Dragon Age: The Veilguard has gone gold – BioWare's long-awaited return to fantasy RPGs is ready for launch this month

Earlier today, October 4, developer BioWare announced that Dragon Age: The Veilguard "has gone gold," meaning the game is officially ready for launch and for discs. 

It goes without saying that this production milestone means less and less as games trend toward digital sales and become increasingly reliant on post-launch and day-one patches that fill in the copious blanks on retail discs. Gold or not, DAVE – I can't stop calling it that – will inevitably come with some non-negligible downloads on launch day, October 31.

Even so, after a long and tumultuous development cycle which saw a fairly last-minute title change from Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, multiple high-profile layoffs, and at one point folded in multiplayer functionality before a hard pivot back to the single-player format that BioWare is known for, it is nice to have even a soft ending of sorts. DAVE is as ready as it can be. 

BioWare says there are currently no plans for any sort of Veilguard DLC. Game director Corrine Busche acknowledged that the Trespasser expansion for Inquisition was "so essential to the Dragon Age: Inquisition story, it arguably should have been part of the base game," and wanted to avoid any similar gaps in Veilguard. 

"We really wanted to make it the most complete out-of-the-box package we possibly could, from a player experience, the narrative, and everything else," she said. 

There is, however, a smattering of deluxe editions and pre-order bonuses ranging from dozens of cosmetics to physical swag. But be warned: two collectible-focused editions don't actually come with the game. 

In our Dragon Age: The Veilguard hands-on preview last month, our own Rollin Bishop said: "I spent nearly seven hours playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard and would like to spend 100 more in this RPG right now, thank you very much."