After a 10-year gap, BioWare finally delivered fantasy RPG fans another installment of the Dragon Age franchise earlier this week. The Veilguard is already breaking publisher EA's records on Steam, with concurrent numbers even peaking above Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. However, fans will want to stop looking forward to any DLC or expansions to the RPG's story, as BioWare has confirmed it has already moved on from the game.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, creative director John Epler revealed that after finishing its work with Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the studio is no longer focusing on making any new content for the RPG. The next Mass Effect now has the company's complete attention.
While not many details have been revealed about the highly-anticipated Mass Effect game since its announcement in 2020, its project director recently gave a hint at the tone it's targeting. Unlike Veilguard's new visual style, which hasn't been received well by some fans, the latest Mass Effect is going to keep the "mature tone of the original Trilogy." He went on to say that "Mass Effect is photorealistic and will be as long as I'm running it."
It's already known that The Veilguard had originally started as a multiplayer project before going on to being a single-player experience. “We were alienating parts of our fan base that had been with us for a long time, and not successfully bringing in anyone else through the multiplayer side of things,” Epler says. “The reception to Anthem was very clear in that we needed to get back to those aspects that we did well, and multiplayer became an obstacle in the way of doing just that.”
As for whether the studio might work on another multiplayer project in the future, Epler explains that while games like Final Fantasy XIV deliver on the narrative aspects, "when it comes to crafting these worlds and crafting the experiences, I love the focus that single-player can give you."
A few years ago, BioWare delivered Mass Effect fans a remastered collection titled Legendary Edition. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Dragon Age fans will soon be getting a collection like that. According to Epler, the different engines that the series used — Eclipse Engine for Dragon Age Origins and 2 and Frostbite for Inquisition — are a major obstacle. Meanwhile, the Mass Effect trilogy used Unreal Engine all the way through, making the remastered collection an easier job to develop.
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