Dragon Age: The Veilguardlaunch must have been a turbulent time forBioWare. Reviews weregreat across the board, as Dragon Age: The Veilguard proved to be much more stable than any recent game from the studio, and a whole lot of fun to play. However, when it got into the hands of longtime fans, they were quick to notice thatthe game’s tone was very different from previous entries,getting rid of the bitemany of us loved.
That’s not even to get into the comments that went beyond any actual critique of the game, as someattacked The Veilguard for having LGBTQ+ characters(something it has had from the first game, and has only expanded upon in sequels). Put simply, it must have sucked to work on the game, as there were many who took their criticism way too far, resulting in some higher ups leaving social media.
Now, days after an explosive report fromBloombergclaimed thatEA was the cause of The Veilguard’s development woes, some fans have changed their tune. Reddit user DJReyesSA1995 kicked things off, apologising to some of those who worked on The Veilguard, and many fans agree and echo similar sentiments.
Dragon Age Fans Apologise After New Report Pins The Blame For Veilguard’s Shortcomings On EA
“I have been very critical of the Veilguard and its tone, writing and lack [of] continuity ever since it released,” says DJReyesSA1995. “I tended to put the blame on the trinity (John Epler [creative director], Corinne Busche [game director] and lead writer Trick Weekes) for the game’s tone and writing, and thus its failure.”
“I assume that nobody cares about my thoughts, yet I want to acknowledge that me constantly blaming the trinity pushed the idea that they were either the sole reason or one of the major reasons for the game’s failure and the death of the franchise,” they continue. “But now, I can safely assume that they tried their best with a bad deck of cards.”
Many others agree. “Blaming Busche for any of that never made sense,” says Il_Exile_lI. “She came in to salvage an already sinking ship. Anyone that was blaming her at any point was uninformed.”
As I covered in a previous report on the matter, those close to the project had already credited Busche for getting development back on track. She joined The Veilguard as the director back in 2022, and despite many of the creative decisions having already been made then (as well as the disastrous pivot to multiplayer, and then back to single-player), Busche was blamed and made the subject of abuse over the game’s shortcomings.
It seems that many are realising this now, as one of the most upvoted posts in the Dragon Age subreddit is titled “Corinne Busche saved Veilguard from a far worse fate and we owe her an apology”, fromCapt_C004.
Of course, it should not have got to the point where so many in the community jumped to conclusions, and there are zero excuses for those who were being bigoted (not that I’m seeing any of them apologise). We can only hope that everyone involved lands on their feet somewhere else, and doesn’t get as messed around as they were at BioWare.
