Dragon Age: The Veilguard has a lot of expectations riding on it, as the first game from the series in a decade. It certainly seems like BioWare has been hard at work during that time, evidenced by the fact that Veilguard is the largest game in the franchise, at least in terms of sheer dialogue. There are apparently 140,000 lines of spoken dialogue in Veilguard, with casting beginning five years ago. That, combined with a renewed focus on companions, suggests that Veilguard is moving the series in the right direction.
The information comes from a GamesRadar interview with creative director John Epler and performance director Ashley Barlow. “It takes a long time to record 700 characters, you know — 80,000 lines or 140,000 lines with all the Rooks. It just takes time to make good,” says Barlow.
That’s a pretty staggering number, but there is a small caveat as the main character Rook has four different voice actors. That means that each version of Rook accounts for roughly 15,000 voice lines, so expect your character to be pretty chatty. But put this in context with other games and Veilguard still appears to be pretty massive — the next biggest game, Inquisition, topped out at 88,000 lines of dialogue. These aren’t one-to-one comparisons, of course, but last year’s Starfield reportedly had around 250,000 lines of dialogue.
What’s really interesting about Veilguard’s size, however, is that BioWare has said unlike Inquisition the new game won’t be open world, but rather “mission-based.” That means that Veilguard’s story is likely quite lengthy, but there could be another underlying reason as well.
BioWare has been extremely vocal about this game deliberately focusing on party members, even more so than the rest of the series.
“I’ve been on every Dragon Age game previously, and I think the biggest thing that Dragon Age: The Veilguard brings to the larger series experience is an ever heavier and more deliberate focus on companions,” Epler told GameDeveloper.com in an interview. “We’ve been saying that it’s the most deliberately crafted companion experience we’ve ever done — each character is integral for you to save the world, and they each bring something to the table. These characters are important, and each will have their mission to see and learn more about them.”
This renewed focus on companions is likely the key reason for the inflated script of Veilguard, with more opportunities to learn about and bond with the characters.
As someone who’s recently been replaying the Dragon Age series, it’s quite apparent that a huge portion of each game’s dialogue is directly tied to party members. Both Dragon Age and Mass Effect were pivotal franchises for this kind of party-focused storytelling, where you can get to know characters at camp, have them interject during story moments, and even take on dedicated quests for party members. It’s also fair to say that party members are universally the most well-done aspect of every Dragon Age game. There’s a reason the community, over a decade later, continues to hotly debate the best romance options in each game.
BioWare’s renewed focus on companion storytelling is, by far, what seems the most exciting thing about Veilguard. It, hopefully, shows that the studio has reevaluated itself since the days of Anthem and doubled down on what it’s always done best.
