Why Dragon Age: The Veilguard Failed, According to Former BioWare Lead Mark Darrah

It is a real pity to see what has become of Dragon Age. Once a pillar of BioWare alongside Mass Effect, the series has now slipped into the margins of the cultural zeitgeist, due in no small part to the commercial failure of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The long-gestating sequel suffered from numerous issues, and one of the franchise’s central creators has suggested several reasons for its failure.

Senior Leadership Was Stretched Thin

In a new YouTube video, Mark Darrah—a lead developer on every installment of the fantasy RPG series who announced his departure from BioWare in late 2020—explained how and why The Veilguard ultimately failed. He began by pointing to the absence of senior leadership.

“The project ran without its most senior leadership when I was on Anthem, from 2017 until 2019,” he explained.

Repeated Delays Kept the Team Under Pressure

Darrah also highlighted a series of delays in which the release date was never pushed back far enough to give the team sufficient time to bring the game to a shippable state.

“The game spent a lot of time really close to its perceived release date,” Darrah said. “The game changed release dates a lot of times, and the consequence of that is that the team always was quite close to its current release date.”

Although Dragon Age 4 “slipped a tonne,” its deadline was repeatedly postponed in “little steps” rather than moved far enough to give the project substantial room to breathe. As a result, the team could not step back and assess the game from a broader perspective.

“There was never a time when the project was way in the future,” Darrah recalled, “and things could be brought back, looked back, burned down, and looked at in a brand new light.”

EA’s Annual Release Strategy Compounded the Problems

These issues stemmed from—and were exacerbated by—BioWare’s need to fit within EA’s annualization strategy. Essentially, EA wanted the studio to release something every year. For a developer focused on large-scale role-playing games, that expectation was difficult to meet.

At one point, according to Darrah, BioWare’s release slate had Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem, and Dragon Age 4 launching annually from 2013 onward. That plan did not materialize, and delays to each project created a domino effect that contributed to The Veilguard arriving in late 2024 to a muted response.

An Uncertain Future for BioWare and Dragon Age

The future is now uncertain for both the studio and the series. Mass Effect 5 is apparently still in development, but little information has emerged about it for years. Hopefully, Dragon Age will one day make a roaring return—but it should not be expected anytime soon.

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