Dragon Age: The Veilguard is creeping ever closer to release, and many fans are undoubtedly excited for its October 31 release date. In it, players return to the world of Thedas but find themselves in the countries north of Ferelden and Orlais, including the long-mysterious Tevinter Imperium. They’ll be facing off with the Blighted Elven Gods of Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, while assembling seven new companions for their journey: Neve, Harding, Taash, Emmrich, Bellara, Davrin, and Lucanis.
At the recent Dragon Age: The Veilguard preview event, Game Rant spoke with creative director John Epler about the game’s companions, a few odds and ends about the preview’s gameplay, and a few of my most burning questions. After asking about Dragon Age: The Veilguard‘s companions, for example, I also asked if there was any chance Dragon Age: Inquisition‘s Dorian would return and if there was a chance fans could get the character creation ahead of launch. Understandably (if somewhat sadly), Epler couldn’t comment on either, but he had a lot to say about the companions and the world around Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
We recommend reading our preview from the Dragon Age event for full context for some questions.
Q: You’ve worked on every Dragon Age game, in some capacity, to this point. Heading into Veilguard’s release, you’re creative director now. I was wondering how it feels? Is it the same, different from past releases?
A: It’s always exciting to come out with a new game. I was on Inquisition, I was on Dragon Age 2. With Origins, I came in at the end. I wasn’t there until it shipped, so it was a little different. It’s always exciting though. The biggest thing about The Veilguard is that there’s a lot of stuff in this game, decisions we made, new characters we created. This is also the first one I did writing for; I wrote one of the companions.
Honestly, funny enough, I know I’m the creative director, but the thing I’m most stressed about is the writing side of things. Like if people don’t like the writing or the characters I created, there’s something deeply personal about that.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard Companions
Bellara Lutare
Q: It was Bellara you wrote, right? Can you tell me a little bit about the writing process there?
A: Absolutely. We knew, at the start, that we needed a character who was an expert in the Ancient Elven magic because, obviously, the story of The Veilguard is these Gods are out. After that point, it was just a matter of what that character concept looked like. What kind of person is this? For me, it was somebody who’s a little bit anxious, who has a little difficulty focusing, and who is so obsessed with understanding what their people, the Elves, used to be. It’s something we brought up a lot before in Dragon Age, that elves used to be an immortal and amazing civilization, but there’s so little left of that they’re still finding pieces. She’s somebody who is obsessed with discovering who they used to be. Where did we come from, and how did that change when Solas put up the Veil, right?
Q: When I think of Bellara, my mind goes to Dalish from Bull’s Chargers. Was that similarity intentional?
A: That was one of those fun coincidences because of the reason why Bellara has the bow. We already had the character concept, and we were trying to figure out how she fits into the class balance and the party. We knew she needed to be a Mage because it doesn’t make sense if the expert in Elven magic isn’t a Mage, but also we needed someone who could do the Ranged thing.
They were like, “Okay, well, she’s got this gauntlet,” and this was one of the things we really talked about with this technology, that this gauntlet can summon a bow and that this gauntlet can summon arrows. It wasn’t intentional, but they’re like “Oh, we’re basically recreating Dalish.” Like yeah…no, actually, we are. I was the cinematic designer for Iron Bull, so Trick Weekes and I worked together a lot, and it was a fun little nod back to the previous Dragon Age for sure.
Got it. Yeah. When I was doing a playthrough of all the games not long ago, I had a ball going Dalish, Bellara, Dalish, Bellara.
It’s really just this idea, and I mean, a fun character detail for Bellara that shows up…one of her things is “How can I weaponize this thing?” Not because she’s evil or likes violence, she’s just curious, and well, ‘We’re fighting Gods. We need to do whatever we can.’ The idea of Dalish was to put a scope on the bow, and basically, yeah.
Taash
Q: I was at the last Discord Q&A that you and Corinne did, and I know that you mentioned Taash was the youngest companion. I was curious if you could maybe speak to the significance of that?
A: It’s just Taash’s character arc because they’re a little more brash and reckless than other companions. But I mean, I say that and, meanwhile, Bellara is literally the person who’s venturing out into the Fade to figure out what’s going on with The Lighthouse. It’s just one of those things where people have a lot of questions, but we wanted to make sure we knew what the proper age range was. People ask, “Are they all in their 30s or all in their 20s?” No. Taash is the youngest, early 20s, and then it goes up to Emmrich in his mid-50s.
Q: One of the biggest questions around Taash is whether they are Aqun-Athlok and what their proper pronouns are?
A: We’re not going to get super deep on Taash right now. That’s something we’re going to talk about in the future.
From Tevinter Nights to The Veilguard: Neve, Lucanis, and Emmrich
Q: During that Discord Q&A, you also talked a little bit about how Neve, Lucanis, and Emmrich were known to be companions when they appeared in Tevinter Nights, but I was curious what the process was like taking them from Tevinter Nights to The Veilguard?
A: Back when we were doing Tevinter Nights, there was kind of this rough concept of Lucanis, Neve, and Emmrich. The writers knew what they wanted to do with them, but they hadn’t fully developed their character arcs yet. It was a fun little opportunity to bring them in and build up their mythology, and once Tevinter Nights came out, we saw the reception of these characters. It helped inform some of that storytelling. It’s interesting with a character in a game because it’s not just about the writing; it’s also about what we can do gameplay-wise. Where does this fit into the arc?
Parts of the story start to change based on other parts of the game because, with Tevinter Nights, you write a short story and all you have to worry about is yourself. It’s you, your editor, and no one else is involved because there’s no need to worry about gameplay. You don’t need to worry about visuals. You don’t have to worry about technology.
Once we start building those arcs in the full game, it’s like, “Oh, actually, we’re doing this thing with the critical path. It’d be really cool if this part of their arc changed in this way.” I’d say it’s a conversation and an ongoing process from where they were in Tevinter Nights to who they are now. They’re very similar, but there’s definitely an evolution to the character concept, even for the writers themselves.
Davrin, The Grey Warden
Q: With Davrin, we have Grey Wardens and we have Griffins, finally, after that book many years ago. Could you talk a little bit about Davrin’s role as a Grey Warden? Is his story purely connected to the Griffins or is there more to it?
Q: As you know, Grey Wardens are there to stand against the Blight. You have two gods who are Blighted coming into the world. That changes the context of the Grey Wardens and what they’re doing pretty significantly, so Davrin’s story is also a lot about that. What does it mean to be a Warden in the world that is The Veilguard? The way things have changed. I’m not going to get into spoilers, but there are some pretty big revelations and some pretty big surprises for Davrin. Obviously, Assan is part of a big part of the arc as well, but Davrin is the main representative of the Grey Wardens in the game. There are obviously more Wardens, but he does his part. And part of his story is the story of the Grey Wardens in this world that’s changed pretty significantly.
I am so excited for Davrin and The Grey Wardens.
I’m a Grey Warden fan too, as you can see. [Shows arm tattoo]
Yeah, that’s dope! I have a few gaming tattoos, but the reason why I’ve never gotten a Dragon Age one is just pure paralysis of what I want most. One of them has been, like, the Grey Warden creed, but the idea I’ve been stuck on lately and am waiting for Veilguard is the loading symbol for each game with a speckle backdrop of the dominant color. I’ve just been debating it for so long.
This tattoo is actually based on one of the tattoos you can get in the character creator. I was making one of my Rooks, and I looked at him, like, ‘I need that tattoo in real life.’
Okay. Wait. That is such a cool idea. That is awesome.
Lace Harding, From Inquisition to Veilguard
Q: Harding is back, and it’s kind of tradition to always have one character come forward. I feel like Harding’s probably the obvious pick for that, but can you talk a little bit about that process of taking a character who fans love and moving their story forward?
A: Part of it is as you said, it’s fan reception when we find a character who really resonates with fans. This may be somebody we want to do more with, but I think more than that, it comes down to the question: do we have more of a story to tell with them? Is there more to do with them? And if so, where does that fit into the game? You saw the trailer. Morrigan’s back. That’s because Morrigan’s story is not quite over, but her story is not in a place where it would have made sense for her to be a companion, for example.
Harding’s writer, Sheryl Chee, really wanted to bring her back. With Harding, it felt like there was more of a story to tell there, so that came up pretty early. If you read the comics, Harding shows up in The Missing because Harding becomes that connection between the Inquisition and then Rook and Rook’s party. I mean, it just felt the most natural character to bring forward because, again, there was more to her story–and also fans loved her.
Companion Quests in Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Q: How are the companion quests structured in the game?
A: Each companion has their own arc, and I say arc because it is a fully blown story arc. Usually at the beginning you either recruit the companion, in the case of everyone except for Harding or Neve, or you go into a mission that kind of sets up the conflict of their arc. You know, who’s their nemesis, who is the character that they’re bouncing off, and the intention is for each of them to have that conflict that ties into but isn’t exactly about the Gods. You go through it, and I don’t remember the exact number of missions you go through. They’re very focused on telling these stories that are, again, parallel to, but not directly on, the critical path.
Q: Are those story arcs like if one had five quests, they all have five quests, or is there a bit of asymmetry?
A: There’s a little bit of asymmetry. We did try to build them largely to be similar, but I mean, that wasn’t so much “everyone must do the same thing.” As we were building out these arcs, we found a number that worked, and it worked for all the companion arcs we wanted to tell. I will say, as a person, as a writer, I find it easier when there’s still kind of that box that we need to work in. It made it very easy to build these quests in a very specific way.
The Mysterious Caretaker
Q: What can you tell me about The Caretaker? His character design is pretty awesome.
A: I’m not going to say a lot about The Caretaker and largely because the game doesn’t say a lot about The Caretaker. The Caretaker is someone who’s been there for a while, someone who knew Solas back when Solas was still building his rebellion, and someone who sees in you what they saw in Solas a millennium ago. You become this ally, this person that can affect the world in a way that they can’t. I will say there’s a lot about The Caretaker that we aren’t going to talk about in this game.
Oh, are we going to find out what kind of spirit he is…?
A: You’ll have to wait and see.
Crossroads, Character Creation, and Act One
Q: In Inquisition, when you go into the Crossroads, it looks a little different for Elven Inquisitors, right? There were more colors and stuff. Is that still the case, or are the Crossroads the same for every Rook?
A: Because you’re in a different part of The Crossroads, it looks the same for Elves as it does for Humans, and part of that is because the Crossroads is under assault by the Gods. It’s no longer the same space it used to be, whereas The Crossroads in Inquisition, Trespasser, Qunari were there, but they weren’t attacking. They were using it as a transit point; now, it’s actually under attack.
Q: For Rook, I saw all the surnames in character creation, and I’ve been really excited to learn about those. Can you tell me what kind of logic went into the creation of the surnames? I mean, de Riva with the Antivan Crows is one of the houses.
A: It’s pretty much that as much as possible. Wherever we had a thread we could pull on, we want to use that. Generally, it’s just what feels right when you say, for example, de Riva is a perfect Antivan Crow name. For the Wardens, it was being able to say Warden X and it felt right. I hate to say it, but it’s just a great mouthfeel. Whatever felt best.
Q: For this preview, we’re playing for about seven hours, and it was mentioned all of this is in Act One. How much of Act One are we skipping? How long would Act One kind of be as a whole?
A: I’m not going to give specific numbers, but there’s a fair bit of content you’re not seeing. Part of that is because there’s content that only exists in part of Act One, and there’s content you can do in Act One but also do later in the game too.
One of our big pillars is “Be who you want to be.” Part of that involves playing how you want to play, and that involves how much content you want to do. Obviously, if you rush the game, you’re going to get a very different experience from someone who does all of it.
Q: One change I noticed while playing it from other Dragon Age games is that, when I was making choices, I’d get “Neve is happy about this, not happy about that,” but there’s also a little dialogue indicator that explained why. Harding’s was something like she’ll do anything to stop Solas. What’s the purpose of these indicators?
A: I think the great thing about choices and consequences is we want the consequences to be a surprise, but we don’t want you to ever be ambushed by the choice. We want you to choose within the information that you have, and once a consequence shows up, we want to carefully relate that back to the choice you made. You’ll get like so-and-so likes that, so-and-so will do this, and so-and-so did this, but it’s also pulled from, I mean, Telltale Games did it. Guardians of the Galaxy did it. It’s a way for players to be reminded that this stuff matters and they can mentally follow along, like “I know more about this character because now I understand not that they just approved or disapproved, but also why they did that.”
Guardians of the Galaxy is a great callout. It’s a great game.
Oh yeah, I loved it. I think I mainlined that game in, like, three days.
Can’t Answer That
My next couple of questions I have like big, bold letters that you probably won’t be able to answer, but I have to ask.
Q: Is there any chance of getting the character creator before launch?
A: Can’t answer that.
Q: With Mae…Dorian?
A: Can’t answer that.
Q: Isabela?
A: Can’t answer that.
Q: Last question. A lot of fans have waited 10 years for this game and many are excited to jump in come October. What would you say to them if you could?
A: I mean, honestly, it’s been a while for us too, and I’m so excited for people to play the game. The team has done an incredible job, and I’m just super proud of what they’ve done. I can’t wait for people to experience it and play firsthand.
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