The Veilguard Ditched Arachnophobia Mode

Key Takeaways

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is spider-free, catering to arachnophobes and streamlining development.
Accessibility is critical, with a diverse range of customization options and difficulty levels available.
Some players miss the gameplay mechanics and challenge that came with spiders, but applaud increased accessibility.

There’s a lot to see in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. A lot, minus one. Arachnophobes rejoice: the game has a complete lack of any and all spiders. Following in these footsteps, this article will similarly lack arachnids, though there will certainly be discussion of their demise.

This utter purge of spider and spider accessories is both an accessibility feature, and way to streamline the development process. After all, there’s no need to add a spider-free mode when there’s no spiders to begin with. Scan the image below if you like – you won’t find a single arachnid!

The reveal comes to us, not through some promotional video or accessability guide, but rather through a community manager on Reddit.

No arachnophobia mode because there’s no spiders!

Bioware released a blog post about the game’s accessibility features, which was swiftly posted to the game’s subreddit. The post itself lacks any mention of this arachnid eradication, so the community manager chimed in to clarify things.

Some players lamented the loss of an enemy type that featured in plenty of Dragon Age titles before. No longer can they cleanse the world of spiders by the might of their own sword. Others cheer, happy that their preferred mode of play was baked into the default experience.

Promotional image for Dragon Age: The Veilguard shows the characters standing together with weapons.

“None Of These Options Are A Cheat”: Dragon Age: The Veilguard Director Defends Difficulty Options

BioWare has fused difficulty with playstyle in the “Storyteller”, “Adventurer” “Unbound” and “Nightmare” options in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

The blog post does address other features of the game, however. The game features five difficulty levels, plus an Unbound mode for those who want to customize things. The UI and HUD are customizable, and for those with motion sickness, you can disable things like camera shake and motion blur.

Dragon Age is Spider Free, in Move towards Accessibility

Promotional image for Dragon Age: The Veilguard of the main characters sitting around a table.

Supporting the arachnophobic gamers among us certainly does wonders for accessibility, but it hasn’t come without cost. As noted by IGN, the removal of spiders also entails the removal of certain gameplay mechanics.

Whether you like spiders or not, their presence often lends itself to interesting gameplay sequences and encounters, in ways that something as broad as “dogs” or “skeletons” just can’t.

The combination of caves, webs, and poison can make for an interesting challenge in any game. It can be recreated by other environments and movement-restriction effects, but they may not be quite so intuitive. Everyone knows what spiders are like; rarely do you need a tutorial pop-up to tell you the dangers of a web.

Dragon Age The Veilguard Rook And Two Companions

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Director Promises More Inclusive Character Creation

Dragon Age: The Veilguard intends to set a new standard for character creation

That said, the integration of a spider-free mode into the main experience does make things a lot more accessible. It means more players, more fans, and sometimes, more money for that bottom line.

It’s hard to tell the actual weight of this decision until the game is released and players can judge the gameplay for themselves. However, there have certainly been predictions. But until the credits roll on a new Dragon Age experience, spider-haters can rest easy.