I’ve never really understood the appeal of ultrawides. I’d venture to say that there’s such a thing as Too Wide, a point beyond which the extra visual space becomes a waste of electrical power, unless you’re watching in pairs. I can only assume that people who utilize ultrawides live in constant fear of flanking maneuvers and require maximum peripheral vision. Remember, I tend to play games with my nose about four inches from the screen. Forget flanking—it’s the prospect of snipers in front that worries me.
If you’re one of those people who cares too much about flankers, I’ve got some great news from Uncle BioWare. The upcoming RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard will support 21:9 ultrawide monitors. The ultrawide functionality extends to cutscenes as well—you can turn off the “cinematic aspect ratio” to disable the black bars that otherwise block your view. It’s one of several PC-specific features they just blogged about. Check it out.
Aside from the decent panoramic views, Veilguard will offer HDR and unlimited frame rates along with an FOV slider. It also supports a variety of ray tracing features, from ray-traced reflections to an “Ultra RT” mode for “extremely advanced rigs.” I suspect none of these will work on my computer, which seems to despise Ray and all of his work.
Upscaling options will be available in the form of NVIDIA DLSS 3, FSR 2.2 – “which has been heavily modified, specifically for the game” – and XeSS. Veilguard also supports DLSS 3 with frame generation and NVIDIA Reflex. All of this is in addition to a few more familiar graphics settings that allow you to mishandle and distort the simulation, as in the case of one of the game’s escapees, the elven gods. You can augment and decrease texture quality, tinker with shadows, apply camera effects like motion blur, and augment or decrease hairiness. Find out more in whole blog.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is coming out on October 31st. There was a time when I was very nervous about it. I still have my doubts about a few things. But now I can’t wait, if only because I like the Dragon Age world. As does former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah, who has returned to work as a consultant on Veilguard. He thinks Veilguard is the first Dragon Age where “the combat is actually fun.”
