Veilguard Game Director Corinne Busche on Player Choice and Companion Relationships

BioWare has a rich history of innovation when it comes to player choice and agency, from the dialogue wheel to the relationships you build with companions. With that in mind, I had a chance to talk with Dragon Age: The Veilguard Game Director Corinne Busche about player choice and what it means for your character and companions. 

Check out our overview video of everything we learned about Dragon Age: The Veilguard in our seven hour preview here.

Player Choice in Veilguard Is Intimate     

There are near endless ways to handle player choice, and I wanted to know what their guiding principles were in Veilguard’s design. Busche had an interesting answer as to their approach: intimacy. 

We wanted you to feel like you're in this world, that you're more attached and on the ground than perhaps even other entries in the game or in the IP’s history. So with that comes a level of intimacy. So choice and consequence, particularly as it relates to narrative beats, we really lean into what are those things that are going to affect people's lives?  ... What are those really personal moments where you feel like, if you really care about this character, that you can help them make some of the most important decisions of their lives? ... Our choices, that intimacy and connection, that sense of immersion, is really our North Star.

To be clear, and Busche wanted to stress this as well, intimacy doesn’t necessarily mean romantic (don’t worry, it’s BioWare so you’ll have plenty of romance options). 

Intimacy just means being close, having an understanding. Getting into the nitty gritty of details and information of your own character and those they interact with.

 

Based on my time with the game and further conversation with Busche, I think that is a great word that shows its influence throughout Veilguard’s design.  

Veilguard Companion Relationships Are Impactful and Complex 

Obviously, the relationships you have with characters will be intimate. There is a closeness that will develop from their shared cause of the game, of course, and you have an opportunity to make them more personal if you wish. 

Companions in Veilguard cast a huge shadow of course, both in how integral they are to the plot and in how they ground the game. They have unique personalities, motivations, and past histories. Naturally, that means you’ll get a wide variety of reactions to the choices you make. 

When it comes to decisions affecting companions: 

There will be times where it changes the nature of the dynamic you have with them. There will be times when people need to step away. Another factor is, do you actually help them out with their own personal motivations, and how does that affect how they show up?

Depending on where you or your companions are in the story, they may be off doing their own thing. They have goals, desires, and a whole life outside the main plot of the game. 

So, maybe you made one angry with a decision but maybe they just have something they needed to do, so off they go. You’ll even have a chance to run into companions going about their business when you’re out exploring as well. 

Not all choices are so obviously huge they may send a companion off to take a break or what have you either, as the small choices through dialogue or elsewhere build up to big effects, too. 

Companion Progression in Veilguard 

Building relationships with companions is exactly how you’ll see them progress, with Busche noting that they’ve taken a new approach to companion progression in Veilguard: 

So their progression is based on how well you know and understand one another. It's directly tied to your relationship with them. And it's not necessarily how friendly you are with them, it's how well you know each other, how well you know how to work together. So as I bring companions with me on missions, I help solve their problems, that's going to improve that sense of connection, and that's going to make us work better as a team.

As much as gaining XP is fun and all, your companions won’t just level up with the player character at the same rate. Instead, the level of your relationship grows the closer you get to them. That grows through conversation, bringing them on missions, choices, and quests specific to them. 

Each companion has a fairly expansive skill tree that you can customize as you wish. Obviously, the lower your relationship with them, the fewer points you’re able to put in their skill tree. 

These skill trees aren’t just simple upgrades to stats, like more strength or what have you. Each node on the tree directly affects one ability or another. 

I did ask if there could be situation where a companion would be underpowered if I never used them in Veilguard, but Busche said that while they won’t have quite as much at their disposal, companions will always have an effect. They’ll never be useless.

Growing that relationship level isn't just as simple as spending time with them, either. Each have their own complex histories, preferences, and desires that will inform the way they act and react.

Companion and Character Histories Matter a Lot 

This philosophy is applied to all your interactions and the reactions you’ll receive from companions and characters along the way. Romance, however, is probably the easiest to see how it works. 

While you can certainly pursue all of your companions, that doesn’t mean that Veilguard will just let you romance them just for the sake of it. If you do certain things or make certain choices, they just won’t be that interested in you.  

In other words, as Busche described, companions won’t conform to the player. They won’t just crumple their beliefs and preferences for the sake of letting you romance someone. In other words, it has to make sense.

Outside of even romance, Busche made sure to note that growing these relationships doesn't necessarily mean you'll be friends with all the companions. The shared experience and common cause create an intimacy, but there's a chance your personalities just won't gel. A working relationship you could say.

In the mix of all of this are the choices you made when creating a character and those you continue to make when further defining who your Rook will be in the game. Character creation choices from the race you are to your background, class, and those choices beyond the character creator are just as impactful and intimate. 

Busche gave two examples of these intimate choices. In one, if you’re playing a dwarf, you can have an interesting conversation with Harding early in the game as both your character and her have a dream. Dwarves don’t dream and they’re wondering what the hell is going on. 

In another, Busche described a smaller decision with a less important character having a big impact: 

One of the smaller choices, but one that hit me quite hard, it sits with me, is when you have choices of maybe somebody living or dying, but if I'm a Grey Warden, well I can send them to the order as well and they show up later in the game. And while that might not be a world shaking decision, you really get the sense that, like you're affording a second chance to these characters.

There are a ton of opportunities to make Veilguard your own that extend far beyond the choices you make in dialogue, about certain characters, or about deviances in the plot, too.

Be Who You Want To Be 

Busche said that one of their pillars of design was “Be who you want to be.” That is precisely the experience they want players to have, so you can customize your character in so many ways. 

We break down the various systems of Dragon Age: The Veilguard here, but you’ll have the chance to customize your character’s class, skill tree, armor, companion skill trees, and more. 

There is even an option to customize pretty much every UI element of the game, removing or adding whatever you want. That means that, yes, you could have absolutely nothing on screen if you want. 

To boil it all down, that “be who you want to be” pillar is the goal Busche is trying to achieve in Veilguard. From important companion relationships, to the plot, to character customization, to skills, to gear, and everything in-between, Veilguard is striving to let you play any way you want.