While it’s no surprise that Dragon Age: The Veilguard didn’t meet EA’s expectations in terms of sales, one voice actor from the game – Alix Wilton Regan – believes that the failure of the game can be blamed on some people who may have wanted to see the game fail. Speaking to IGN, Wilton Regan mentioned that she felt “devastated” for Dragon Age developer BioWare.
“I feel absolutely devastated for BioWare as a studio that they got such mixed reactions to the game,” Wilton Regan said of the response to The Veilguard. “I personally thought it was a really strong game. I thought it was just BioWare being more BioWare.”
“I also think a lot of people kind of wanted to see it fail, or wanted to see [BioWare] fail, either because they’re just really bad people on the internet — of which there are unfortunately many, as we have discovered.”
When it comes to the development of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, former director on the games Mark Darrah has spoken in the past about how the team behind Dragon Age at BioWare felt like it was being jerked around by EA. In a video posted earlier this month, Darrah spoke about the state of BioWare and EA in 2017, as the studio had wrapped up work on Mass Effect: Andromeda and would be moving on to Anthem.
“This was the first time where we had this leadership discontinuity, where the person in charge of a project left that project to help someone else, some other project, while the project continued to run,” said Darrah. “In the case of Mass Effect: Andromeda, I don’t think the impact to Dragon Age was huge. It wasn’t very long, but it did set this precedent as this being a thing that we could do, and it’s not a good thing to do. It is incredibly dangerous to have a project run while it’s missing some of its core leadership.”
Darrah also revealed details about working with EA CEO Andrew Wilson and former executive Patrick Söderlund. The two would assure Darrah that the Dragon Age franchise was still important to EA. The departure of Casey Hudson from BioWare, along with the ensuing time of turbulence for the studio was also discussed.
“You have to remember: I am the second most senior person at BioWare,” Darrah said. “Casey was interviewed, and hired, and prepared to be brought back entirely without me being consulted in any way. Would me have being involved in the process have changed the decision? No, I don’t think it would have, but there is an immense amount of disrespect involved in making a hire of this impact, in making a decision of this import, without involving the second-most senior person at your studio in any way.”
Dragon Age: The Veilgaurd was released back on October 2024 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. For more details about the title, check out our review, where we game the title a score of 7 out of 10, praising its responsive combat and side content while criticising its story direction and writing.
