Dragon Age: The Veilguard lead celebrates seeing one of his biggest goals for the RPG come true, as he admits it was "the greatest privilege and hardest dev cycle of my career"

The reviews for Dragon Age: The Veilguard started rolling in yesterday, and creative director John Epler seems as though he couldn't be more pleased with them and what they could mean for BioWare as a whole.

It's becoming apparent that the recent Dragon Age entry could be one of the best RPGs this year. Our own Dragon Age: The Veilguard review here at 12DOVE marks it as "a true return to RPG form for BioWare" - a conclusion that Epler himself is ecstatic to read. As the lead writes in a recent post celebrating the new release and critics' thoughts on it, seeing such a review was actually one of his first "goals for the project."

When he initially re-joined the project as narrative director, Epler explains he was "asked my goals for the project" so he came up with a few. "One of the ones I put was 'I want to see the phrase 'a triumphant return to form for BioWare' in at least one review.'" According to the dev, he's "excited to finally mark that goal done," and while Epler wanted just one review to call the game a "return to form for BioWare," many have.

Along with the 12DOVE review, others like those from GameSpot and Rolling Stone share a similar sentiment about The Veilguard - that the RPG is indeed a "return to form for BioWare." As a longtime fan of the Dragon Age series myself, it's certainly exciting to see. The game has been a decade in the making and has finally released to countless raving reviews, no doubt setting it up to be one of the most exciting new games of 2024 for many. It's a welcome sight to all, but most especially to devs like Epler.

"This project has been both the greatest privilege and the hardest dev cycle of my career," he describes. "To say I'm proud of this team would be an understatement, and to say I'm thrilled at the reviews would be similar." The director closes with a virtual sigh of relief: "Whew." I can't wait to dive into the game and see how it's a "return to form" myself, with just a couple of days left now before the global launch.

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