‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’ Devs Reflect On Game’s Release, Say They’re “Quite Proud Of The Critical Reception” But Admit Sales Are Struggling
In attempting to spin their game’s less-than-stellar reception, Dragon Age: The Veilguard game director Corinne Busche and series creative director John Epler say that despite the mixed feelings players had towards the fantasy RPG franchise’s latest entry, the overwhelming amount of positive praise it received from the mainstream media is something they and their team are “quite proud of”.
Busche and Epler offered their thoughts on the divisive title’s wider reputation during a post-release interview given to Eurogamer Associate Editor Robert Purchese.
Asked by their host as to how they felt at launch when “people’s opinions and reviews were rolling in”, Busche began, “The biggest thing I was feeling was a sense of curiosity.”
“We get so close to the work – we’re focused on the day-to-day of it – and of course we’re playing and we’re mindful of the overall experience,” she explained. “We know what we’ve got. But there’s something, even when you go through preview events, or you have smaller hands-on demos – there’s nothing quite like players getting it in their hands, or reviewers playing through the game for the first time. You’re always curious, right. Of course, we’ve poured a lot of ourselves into the game, but I find, for myself, a sense of trying to let go of the personal investment and just step back and absorb what everyone else then has to say about the game experience. So for me it’s curiosity.”
Building on his colleague’s thoughts, Epler assertedd, “I’d say for me probably relief was definitely at the top of my list. I’ve been on the project for a very long time and there were definitely times in development where, especially early on, it felt like this day would never come. So the fact that it came out felt amazing.”
“I also thought it was interesting reading the reviews to see just the variety of what people were engaging with, what people were bouncing off of, maybe, and pulling some of that feedback early on,” he continued. “Because again, as Corinne says, we’re so close to the game, so close to the project that it’s hard to take that step back and look at it through that lens. So seeing other people look at it through that lens was really great.”
Turning to address “Corinne’s other point,” Epler further admitted, “curiosity was definitely there too. But for me: relief that it’s out, relief that the reviews were coming in fairly well, and excitement for fans to get their hands on it and to start to see how they were going to react to it.”
Next, the pair were pressed about the “divisive reactions to the game”, in particular whether or not they were something they had planned to “expect”.
“Did we expect it? Yes and no,” said Busch. “What we know is that these reactions have been a part of the Dragon Age journey with every entry. Even if you look back to Origins, it wasn’t necessarily hailed at the time with the reverence that it is today, because people were still considering games like Neverwinter Nights, so we saw that through each entry. It was more-so this time than we were braced for, but we did expect it.”
“I also think that comes from reinvention,” she continued. “One of the unique – I often call it a challenge and an opportunity of the franchise, is that it does reinvent itself with each entry.”
Met with an observation from Purchese that “all of the [Dragon Age] installments have been significantly different, Busch affirmed, “Right? It’s inherent to the DNA of the game. And what that means is you’re going to have a diverse player base in terms of what parts of the IP resonate with them, what Dragon Age means to them, and ideally, you’re creating an experience that is really clear in its direction but also has something for each entry’s fans.”
Offering his take, Epler posited, “It’s been a decade since the last Dragon Age game came out, and a lot of people have spent that decade imagining various versions of what this game was going to be. The reality was whatever we came out with, it was never going to match the Dragon Age 4 in people’s minds and people’s imaginations.”
“Now how closely it matched, or whether what they got was different in a good way than what they were expecting: that speaks to the very wide variety of reactions on it,” he said. “But getting those kinds of reactions at least suggests that, to Corinne’s point about having a direction, having a very clear vision: it speaks to you’ve got something that’s very clearly a thing and it’s not sitting in the middle. It’s not trying to be all things to all people. It’s trying to be itself, it’s trying to be the game that it wants to be. I think you’re going to get those much more polarized reactions that way than if you make something that tries to be a little bit of everything. You might still end up with the same score but it’s going to be a lot more in the middle of that spectrum of scores.”
Next, Purchese inquired as to the game’s current sales, asking his guests, “How has the commercial response to the game been? I’ve seen stories about sales and they seem mixed – inconclusive. The game seems to be doing okay but struggling to keep pace with Inquisition before it. Has it been a success from your point of view – how do you measure that?”
Taking the lead on this question and proceeding to address each individual point in reverse, Busche detailed, “There’s three axes we can measure this by: what the team was able to do and put together – the pride that they can take in that; every game that is made, especially in the triple-A space where you’re talking hundreds of developers, timelines, is a miracle. That they executed at quality: internally we consider that a success.”
“We’re very happy with the critical reception to the game,” she claimed. “It’s not common to have these challenging development cycles and have a team turn around and receive the critical reception that it did. In fact, in a lot of ways, that is the harder path to take. So yeah, we’re quite proud of the critical reception.”
But of course, despite all the hot air Busche and Epler attempted to blow in defense of their work on The Veilguard, the former could not dodge the reality of its actual sales numbers, as she concluded her reflection by admitting, “Unfortunately on the sales side, that’s not something we can really discuss, but of course as we know with Inquisition, that was a long burn to get to those total sales numbers.”
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