As per BioWare tradition, Dragon Age: The Veilguard will let you entangle yourself in hot, unprofessional workplace relationships with your colleagues at Veilguard Inc. The studio is also building on two lesser-discussed aspects of its previous games’ companion romances: They’ll be able to strike up relationships with each other, independent of the player, and, as hinted at in a recent Veilguard preview event, you’ll be able to help or hinder those budding dalliances.
“It felt right to also give them the opportunity to romance each other, and also romance other characters,” said John Epler, The Veilguard’s creative director. “We never want companions to feel like they exist just for Rook, just for the protagonist, they always should feel like real people.”
Corinne Busche, game director on The Veilguard, explained how this bolsters that “found family” fantasy BioWare companions have always been so good at evoking: “We’ve all been around that friend: They’ve fallen in love with someone, you get to experience that joy, that new relationship energy they’re going through, and to be able to experience that and see that manifest amongst your companions, in many ways it’s as joyous and as exciting as your own relationships.”
Though Busche also noted that it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows: The potential for love triangles and other conflicts could add some interesting tension. “When you have companions that are interested in each other,” said Busche, “It makes those choices, how you interact with them, what you task them with that much more difficult.”
Busche alluded to the potential for our own intervention into these relationships in response to a question about whether or not we’d be able to sabotage those companion romances: “I don’t want to spoil anything,” Busche cautioned, “but they might come to you for advice, and I can’t guarantee you’ll give them good advice.”
I’m really excited to see how this shakes out in The Veilguard, especially since this is an area in which BioWare can really distinguish itself from Larian’s take on that adventuring companions fantasy in Baldur’s Gate 3. That game’s cast could have been just that much more vibrant and three-dimensional with more cross-party interaction independent of the player—the early conflicts between Shadowheart and Lae’zel, as well as between Karlach and Wyll could have been expanded in a similar way to what BioWare is doing, for example.
There are hints to how it might play out in The Veilguard from previous BioWare games: Garrus and Tali could get together in Mass Effect 3, but the really interesting pair was Aerie and Haer’Dalis in Baldur’s Gate 2. Proto-Zevran elf lech Haer’Dalis would pursue goody two shoes wingless winged elf Aerie regardless of the player’s actions, potentially leading to a love triangle confrontation if you romanced Aerie yourself. It made for some unique party dynamics.
There’s also one of my favorite quests in Dragon Age 2, where you had to run interference for city guard Aveline as she attempted to woo her coworker, Donnic. A slapstick comedy of errors ensued, culminating in Aveline and Donnic either getting together or parting on bad terms based on the player’s actions. If The Veilguard’s companion interactions wind up resembling this great Dragon Age 2 quest, we could be in for something really special.