Dragon Age Boss Discusses Ditching Live-Service And Multiplayer Focus For The Veilguard

BioWare’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard is out now, after years of development and significant shakeups in design. As reported by Bloomberg, The Veilguard started as a single-player game, before being rebooted with a focus on multiplayer and live-service. After Gary McKay took over as BioWare GM, he began to question if that was the right choice, ultimately leading to the decision to reboot the game once again, going back to a single-player design.

“We were thinking, ‘Does [multiplayer/live-service] make sense, does this play into our strengths, or is this going to be another challenge we have to face?'” he said. “No, we need to get back to what we’re really great at.”

McKay spent months discussing the issue with senior staff at BioWare and EA, and it was decided that the game would revert to its original design as a single-player game.

“Once we made that decision, a lot of things started to fall into place,” McKay said.

EA’s live-service business is booming, as the company just this week reported earning $1.3 billion from live services over the past three months alone. But not every game from EA will be a multiplayer/live-service game. Before Dragon Age: The Veilguard, EA had success with the single-player-only Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which sold more than 10 million copies. Its sequel, Jedi Survivor, was among the best-selling games of 2023.

Also in the interview, it was revealed that BioWare’s other major internal team, which was working on the next Mass Effect, was called in to help finish The Veilguard and get it out the door. EA’s Motive Studio, which is making a new Iron Man game, was also recruited to help BioWare, the report said.

McKay said he hopes The Veilguard can help BioWare return to its former glory as a “top game studio” following the struggle that was Anthem.

It’s early days, but there are some positive signs already. For one, The Veilguard is getting generally positive review scores, while the RPG is also setting records on Steam.

GameSpot’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard review in progress scored the game a 7/10. If you’re just getting into the game, you might want to check out GameSpot’s The Veilguard guides hub.