Dragon Age: The Veilguard releases today, and players are celebrating the famous ‘Bioware Turn’

Along with some other classic Bioware animation quirks

Almost ten years after Inquistion offered up a thrilling herb-harvesting adventure, today sees the release of Dragon Age: Veilguard. I’ve popped the release times below. The internet's Aged Dragons are naturally quite excited, and there’s been some lovely interactions over on Le Epic Musk Zone, where veteran Bioheads are celebrating the RPG studio’s history of animation quirks, specifically the ‘Bioware Turn’. Here’s a clip:

And here’s those release times:

Image credit: Bioware

Violet McVinnie, currently of Resistor studio Long Way Home and previously a cinematographer at Bioware on games like Mass Effect 2, has chimed in to speak about the animation.

“Ex Bioware dev here,” wrote McVinnie. “I'm responsible for some of the "Bioware Turns". This anim is part of a set called "Posebreakers" which are intended to move characters around the area if a scene is feeling too static. We'd combine them with the infamous "Exit Left/Right" between cuts.”

People in McVinnie’s replies are also curating a collection of their favourite Bioware-isms, including 'flick of the wrist accusatory point', 'walk away nonchalantly while looking back over the shoulder', ‘worried forehead rub’, and ‘aggressive headshake after drinking alcohol’ (“just from the mocap recording”, says McVinnie).

One player asked why “everyone in Mass Effect break(s) eye contact and look(s) off to the side when handing objects to people?”, to which McVinnie replied “if it’s the hand off anim I think it is, it was baked into the animation file before we started using it. Not sure of the origin. Many animations propagate through lots of Bioware franchises. ME3's Thane/Kai Leng fight cutscene has a lot of Jade Empire combat animations stitched together.” We do love to see a bit of canny asset reuse.

I done wrote Wot I Think about Dragon Age: The Veilguard here. In short: It’s not much of an RPG, and its action wears thin sooner than I’d have liked, but it’s got such heart and enthusiasm it won me right over by the end. Oh, I just remembered comments are temporarily down, too! Sera best companion. Dragon Age 2 wasn’t that great. Anyone moaning about Marvel dialogue in the new game, fair enough, but I must ask if you’ve somehow erased Alistair from your memory. Happy Veilguard day to those who celebrate, and happy Widget Inc day to those who don't.