Dragon Age: The Veilguard has "breakout potential", EA CEO reckons, because BioWare'll face "limited competition" with its very BioWarey return to doing BioWarey things
Andrew Wilson's got his big corporate drum out, and he's doing a decent Phil Collins impression for Veilguard.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard releases tomorrow, October 31, so naturally EA's CEO has been banging the corporate drum about it in the company's latest earnings call, declaring that he reckons it has "breakout potential" because it's not up against as many other huge games as it could have been.
Yep, after Mass Effect 5 director Michael Gamble had a bit of a chat about Veilguard the other day, at least in terms of how the series about shagging aliens as Commander Shepard will look going forwards, Andrew Wilson's now stepped up to the plate.
The EA big cheese seems to be at least a bit bullish on the chances of this new Dragon Age doing well, saying it has "breakout potential" (thanks, IGN), in part due to BioWare's established reputation, but also because the game looks to be hitting a fairly free period in the gaming calendar. "We're going into a market with limited competition for this category of game given some of the moves that has happened across the broader industry," he said.
So yeah, while something that could be interpreted as 'the games industry's decided to release about 20 million things in February 2025, so we've done ourselves a solid by ending up not having to fight with the likes of Assassin's Creed Shadows' isn't maybe as ringing an endorsement as it first sounds, it's something.
As to what Wilson thinks Veilguard will do to win hearts, the answer it seems is basically 'BioWarey things'. The exec said that a "big shift happened" when the studio decided to move away from Anthem - a not very BioWarey thing - back to do a thing that could be more easily considered BioWarey.
"I think it’s been that return to what made BioWare great and giving the studio time to deliver against what makes BioWare great in the context of the Dragon Age world is what amounts to Dragon Age: The Veilguard," Wilson said, definitely using words and phrases that don't sound a bit weird and robotic to non-exec ears.
So, we'll have to see if this return to being BioWarey for BioWare really does pay off in breakout fashion. Before we find out, make sure to check out our review of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, penned by Alex, who knows a thing or two about RPGs.