The release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard sparked heated debate among fans of the series. Most of the criticism targeted the plot and how the writers structured the narrative. As it turns out, some of the issues may have been linked to internal disagreements within the studio. Mark Darrah, former head of the franchise, participated in the creation of the latest installment only as an external consultant during the final stage of development.
Speaking to journalists, he admitted that this experience was deeply frustrating for him at times. Many of Darrah's key observations and suggestions went unheeded. He was particularly incensed by situations where the team met his ideas with silence, only to later embrace the exact same suggestions from other consultants, calling them excellent.
This echoes Darrah's earlier criticism directed at BioWare. In his view, the studio spent far too long dumbing down its games in an effort to make them more accessible to a mainstream audience, instead of crafting deep and uncompromising RPGs. As a contrasting example, the author of the article cites Baldur's Gate 3.
However, BioWare's internal disagreements are now in the past. Electronic Arts has shut down the studio, putting an end to its future plans.