Dragon Age developer BioWare has discussed its decision to no longer allow full control over companions during combat, in a shake-up to the series set to be seen in upcoming entry The Veilguard.
The change has been made for several reasons, game director Corinne Busche told Edge magazine (thanks, GamesRadar), most notably the additional options instead available to controlling main character Rook.
The Veilguard “is a much higher actions-per-minute game,” Busche explained. “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.”
Another reason was that BioWare wanted to give companion characters a sense of autonomy – to feel like “fully-realized” personalities “in control of their own actions”, Busche added.
Players will still be able to trigger abilities via the activity wheel in battle, as part of The Veilguard’s focus on combo-based combat. (This is something BioWare’s Mass Effect 3 introduced to fun results, where you could set off chain biotic explosions with the correct combo of abilities.)
“I will admit that, on paper, if you just read that you have no ability to control your companions, that it might feel like something was taken away,” Busche concludes. “But in our testing and validating with players, what we find is they’re more engaged than ever.”
Other changes added by BioWare include a suite of difficulty options to let you turn off death completely, if you choose, and adjust enemy health.
“Whisper it, but Dragon Age: The Veilguard has me thinking the unthinkable: it looks like BioWare is back,” our Chris Tapsell wrote after going hands-on with the game. There’s still no firm release date yet, but it’s set to arrive between 1st October and 31st December.
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