The Art of Dragon Age: The Veilguard

by BioWare

Genres: Art, Fantasy, Video Games, Fiction, Gaming

256 pages, Hardcover

Published November 5, 2024

About the author

BioWare is a Canadian video game developer based in Edmonton, Alberta. It was founded in May 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, alongside Trent Oster, Brent Oster, Marcel Zeschuk and Augustine Yip. As of 2007, the company is owned by American publisher Electronic Arts.

BioWare specializes in role-playing video games, and achieved recognition for developing highly praised and successful licensed franchises: Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. They proceeded to make several other successful games based on original intellectual property: Jade Empire, the Mass Effect series, and the Dragon Age series. In 2011, BioWare launched their first massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Reviews

[Julia Pika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Augh! The potential the concept art had vs the actual sub-par execution of the game itself...I originally rated it 7/10 but after reading all these wonderful idea it's down to 6.5/10.

I was also getting very frustrated at having to turn this heavy book around several times just to read the WEIRD sideways text. That was very annoying.

[Bode Cauthon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful artwork but the lore presented herein contradicts what previous games have established. It’s frustrating that Varric’s beard, previously stated as to have been shaved as symbolism for shedding his dwarven heritage, to be reduced to “he just doesn’t wanna shave anymore” is insulting. The readers who pick this book up are already intimately familiar with the history of Thedas and its characters. To disregard that history is frustrating.

I am not certain what the intention of forcing a reader to rotate the book multiple times to read it was, but consider the point missed.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Dragon Age.

[Cara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This contains lots of beautiful artwork & interesting information. I have about 86674 new ideas for tattoo designs now. However, I didn’t like that some of the text was printed sideways. This is a big, heavy book and I didn’t enjoy having to rotate it every 10 seconds.

[Kat Siegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful & interesting

[Brittany Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book will have you constantly rotating it in order to read the oddly placed descriptions. It will also further frustrate you if you found the game lacking. But it’s full of lovely art and insight into the development process.

[Nereis · Rating 5 out of 5]

We could have had it all

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars rounded up for the artwork, the journey, and the insight.

I’m withholding 1,5 star because the text placement was done by an absolute maniac with zero thought for what it would be like to… actually read said text.

If almost every page features text placement in 3 different directions, and the book is big and heavy besides, then nobody sanity checked on the final design.

That’s a little weird, given the nature of the book’s content. It also presents some accessibility issues for people with disabilities, since it forces a lot of squinting and rotating of a big, heavy book.

I had to put it away more than once to rest my eyes from strain—and I could have lived without the crick in my neck or the cramps in my fingers and wrists. Ordinarily I’d put such a book on a flat surface and read like that… but the text placement made it hugely impractical.

There were plenty of instances where the text direction could have been changed without altering any placement of the art itself. It makes no sense to have your text rotated-left and rotated-right on the same page. Choose a direction and stick with it, if you really must put text at an angle. Especially if it’s rotated by 90 degrees in either direction.

In other instances there was room left for normal text placement, but it was placed at an angle because ??? Reasons.

Absolutely worth a read for long time Dragon Age fans, if they’re willing to endure the physical discomfort resulting from poor design choices. If you ignore the text and just look at the pictures you’ll be fine.

[Alice Copeland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dragon Age is my special interest. I know this series inside and out and it is so incredibly meaningful to me. Veilguard, the finished cathedral (to borrow Matt Rhodes phrasing), is one of the single most painfully disappointing gaming experiences I've ever had, and this book is the final twist of the knife.

Every illustration, beat board, storyboard, character idea, environment render, etc., is a look into what this game COULD have been. There is so much care and attention and love poured into these artworks. So many incredible ideas on display from so many incredible creatives. The ideas in this book are so faithful to Dragon Age's lore and tone in ways that Veilguard (to no fault of its own or the dedicated creatives who spent years working on it) simply could not deliver on.

I wish I was able to play the game that exists inside this book, and I am so so sad that Veilguard was kneecapped in the ways it was.

[The Sapphic Nerd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed seeing the process and various iterations of ideas and designs they had throughout the game's development. However, it did make me sad seeing some of the really cool ideas and looks they could have gone with and didn't.

In theory, I like the idea of squeezing text in where it'll be the least disruptive, but in reality, having to rotate this cumbersome book in multiple directions to read a single sentence is annoying and decreases accessibility. There were times when I skipped over text so I wouldn't have to change the orientation of the book for the fourth time on one page.

[Quinby Yan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siri, play "What Could Have Been" by Sting.

Standardised text direction would help a lot. This artbook is heavy enough without needing to rotate the book or your head. I found my eyes skimming near the end bc I was losing patience with all the turning.

But the art is brilliant as always. Joplin would've been absolutely amazing. Actually it would also be amazing to have artist credits next to the artwork, because I would love to see more of their work.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful illustrations and concept art, I loved learning about the fact that every action is associated with a particular shape, and they use that motif throughout the game. 4 stars only because the text was not standardized to read one way and having to constantly turn such a large book was uncomfy!

[mkhare · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars. Full to the brim with concept art and stunning illustrations detailing the huge amount of thought and care that went into the design choices of Veilguard. I know that this is an art book and not a lore book like The World of Thedas, but I would have loved just a teensy bit more info/illustrations pertaining to the characters and storylines/quests of the game.

[Cass · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's kind of sad reading this artbook knowing all the work that went into it and then how the actual game fared because of the background politics at bioware. Despite how nice the artbook was laid out, I had to dock a star because they still continue to whitewash Isabela and I just can't look past it.

[Magdalena · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is phenomenal.

[Alex Martins · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's amazing to see 10 years of process squashed up into a well organised book beautifully illustrated. This is really for the fans.

[sleepingcrows · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another beautiful Dragon Age artbook to add to my shelf. It was really cool to see all the ideas the team had for Veilguard and I hope some of the characters are weren't used, get used down the line.

[Dorian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and stunning art

[Northawke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book with the art used in the development of the game; gives a good insight in what could have been.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

The art is beautiful, but it's sad to see what could've been

[Kerrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The art is amazing, but the text couldn’t be more annoyingly placed if it tried.

[Jessica St-pierre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will forever hold on to this book as being a collection of glimpses of what the game could and should have been had EA's greed and writer's cynicism not destroyed our beloved franchise.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's really cool to see the concept art for each stage of Veilguard, as well as the overall thought process behind story beats, characters, locations, etc.