Mark Darrah, former BioWare executive producer and director for much of the Dragon Age series, says the studio's upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the best of the bunch. Darrah, who departed the studio in 2020, returned as a consultant on this new entry late last year and was impressed by the experience.
Speaking to Game Informer, Darrah admitted to the shortcomings of the games he was most involved in (Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II), singing the sort of praises fans have been hoping to hear: "Uncharitably, previous Dragon Age games got to the realm of 'combat wasn't too bad'. In this game, the combat's actually fun, but it does keep that thread that's always been there. You have the focus on Rook, on your character, but you still have that control and character coming into the combat experience from other people in the party."
Dragon Age has changed core mechanics with each entry, sometimes into entirely other sub-genres (CRPG-light to Action RPG). Still, it sounds like The Veilguard is aiming to return to a pre-Inquisition mindset, and Darrah seems pretty psyched about it: "This is really the best Dragon Age game that I've ever played. This is the one where we get back to our roots of character-driven storytelling, have really fun combat, and aren't making compromises."