BioWare doesn’t have the best track record with hair. In their quest to create their own version of Shepard or Hawke, players have typically struggled with a limited number of hairstyles, most of which looks, well, bad.
“The hair doesn’t quite look like hair. It looks like a tangled mass atop a head,” one Mass Effect player complained on Reddit a few years back. Others have complained that it looks “fake,” “horrid,” and a “disaster.”
Well good news, Dragon Age fans — your hair nightmare is finally over. When Dragon Age: The Veilguard finally releases latter this year, it will bring with it a large number of hair options featuring the latest in physics-based follicles.
“[O]f course we know when we engage with our fans, the first thing everyone asks about is the hair. Every time,” director Corinne Busche says. “So with hairstyles, we’ve paid special focused intention to make sure it comes across as well-representative, that everyone can see hairstyles that feel authentic to them, even the way they render.”
According to Busche, The Veilguard uses strand hair technology borrowed in part from the EA Sports game. The hair is “fully-controlled by physics,” so it “looks even better in motion than it does here in a standstill.”
Fans were quick to notice the updated hair even before Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s full reveal on Tuesday. Amid the criticism of the reveal trailer, a few fans took notice of the improved hair in the teaser images and expressed relief at how much better it looked, including noting how it features more Black hairstyles than the now-cliche Killmonger cut (though it’s still in there if you look).
Aside from the hairstyles, Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s character creator features a host of options, Busche says, including “all the sliders you could possibly want.” They include a body morpher option that allows players to choose different body sizes if they wish, and all options are non-gendered. In addition, Dragon Age: The Veilguard includes options for They / Them prononouns and the ability to play as a non-binary character.
The character creator is one of the first features players will see after they start up Dragon Age: The Veilguard. On top of appearance, The Veilguard allows players to choose between Human, Elf, Dwarf, and Qunari characters, with additional options for lineage, class, faction, and playstyle.
“It’s very important to us that everyone is able to see themselves, their idealized version of themselves or someone like them in the game, and the character creator really enables that,” Busche says.
The new info on The Veilguard’s character creator was part of a broader reveal on Tuesday that included an extended look at its gameplay and more. As part of our Summer Game Fest coverage, we were able to learn a lot about how The Veilguard will handle romance and player choice, and we also shared some of our first impressions of the gameplay.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is currently slated to release on PS5, Xbox, and PC. It does not have a release date.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.