Summary
Dragon Age: The Veilguardis likely to remain a bitter memory for many long-time fans of the series, who felt the fourth instalment was incongruent with the previous games.
Although The Veilguard was a critical hit, fans of the series lambasted the game post-release for several reasons. There was certainly a vocal anti-woke faction who criticised The Veilguard for prejudicial reasons, but there was alsoa lot of legitimate criticism, too.
Destined to Fail?
According toBloomberg, The Veillguard “reached” 1.5 million players in its first quarter, underperforming EA’s expectations by approximately 50 per cent. As a result, BioWare experienced another round of layoffs, with the remainder of thestudio shifting to develop Mass Effect 5.
There’s a gnawing sense among fans that The Veilguard’s underperformance could spell the end of the Dragon Age series, especially considering anecdotes from former lead writer David Gaider that suggestEA has always favoured Mass Effect over Dragon Age.
In a recent interview withIGN, voice actor Alix Wilton Regan, who plays the female Inquisitor, opened up about her feelings about The Veilguard’s commercial failure.
“I feel absolutely devastated for BioWare as a studio that they got such mixed reactions to the game,” Regan says. “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,” Regan continued.
Regan goes on to say that people writing off a game before it’s released is “an idiotic stance to take” and that something can’t be truly judged until people experience it.
Regan has worked with BioWare for a long time, having played characters in Dragon Age: Origins (Ser Cauthrien, Petra), Dragon Age 2 (Macha, Lilley), Mass Effect 3 (Samantha Traynor) in addition to her lead role as the Inquisitor in Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
Regan is a prolific gaming voice actor and is set to star as the eponymous Joanna Dark in the upcoming Perfect Dark reboot.
