Summary
- Dragon Age Veilguard’s development shifted multiple times between single-player and multiplayer.
- The game had to be restructured and rewritten with no full reset.
- Short deadlines and management pressure limited storytelling and polish.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard was Pulled in Too Many Directions
Dragon Age: The Veilguard was meant to be BioWare’s return to form, but instead, it stumbled badly. A new report by Jason Schreier reveals why Veilguard didn’t click with longtime fans or even EA’s leadership.
The problem? The game was dragged back and forth between being a single-player RPG and a multiplayer live-service game. That tug-of-war left scars on the final product.
Originally, Veilguard started as a classic BioWare-style solo adventure. But EA pushed for a live-service format. This led to creative director Mike Laidlaw leaving, and years were spent building a multiplayer version.
Then, EA flipped the plan again—Veilguard would go back to being a single-player game. But instead of restarting development, the team had to reshape what already existed. And they had just a year and a half to finish it.
Rushed Storytelling and Last-Minute Rewrites
That last-minute pivot meant rewriting the entire story and structure without rebuilding the game from scratch. Developers say they were under pressure to wrap things up quickly, so they couldn’t include meaningful choices or complex world-building like in past Dragon Age titles.
Testers during the alpha stage even noted that choices lacked real impact. BioWare had to scramble to add deeper decisions, like choosing between two cities to save, but that wasn’t enough.
Another major issue was the tone. The early dialogue felt too snarky—leftovers from the game’s multiplayer phase. After seeing how poorly similar writing was received in other games like Forspoken, BioWare rewrote much of Veilguard’s dialogue to make it more serious and emotional. The reveal trailer also received criticism for feeling too cartoonish, causing further worries about marketing the game correctly.
A Studio in Crisis
Adding to the stress, BioWare brought in members of the Mass Effect team to help finish Veilguard. But instead of helping, the mix of different studio cultures created more tension. After all the changes, layoffs, and development chaos, what players got was a game that couldn’t live up to BioWare’s legacy.
Now, a small team is working on the next Mass Effect, and insiders say this may be BioWare’s last chance. With so much riding on their next project, the future of the beloved studio hangs in the balance.
