GamesRPGDragon AgeDragon Age: The VeilguardElectronic Arts chief says Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a ‘return to what made BioWare great’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

GamesRPGDragon AgeDragon Age: The VeilguardElectronic Arts chief says Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a ‘return to what made BioWare great’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Electronic Arts)

Dragon Age: The Veilgurad companions sit together around a table in The Lighthouse

Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn’t out for a couple days yet, but the reviews are here and so far, so good: We scored it 79% in ourreview, “a genuinely enjoyable, gorgeous action-RPG that lacks the storytelling nuance of previous Dragon Age games,” and it holds an even more impressive 84 aggregate score onMetacritic.

Speaking in today’s quarterly investors call, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson attributed that positive critical response to what he sees as a genuine return to form for BioWare following the less-than-stellar response to the studio’s online shooter Anthem.

Wilson remembers Anthem in a rather more favorable light than I do, saying reviews at the time “heralded the world as being incredibly rich and wonderful and high fidelity, and traversing that world being great, and some of the characters being super interesting.” And yes, fair deal, we said the game world was “ridiculous pretty” and that flying through it was “sublime” in our otherwise pretty down55% review.

But, he acknowledged, “the pieces of the puzzle just didn’t quite come together in a way that I think BioWare had hoped,” because developers were trying to do so many things that were outside of the studio’s usual experience. With Dragon Age: The Veilguard, BioWare is “really returning to BioWare type games, really returning to BioWare’s strength.”

“What’s happened subsequently since Anthem is the BioWare team has really rallied around what made BioWare a fan favorite studio and a fan favorite brand, and the types of games they make: incredibly rich worlds, incredibly nuanced characters, really powerful and compelling stories with camaraderie and friendship and relationships and decisions that matter in the context of gameplay,” Wilson said.

“I think it’s really been that return to what made BioWare great, and giving the studio time to really deliver against what makes BioWare great in the context of the Dragon Age world, is what amounts to a game like Dragon Age: The Veilguard.”

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