Do you think they'll have expansions?

Good post launch support is good customer service.

BioWare post launch support has usually been on the lower end of mediocre, with bugs remaining unfixed, patches coming out slowly and sometimes breaking as much as they fixed. In DAI they capitulated to the banter bug - a timer with conditions that plays audio files. It had all the looks of a skeleton crew left behind to fix the mess while the main team moved on to the next project... so I'm not going to expect much in that category.

EDIT: as far as DLC is concerned, that will greatly depend on whether the game turns out to be any good. It isn't then DLC won't be needed or wanted.

I get the impression they weren't planning on having any DLC or expansions and that once the game ships most of the team, the technical ones certainly, will transfer over to work on the next Mass Effect, just leaving a skeleton crew to deal with any bugs that emerge. That is what I assumed from the talk about streamlining, or whatever it was, around the time they made the redundancies in 2023. Of course, I could be wrong about this and they may have a plan for DLC should the game be a phenomenal success but, as you say, that could be impacted by the strike action, so at this stage I think we should focus on the main game and getting as much enjoyment, and replay, out of that. If they then announce DLC down the line in late 2025 then it will be a pleasant surprise.

Expansions? No way. The vast majority of single-player games simply don't do them any more, the only exceptions I can think of are Elden Ring which is an outlier in so many ways I don't think we can take it as an example and Cyberpunk 2077 which was pretty clearly an excercise in reputation repair after the disasterous launch. (Which seems to have worked, so good for them!)

Story DLC? I guess it's possible, but I don't expect it. I feel like the The Witcher 3 was the last RPG to do it? Neither Jedi: Fallen Order nor Jedi: Survivor got any and I feel like that's probably the model of single-player game from EA we should be looking at. I think the last time an EA game that was strictly single-player got story DLC was Kingdoms of Amalur back in 2012.

I loved the DA2 and DAI DLC, so I'm rather sad about it. I just hope the devs know what environment they're working in and have given the main game a satisfying conclusion.

Games don't do expansions anymore? What?

I'd be very surprised if they got an expansion. Even if the game is a mega seller, lets say...15 million copies plus...I doubt it is in their plans. Would I be pleased if it were? Yes. But I'm not expecting it.

Two recent big, big selling EA games (Jedi Fallen Order and Survivor) were released and done. The two Horizon games (yes, PS exclusives that then got ported to PC) were big sellers that had one DLC each. I haven't played the Zero Dawn DLC "Frozen Wilds" or something like that, but the Burning Shores for Forbidden West is supposedly only 7-10 hours for a completionist. That is definitely not expansion material.

And of course, the yard stick by which DAVe will be measured, even though they are entirely different games with the only similarities between them being 'fantasy setting'...BG3 didn't get anything, unless you count the post game camp dinner party scene. They even did some basic work on it before scratching the whole thing.

My bubble is also limited, and I swear people were talking about BG3's lack of post-launch DLC as if it were a rare and surprising thing. As such, I also assumed Veilguard would eventually get some DLC, provided it sold well.

Also to consider: if they wanted to do a story expansion, how many of Veilguard's character writers are still employed at BioWare?

Depends on the quality of the original work? Lots of people can churn out chatGPT tier mediocrity, but if good writing was easy there wouldn't be any need to hire people who are actually good at it.

We've already seen this happen throhout Mass Effects run at the very least, probably DA as well but I can't think of a specific example. But over on the ME side of the street pretty sure Mordin had to change writers and Legion, been awhile since I have had the conversation so my memory is a bit foggy but those are the two that come to mind. Results may vary of course as each writer is of course going to write a character differently and people may not like the changes, but there is precident. 


Acutally isn't there precedent with VG already? I don't think Mary Kirby was originally writing for Lucanis.  

They still migh tbu tafte r wha thappened with Andromeda and Anthem I just wouldn't coun ton it. If they do then great but I'm no betting on it.

I think there could be dlc. However, I really hope they won't pull a Trespasser and lock the game's real ending behind a dlc again. It's less irritating now because you can get all the DAI stuff as a bundle, but at the time that wait/extra expense was a hard pill to swallow. I don't think they'll do this again though, seems like the best policy is to ship a complete story with an ending.

I do think they'll start ramping up for ME5 though, so maybe any Veilguard dlc will be extra side content like JoH and Descent.

She certainly wasn't responsible for his short story or Eight Little Talons. That was Courtney Woods, whom I believe is no longer with Bioware but I'm not sure when she left. However, by the time the short stories came out in December 2020, Mary Kirby was the author of the Crow story the Wake. So, did Mary take over because Courtney had already left or did Courtney start looking for an alternative company when Lucanis was handed over to Mary Kirby? Certainly Mary was an experienced writer, particularly when it comes to writing a character that works in game, so I can understand them giving a major role such as Lucanis to her.

There is certainly plenty of precedent with Dragon Age for characters that originally appeared in associated media to be written by a different person for the game. David Gaider originally introduced Cole in his novel Asunder and then handed him over to PW because he didn't have the time to do the character justice since he was already working on Dorian and Lead Writer for the game. I remember that PW said how DG would drop round periodically to see how they were getting on with his "baby". Since DG is no longer at Bioware, should Dorian appear in game he will be written by someone else. This would also be true of Maevaris should she make an appearance. Both characters appeared in Luck in the Gardens in Tevinter Nights, which was written by Sylvia Feketekuty, so likely she would be responsible for any cameos in game as well. Did either of them not seem true to their characters as previously written by DG?