Summary
Dragon Age: The Veilguardis now just a few weeks from release. BioWare has been engaging in a lengthy pre-release campaign, so we already know a lot about what we’ll see on Halloween. It’s impossible to gauge how good a game will feel to play from start to finish without doing exactly that. Still, everyone speculates about how well a game will perform commercially and critically, and developers are no different.
Mark Darrah was a director on Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age: Inquisition. He left BioWare following the completion of Inquisition, only to return as a freelance consultant on Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Darrah hosts a YouTube channel,Mark Darrah on Games, where he’s candid about his time working on BioWare and Dragon Age, and speculates about the future of the series and studio.
The Race For Game Of The Year
In a reply re-posted to Reddit by Srefanius, Darrah gave his prediction on what Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s score on Metacritic will be. He answered, “88 per cent” before adding that his prediction is within 5 per cent of this number, above or below. A game’s Metascore has always had a disproportionately strong pull in the gaming industry - we all remember when Bethesda offered Obsidian a bonus if Fallout: New Vegas scored over 85 on Metacritic.
Nowadays, fans tend to treat scores as a (mostly) friendly competition. So far, thehighest-rated games of 2024on Metacritic are Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree (94), Astro Bot (94), Metaphor: ReFantazio (94), Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth (92) and UFO 50 (92). At the high end of Darrah’s range, Veilguard would be at 93, fourth place. At the low end, Veilguard would be at 82, approximately 70th place, alongside Helldivers 2.
Given that Darrah worked on the game and is privy to how development went and how it feels to play, you would assume this is an informed prediction. A notable aspect of The Veilguard is that it appears no ‘BioWare Magic’ was required. This was a term coined by the studio to describe how its games ‘came together’ before release, often through brutal crunches, despite the projects being in peril for most of the development cycle. As Dragon Age: The Veilguard has ‘gone gold’ several weeks before release, it would appear development has gone much smoother this time around.
Dragon Age: Origins has a score of 86, Dragon Age 2 has a score of 79 and Dragon Age: Inquisition has a score of 85. The mid-80s range tends to be where Dragon Age is placed, but Dragon Age: The Veilguard looks to be the most polished and accessible entry yet, despite somedesign decisions angering fans.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard releases October 31 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
WHERE TO PLAY
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.
