Dragon Age: The Veilguard will show players a city bigger than anything they've seen in the rest of the RPG series - that was shaped by a single line from Inquisition.
For the first time in the entire series, Dragon Age: The Veilguard will take players to Minrathous. Despite carrying significant weight in the story, the biggest city in Thedas has never appeared in the game, something art director Matthew Rhodes acknowledges in an interview with Edge magazine: "People who have a history with Dragon Age have thought about what Minrathous might be like."
Rhodes knows that "we can never compete" with those players' imaginations, but says that BioWare is "shooting for the moon" in its attempt to create the city. But part of the reason that the developers even have to do that is because of a single line in Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Our sister publication Edge sat down with three Dragon Age directors, who also revealed how Veilguard won't repeat Inquisition's biggest mistake and why BioWare won't let you control your companions this time.
Elsewhere in the interview, game director Corianne Busch points out that "when your Dragon Age: Inquisition companion Dorian joins you in Orlais, in one of the biggest cities in Thedas, he mentions that it's quaint and cute compared to Minrathous." It hardly seems like a world-shaping line, but Busch says that "one bit of dialogue was our guiding principle on how to realize this city."
The result is a location that "is sprawling. It is lived-in. Sometimes it's grimy, sometimes it's bougie. But it is expansive." Rhodes explains that in more detail, considering what it would be like to actually live in Minrathous, and how that affected its design: "A guy's normal everyday life walking down the streets of this city is more spectacular than what the Queen of Orlais is seeing, at least in terms of sheer scale."
That conjures its own issues, however - Rhodes says that his team had to design Minrathous in a way to ensure that players would actually look up at the city around them, with "props and architecture that help lead the eyes." That's to help "remind the player often of how stacked the city is. Wherever you're standing, there's guaranteed to be more below you and above you."
Check out our Dragon Age: The Veilguard preview for an even closer look at the long-awaited RPG follow-up.
