Dragon Age: The Veilguard will have Dragon Age: The Photo Mode at launch

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Smile, Rook.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard - Morrigan looks down upon the player
(Image credit: Electronic Arts)

Photo modes aren't really my thing—as far as I'm concerned, I have a printscreen button and that's good enough. Some people really enjoy them, though: Witness, for example, how much fun weekend editor Jody Macgregor is having making Titus throw silly faces in Space Marine 2. And for those people, and more specifically those people who are also Dragon Age fans, there is good news, as IGN says Dragon Age: The Veilguard will have a full-fledged photo mode at launch.

This will be the first Dragon Age game to include a photo mode, which is perhaps not entirely surprising given that the previous Dragon Age game arrived 10 years ago, before photo modes were really a thing. And BioWare isn't horsing around with it—Veilguard's photo mode will feature:

  • Free-roaming camera, tilt, focal length, and lens distortion
  • Depth of Field
  • Auto Focus
  • Distance
  • F-Stop, which lets you control the lighting
  • Vignette mode, which darkens the edge of the screen and gives it a more cinematic look
  • Bloom strength
  • Saturation, brightness, and contrast
  • The ability to hide the player, the party, enemies, or NPCs

"What I really like is the tab that lets you hide various characters," Dragon Age: The Veilguard director Corrine Busche said. "So hide character, hide party, hide enemies, hide NPCs. You can really curate the shot to your liking... You might be mid-fight with a dragon, but there’s a character in the way, so you can clear them out."

Busche said credit for Veilguard's photo mode goes primarily to Brenon Holmes, the technical design director on Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, which introduced a photo mode to that series. "Not only did he drive this feature, he did a lot of the work to support it," Busche said.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard seems like an ideal fit for a photo mode, what with all the stunning fantasy vistas and exotic magics flying around, and I expect we'll see some cool snaps in very short order after the game is out. For now, there's definitely some real enthusiasm for it:

Dragon Age: The Veilguard comes out on October 31.

Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.