Dragon Age star Alix Wilton Regan has given her personal response to the backlash faced by last year's Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and blamed the "mixed reactions" on people who "wanted to see the game fail, or wanted to see [BioWare] fail."
The actor, who plays the Female Inquisitor in both Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, told IGN that she was "absolutely devastated" to see BioWare's latest game fail to find a larger audience, despite mostly positive review scores from critics.
Speaking during a new interview discussing her many iconic video game characters to date — as well as her role in Microsoft's upcoming Perfect Dark reboot — Wilton Regan said she had loved her time as BioWare's Inquisitor, though did not believe the character would now return.
"I feel absolutely devastated for BioWare as a studio that they got such mixed reactions to the game," Wilton Regan said of the response to The Veilguard. "I personally thought it was a really strong game. I thought it was just BioWare being more BioWare.
"I also think a lot of people kind of wanted to see it fail, or wanted to see [BioWare] fail, either because they're just really bad people on the internet — of which there are unfortunately many, as we have discovered."
At launch, The Veilguard was review-bombed online. Criticism of the game being "woke" centred on its inclusion of a non-binary companion character, and the ability for the player to choose to be transgender. On Steam, Dragon Age: The Veilguard now sits with a 'Mixed' player respose, with user-defined tags for the game describing it under "LGBTQ+" and "politics" labels.
"People were attacking the game before it was released," Wilton Regan continued. "It's ridiculous. How can you judge a game, a book, a film, a TV show before it's actually released? You can't. It's an idiotic stance to take."
In January, publisher EA said Dragon Age: The Veilguard had "underperformed" versus its expectations by around 50%, just days after the game's director Corrine Busche confirmed she was leaving the company. Meanwhile, other BioWare staff who worked on the game were laid off.
In the same month, BioWare signalled it had released its final update for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, with no further content announced or expected.
"I only ever want to see the folks from BioWare thrive, because I adore them," Wilton Regan concluded. "And whatever they go on to do next I have no doubt their talents will be richly rewarded. We're really lucky we'll get more gold from them in the future."
A slimmed-down BioWare is now working on Mass Effect 5, which currently does not have a release date.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
