The hopes of everyone who went to the Dragon Age: The Veilguard panel at San Diego Comic-Con could probably be summed up in two words: release date. Another lesser hope was for cool swag since we could see people getting tickets ready in the front of the panel room.
Neither hope was fulfilled, but the panel was a great time nonetheless.
Panelists included Veilguard creative director John Epler, creative performance director Ashley Barlow, and voice actors Zach Mendez (Lucanis), Jessica Clark (Neve), Nick Boraine (Emmrich), and Ali Hills (Harding). Lucy James moderated.
Epler, who has been with BioWare for 17 years, says that this game (set 10 years after Inquisition) allows you to “be who you want to be in a world you’re trying to save with your companions,” which sounds like any BioWare game. In fact, a lot of what Epler had to say sounded like business as usual. Not that I’m complaining—I love BioWare games—but one of their biggest appeals is always the family you build with your companions.
The real difference that he talked about was how the companion characters will relate to each other. It’s been brought up before that they’ll be able to romance each other if you don’t romance them, but they’ll also have friendships and rivalries and everything in between. There’s some dynamic characterization being promised here that I hope pans out the way he (and the voice actors and Barlow) seem enthused about.
Barlow talked about the process of getting the right voice actors for the characters and matching them perfectly. Everyone went through a great many auditions to get their roles, with some (like Clark) thinking they didn’t get the job only to be called in for another audition. Thanks to changes necessitated by something they weren’t going to talk about that was behind the cancellation of SDCC 2020, they were no longer recording in booths in Edmonton but in their own houses. Or, like in Boraine and Hills’s cases, their garages.
When Mendez was informed he had been cast as Lucanis, he started reading Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights, a short story anthology featuring Lucanis, then continued doing research. This research unfortunately included Reddit, but he survived that ordeal and was impressed by the passion of the fans—which is a very polite way to talk about the Dragon Age Reddit. He also used his relationship with his brother to inform his performance.
Mendez feels that Lucanis might be the coolest character he’ll ever get to play, with a mind as dangerous as his knives and a sharp sense of humor to boot. And speaking of those knives, he figures Lucanis kills and cooks with the same knives… after a thorough cleaning. Lucanis is very stubborn and set in his ways, and Mendez won’t say he’s nervous about seeing people helping Lucanis open up as they romance him—he’s just excited about it and totally not nervous at all.
Barlow described Mendez as one of the most adaptable actors she’s ever worked with. He was a mocap stand-in for a lot of characters, including Assan the baby griffon, and the audience got to see an adorable short clip of him squatting down and peering up excitedly as another actor ‘pet’ his head. He was broken into it, though, by spending the first day having “Darkspawned his ass off,” in his words.
When Clark discovered she’d been cast in Dragon Age, she was terrified because she felt she’d been entrusted with something of significance. She’s pretty new to voice acting in general, she said, but found Dragon Age to be an incredibly freeing experience partly because she got to step into her power a bit more for the first time. A lot of roles want her to make her voice softer and more ‘girly,’ but she got to work with Barlow on dropping her register.
What Clark loves about Neve is her loyalty and dedication, particularly to Darktown. She’s cynical, but she’s passionate about her fight for her people. Neve has power to her, and Ashley confirmed that Neve’s power and range are limitless.
Boraine feels like he’s been preparing to voice Emmrich his whole life, and he’s overjoyed to get the role of someone obsessed with death not as something scary, but as a comfort. Emmrich can help people with that transition and mix death with kindness, something Boraine finds fascinating and unique. The role was challenging because it was a new angle, but he loves new challenges. He’s also a little surprised that his character has caught fire online because he figured all the other characters were sexier.
While Boraine has never met Matt Mercer (who voices his skeleton companion, Manfred), he says that the in-game rapport is great and he looks forward to one day meeting him. Barlow told Nick that Mercer got to play off Emmrich’s lines because he was recorded later, which is part of how it worked so well.
Then it was BioWare veteran Hills’s turn to talk, and she started in Dr. Liara T’Soni’s (Mass Effect) voice before launching into telling us how surprised she’d been that Harding got to come back. She hadn’t initially realized Harding had any impact until fans started asking at signings for Harding art as well, and then it started sinking in.
Hills agrees with Clark that working with BioWare is freeing, not just due to the material they get to work with but also how they get to flesh out their characters, like with physicality details. This was the first BioWare game she got to do mocap with and that empowered her when bringing Harding back to the game (she first appeared in Inquisition).
The Q&A section at the end of the panel had a few interesting answers.
All six panelists were asked about their guiding light in creating The Veilguard.
Epler said that for him, it’s always been about the people, the characters, and their relationships and their lives. Barlow needs to find the logic in the world, in the 100k+ lines written for her voice actors. The world has to be consistent, buyable, and believable, and sometimes things have to change to make that happen. Mendez found guidance in the fans’ passion, Clark in the dialogue and writing that allowed her to give herself over and trust the team. For Boraine, guidance came from the depth of character and narration in the game, and not knowing the other VAs in person until they met for SDCC created a sort of magic to the process. Hills echoed both Epler and Boraine.
Epler was asked about the ability to join factions in The Veilguard, and while they’ll inform the background of Rook (the player character), the factions have representatives that will serve as your gateways to them. You won’t be joining, say, the Grey Wardens with Rook.
When asked what companion the voice actors would romance if given the chance, Mendez said the Iron Bull right away and then got to sit alone for a few moments as no one else rushed in. It was a great little moment. Clark doesn’t know who she’d romance. Boraine said Manfred before changing his answer to how sexy [Veilguard antagonist] Solas is, which seemed to invite Mendez to mention that Dorian is cute too. Meanwhile, a blushing Hills confessed she’d romance Emmrich.
The final question was if there were any lines or party banter that people loved that could be shared and Barlow had the only response: “Hand-to-bone combat.”
The panel was fun and the cast clearly had a good time. While we didn’t really gain any info, it was worth being there and it will be worth watching the recording whenever BioWare puts it out.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is slated for release later this year.
Stay tuned for more SDCC ’24 coverage from The Beat.
