David Gaider shares his thoughts on the romance possibilities of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
Gaider, who is the creator of Dragon Age and lead writer of previous installments in the series, offered a long thread on social media platform X comparing the romantic approach to the popular Baldur’s Gate 3.
“I think the move-in [Dragon Age: The Veilguard] that “all companions are romantic to everyone” is not a big surprise [Baldur’s Gate 3]but – unsurprisingly – I have a few thoughts,” he began, before acknowledging that “the fandom is pretty divided on romantic design.”
Gaider said that a large part of the gaming community wants to be able to love anyone and everyone, so he feels that not getting that is “a slap in the face”. However, others prefer “characters with more agency, even (and perhaps especially) when it doesn’t suit their preferences”.
The developer didn’t come up with either side being right or wrong, just stating “it depends on what you want from the game” and “we’re not all here for the same reasons, okay?”. He added that “in my experience, the only unfortunate aspect is that the two approaches are more or less diametrically opposed in terms of design”.
Previous Dragon Age writers realized that once a character became romantic, it limited the stories that could be told with that character because they were “committed to their romantic arc and their need to be ultimately attractive,” Gaider said.
“Why is this a limitation? Because not all characters’ stories are defined by their appeal to players. Even if the arc’s appeal is to a relatively limited audience, the appeal requirement inherently limits the potential stories to a fairly limited band,” Gaider continued.
This is why players failed to link the dwarven companion of the Varric series in previous posts. “I can already hear some fans groaning in disappointment, even though we did it to *not ruin Varric’s character*. You can’t have it both ways, I’m afraid,” Gaider said.
He added that Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s approach to romance, which is described as new, is “curious”, with “the only difference between this and [Dragon Age 2]after all, not everyone is [Dragon Age 2] the follower was romantic”.
“The ones you could were pansexual. We actually made the *same* argument that they weren’t ‘playersexual’ (ugh),” Gaider said. “A call to retreat from this approach [Dragon Age Inquisition] was mine, made with the support of Mike and the team. I didn’t like what the removal of tracking agencies did, that it turned them into sex dolls whose sole purpose is to get the player to put them together and go ‘kiss now’.”
Gaider admitted that it was a “personal (and uncharitable) preference” before adding that he’s also not a fan of what it did for the characters in Baldur’s Gate 3.
“A few characters would have had a stronger arc without the romance and the feeling I got of this whole huge crew being ready to drop a line if I blinked wrong… meh,” he said.
Despite admitting he’s not the biggest fan of Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s approach to romantic characters, he thinks it “should be fine” if the developers “lean into it unapologetically”, much like Larian did with Baldur’s Gate 3.”It’s a legitimate approach, like I said, and it’s going to make a lot of fans happy and happy,” he said, “which at the end of the day isn’t a bad thing.
What’s more, if you don’t fall in love with a character in The Veilguard, they’ll find another partner instead.
In the following post, which I’ll admit made me laugh, Gaider said that he would refrain from sharing any further thoughts on Dragon Age: The Veilguard for now. His reason? Because he doesn’t want to “provide fodder for news articles that like to talk about what the “former Dragon Age head writer” tweets.”
Sorry Gaider, we can’t help it – we find what you have to say interesting and so do our readers! In fact, if you want to read another article about Gaider’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard impressions, we’ve got it for you.
Our own Chris Tapsell got his hands on Dragon Age: The Veilguard earlier this week and was pretty excited about it. “Whisper it, but Dragon Age: The Veilguard makes me think the unthinkable: it looks like BioWare is back,” Eurogamer wrote of the Dragon Age: The Veilguard preview.