Dragon Age: The Veilguard's latest update sure sounds like its last

Electronic Arts says thanks and farewell in a new patch for Dragon Age: The Veilguard that sounds very much like it will be the last.

"Thank you all for playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard; we were so happy with the game’s stability at launch and hope you have enjoyed our Quality of Life patches since then," EA wrote. "With the game being in a stable place, we are moving to monitor for any game-breaking bugs should those occur. Dareth shiral!"

"Dareth shiral," for those who don't speak the elven language of the Dragon Age games, is a message of farewell—it literally translates to "safe journey."

By some measures, it's an unremarkable development. Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been around for a few months now, and it was in pretty solid technical shape at launch—no Cyberpunk-style post-launch flailing to be seen. And as a game with no live service features and no expansions or DLC planned, a quick wrap-up after a clean start is not entirely unexpected.

Still, the finality of the update is notable for one simple reason: It comes just two days after Electronic Arts announced that Dragon Age: The Veilguard "underperformed," missing the company's sales expectations by nearly 50%. That's a big miss, and while there's no explicit connection between the sales failure and the seeming end of support, the timing is awfully coincidental.

There's also no overlooking the fact that EA hasn't been shy about taking underperforming games out behind the woodshed in the past. The axe fell prematurely on both Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem after they failed to catch fire, too. But both of those games were notoriously plagued with bugs at launch, and post-launch content was expected.

If this is the final update for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it leaves the game in good shape. Some issues are bound to crop up, and there are some complaints about persistent problems in responses to the announcement on Steam. The main complaints about Veilguard revolve around its story and characters, though, and of course the perception in some corners of gaming fandom that it's "woke," and that not the sort of thing patches can do much about.

I've reached out to EA to ask if this is indeed the final update for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and will update if I receive a reply. In the meantime, the full patch notes are below.

Quality of Life Changes

• Recommended levels have been added to side quests that players may receive at significantly lower levels.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where Rook could only flirt with Lucanis in a specific conversation. 
• Fixed an issue with the Regrets of The Dread Wolf quest not triggering properly or stopping Rook with an invisible wall in the Crossroads. 
• Fixed a blocking issue with a puzzle in the Converged City area of the Crossroads. 
• Fixed an issue with the “Imperium’s Resolve” armor causing negative damage instead of the intended zero fire, cold, necrotic, and electric damage. 
• Fixed excessive clipping on Taash’s “Rivain’s Legacy” armor. 
• Fixed an issue that prevented some Rooks from changing the runes on their lyrium dagger. 
• Fixed an issue with the Medium Armor Mastery skill for Warriors. 
• Fixed a spot on Rivain’s beach where Rook could get stuck in a cycle of drowning, never to be pulled out of the water by their companions. 
• Fixed a typo on a note Rook can find in Dock Town. 
• Fixed an issue that caused photo mode screenshots to be noticeably worse quality when HDR was turned to “On.”
• Fixed an issue that was causing the photo mode screenshot location to still be shown on screen. 
• Fixed an issue that caused the fireflies in the opening area of the Crossroads to flicker at an alarming rate on specific settings. 
• Fixed a lighting issue in one of the conversations with the whole team in the Lighthouse.
• Fixed an issue in the Mirror of Transformation that blocked players from zooming in and out with the mouse scroll wheel. 
• Fixed an issue where the Objective Marker Visibility was not updated when the exploration preset was changed with the other options in the Exploration sub-category. 
• Some adjustments to the game credits.