GamesRPGDragon AgeDragon Age 4Dragon Age: The Veilguard won’t let you control your companions because you can’t handle it: “This is a much higher actions-per-minute game"When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesRPGDragon AgeDragon Age 4Dragon Age: The Veilguard won’t let you control your companions because you can’t handle it: “This is a much higher actions-per-minute game"When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
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(Image credit: BioWare)
Dragon Age: The Veilguard won’t let players have full control over their companions, butBioWaresays that’s because there’s so much to do that it doesn’t want you to be overwhelmed.
Speaking to Edge magazine, game director Corinne Busche explained whyDragon Age: The Veilguardis dropping the party-controlling formula of previous games, even as it drops your companion count from three to two. “On the experiential side, we wanted you to feel like you are Rook,” Busche explained. “You’re in this world, you’re really focused on your actions. We wanted the companions to feel like they, as fully-realized characters, are in control of their own actions. They make their own decisions.”
That’s a major deviation from the rest of the series, but Busche says there’s a simple reason for that - Dragon Age: The Veilguard “is a much higher actions-per-minute game. It is more technically demanding on the player. So when we tried allowing you full control of your companions as well, what we’ve found is it wasn’t actually adding to the experience. In fact, in some ways it was detrimental, given the demanding nature of just controlling your own character.”
Age of Dragons
(Image credit: BioWare)
Those abilities are part of BioWare’s big push towards combo-based combat. The developer offers an example - one companion uses a gravity well-style spell, another slows time, and then the player drops a big AoE nuke on top of your grouped, slowed enemies. Busche says that she thinks about “this strategic layer to combat as a huddle. Where you’re figuring out how you want to handle the situation, based on the information you have on the encounter, and how you and your companions synergise together.”
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