say BioWare, drawing parallels with Final Fantasy

Veilguard's creative director hints at story directions

Dragon Age: The Veilguard won't receive any major story DLC. It also ends pretty decisively, save for a few hints about the future of Thedas in a secret post-credits scene. How final is that air of finality? Is Dragon Age going back on the shelf for the forseeable? Fear not, say game director Corinne Busche and series creative director John Epler, for the universe of Dragon Age has many yarns yet to spin. The next game won't necessarily be an action game with RPG trappings, either, for much like Final Fantasy, Dragon Age exists in a state of continual "reinvention".

Veilguard's neater ending is partly owing to BioWare's desire to avoid a repeat of the situation with Dragon Age: Inquisition, the previous game from 2014, which paved the way for Veilguard's premise with its DLC. Speaking to Eurogamer in a lengthy postmortem chat after Veilguard's release, Epler commented that continuing that game's knotty storyline while introducing newcomers to the series was a real headache - though perhaps not as big a headache as the initial struggle to make a multiplayer game, in line with publisher EA's live service ambitions at the time.

"Inquisition did end with some fairly hefty dangling plot threads," he explained. "Obviously there's the post-credits scene with Solas and Flemeth, and it felt at the time - because I was on Inquisition, I was on the Trespasser team - we looked at what we already had and decided, okay, we want to do one last chapter, one last story beat. The difference in The Veilguard is the story ends pretty conclusively. There is, obviously, a secret post-credits scene, but that's less of 'here is an immediate thing that you now need to be aware of', and more 'here's a hint as to what the future will be'."

"We wanted to make sure that this one ended in a less ambiguous way, where it's very clear that this story is done," he went on. "What comes next, you will see, but it won't require the same level of 'okay let's catch you up on what's happened'. I'm still proud of the team and what they did at the beginning of this one, but there's a lot that comes from previous games that feed into this one."

Busche dropped a few more concrete tips about possible Dragon Age 5 plots. "Isn't it interesting how a lot of the threats that have been prevalent throughout the franchise only scratch at the surface of the mysteries and possibilities in the IP?" she said. "There's been a lot of exploration of the Blight, the elven gods, the elven people, and it's wonderful subject matter. However, it also makes me curious about the other aspects that are less explored and equally as interesting: the nature of the qunari, what's across the seas, what's happening with the titans, the development of the dwarven people.

"So in many ways, I feel like answering some of these long-threaded mysteries that are specific to the Blight and specific to the elves, this gives some space to explore other ideas in the future," she concluded, inconclusively.

Veilguard is more of an action game than an RPG, much to the disappointment of Inquisition diehards and crustier BioWare followers at large. Epler and Busche discuss this in the Eurogamer interview, with Busche coyly observing that Dragon Age is "a franchise of reinvention", and that the next sequel might switch genres once again.

"In some ways there are some parallels in that regard, to say, the Final Fantasy series," she said. "Of course, very different in terms of choice and consequences, and so many other factors, but there are those RPG franchises that embrace that reinvention, that when a new one gets announced, it really piques your curiosity about where are we going to go? What kind of adventure is this going to be?"

I'm still making my way through Veilguard. I'm enjoying the combat and the costumes, but I do yet yearn for Inquisition's (horribly unwieldy) tactical planning and its gratuitous base management. So colour me hopeful that Veilguard's successor is more of a role-player. Still, why restrict ourselves to the spectrum between action game and RPG? I wouldn't mind playing an immersive sim set in Thedas, or perhaps a dating game.