Former BioWare lead UX designer Bruno Porrio revealed particulars in regards to the improvement of Dragon Age: The Veilguard throughout a panel at Recreation Developer’s Convention 2025. As caught by GamesRadar, Porrio spoke in regards to the fight system of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and suggestions from the QA workforce that was testing the fight out.
Porrio talks in regards to the fight system by describing the “primers” and “detonators” idea that BioWare has been utilizing for fairly a number of video games now, together with Mass Impact Andromeda and Anthem. As a part of the system, gamers can “prime” their targets up by utilizing varied talents; these opponents can then be “detonated” by utilizing one other capacity that causes large single-target or space harm.
He spoke in regards to the QA testers on Dragon Age: The Veilguard being confused by a number of the ideas within the recreation’s fight, a few of which got here right down to how the builders had been designing the sport’s interface. The unique plan, in accordance with Porrio, was: “‘okay, if we’re not obtrusive, gamers usually are not going to be overwhelmed.’” Nonetheless, this ended up not figuring out, and gamers stopped noticing issues on the highest left and high proper corners of the display screen.
“A lot confusion round detonation,” Porrio stated. “There was a whole lot of confusion, and gamers weren’t actually using the detonations.”
Dragon Age: The Veilguard was launched again in October 2024 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Collection X/S. As its identify would possibly suggest, the sport is a follow-up to the Dragon Age franchise, the final recreation having come out all the best way again in 2014 in Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Whereas there was a good bit of speedy success for Dragon Age: The Veilguard on launch, with SteamDB indicating an all-time peak concurrent participant rely of just about 90,000 gamers, reputation of the sport has fallen off fairly a bit since then. On the time of writing, the RPG nonetheless has a comparatively wholesome participant base, with a 24-hour peak of round 2,655 gamers.
Finally, EA revealed again in January that Dragon Age: The Veilguard had underperformed in accordance with the writer’s expectations. In an earnings report, EA revealed that round 1.5 million gamers had performed Dragon Age: The Veilguard as of December 2024, lacking projections by round 50 %.
EA CEO Andrew Wilson believes that the dearth of success of Dragon Age: The Veilguard might be attributed to the truth that it’s a purely single-player title with no on-line options. Throughout a quarterly earnings name, Wilson stated that the sport wanted some “shared-world options” so as to entice an viewers that search on-line video games.
“To interrupt past the core viewers, video games have to immediately connect with the evolving calls for of gamers who more and more search shared-world options and deeper engagement alongside high-quality narratives on this beloved class,” stated Wilson. “Dragon Age had a high-quality launch and was well-reviewed by critics and those that performed; nevertheless, it didn’t resonate with a broad sufficient viewers on this extremely aggressive market.”
For extra particulars about Dragon Age: The Veilguard, take a look at our assessment. Additionally take a look at our ideas on what occurred with the RPG.
