Dragon Age: The Veilguard director says, "you can play this game entirely offline," and there won't be any microtransactions or battle passes (2024)

What you need to know

• Dragon Age is an upcoming action-adventure role-playing title created by BioWare. BioWare are also the creators of the award-winning franchise, Mass Effect.
• In a Q&A session on their Discord, the BioWare developers answered a lengthy list of questions from their community.
• During the session, they revealed there would be no online requirement, no microtransactions, and no battle passes!

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is an upcoming action-adventure role-playing title created by BioWare, the award-winning maker of Mass Effect. It's been ten years since the last game, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and fans have been foaming at the mouth for more information. Since the initial reveal during the Xbox Games Showcase, BioWare has completed a few interviews, and today, they conducted a dedicated question and answer session on their Discord.

In it, they answered a variety of questions related to gameplay, characters, classes, and more. When answering a question as to whether or not decisions from previous games can be imported, Corinne Busche answered, "We have taken a different approach on how you import your decisions this time around; it's now actually been fully integrated into the Character Creator. The character creator kind of serves a dual purpose. It's been ten years since the last Dragon Age game released. So, it serves as a refresher on critical events."

Continuing, she added, "It is very important to us that it's built into the client, though. You can play this game entirely offline; no connection. You don't have to link to your EA accounts. That's been a really big request. So, the refresher plus those decisions are in the client."

Wonderful news! Much like how Witcher 3 worked when players loaded in, they'll have the opportunity to select what events occurred during the previous games rather than needing that data. This not only allows players who may have lost those saved files years ago to continue their journey but also allows returning veterans to go back in time and use a mulligan on a decision they regret. In addition, this entire system is based offline in the client. There's no need for players to have internet when exploring the game or making the choices they previously made.

No microtransactions, no battle passes

As though the news she was delivering couldn't get any better, Corinne also announced later on that there wouldn't be a single microtransaction. "We're 100% focused on this being the most complete game we can make it. I want to underscore this. I want to emphasize it. There's not going to be any microtransactions. There's not going to be any battle passes. You don't have to connect online; our focus is making this the most complete single-player game we possibly can," Corinne declared.

It was a decisive moment, with users in the Discord chat cheering left and right in capital letters and celebration emojis. This presentation held by BioWare was an absolute slam dunk. One which revealed a lot of information that fans have been worried about. I'll be doing a separate write-up on some of the news that broke out from this discussion, but the most essential information is here. This will be a focused single-player experience without needless goals of monetization ruining the experience. Bravo BioWare, bravo!

How about you? Does this news add to your excitement or rejuvenate any you might have lost after the initial reveal? I know it does for me. Seeing an artistic team so focused on the player brings me so much joy. It stinks that this is the modern era of gaming, where we have to question these practices in single-player games, but developers fighting against that vision should always be supported! You love to see it. Let us know below if this resonates with you, too, or on our social media!