Summary

  • A former BioWare developer called Damion Schubert has come out in defense of Dragon Age: The Veilguard's character creator following criticism on social media.
  • Schubert claims that character creators are still popular because people spend vast amounts of time on them, pointing to Baldur's Gate 3 as an example.
  • He also claims that they're vital for giving a world more representation, and for allowing people to "feel seen" in the game they're playing.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard's character creator has come under fire in recent weeks from certain sections of the Internet, leading to a viral tweet from someone that claimed character creators are "nothing but a stupid, narcissistic waste of time". That's certainly one of the hottest takes you'll see out there regarding character creators, and they were thoroughly lambasted as a result, as many came to the defense of The Veilguard's take on the feature.

One such person was former BioWare developer Damion Schubert (thanks GamesRadar), who worked for the studio as a combat designer on the long-running Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. Schubert is now busy with his role as a creative director for Netflix games studio Boss Fight, but he took to time out of his day to throw his two cents into this discourse, offering up his vast experience on RPGs and MMOs.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Character Creator Helps Players "Feel Seen"

In a series of tweets, Schubert outlines why so much effort goes into making character creators, as he points out that a lot of people spend "huge amounts of time on character creation". He also rightly points out that robust character creation is vital for representation and to make a world feel more unique, as without those options you risk making people "feel like pod people copies of each other".

"It makes them feel seen, which is more impactful in video games where they typically don’t have representation."

Of course, Schubert also has some hard evidence to back up their claims that loads of people like to fine-tune their characters, sharing an image of some stats from Baldur's Gate 3 that developer Larian Studios posted shortly after launch. In these stats, it was revealed that Baldur's Gate 3 fans had spent a combined total of 88 years on the character creation screen between them, and that was just a little over a week after launch.

However, Schubert also notes that people are well within their rights to not enjoy creating their own characters, and claims that it's "CRUCIAL" for games to have decent presets on offer. He also points to the Mass Effect series and the default looks of the male and female Commander Shephard models as a good example of BioWare catering to that type of player.

In any case, we know that Dragon Age fans are itching to get their hands on the character creator, despite what some are saying, as they've been begging BioWare to release it early on social media. Given that the title is launching at the end of the month, having already gone gold, it's probably a bit too late for that now, but we thankfully don't have to wait too long before we get our hands on the full game.

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard

RPG Systems 4.0/5 68 5.9/10 OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 80/100 Critics Rec: 71% Released October 31, 2024 ESRB M For Mature 17+ // Blood, Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence Developer(s) BioWare Publisher(s) Electronic Arts Engine Frostbite
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Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf. 

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