Thedas was just declared a no-spider zone. We've seen other games offer arachnophobia modes that replace spiders with alternative enemies: World of Warcraft swaps them out with crabs, Grounded progressively de-spiderizes the offending models until they're eventually just floating balls with eyes, and Lethal Company simply replaces spiders with the word "SPIDER." But where others might provide arachnophobia modes, Dragon Age: The Veilguard has arrived at a more elegant solution for overwhelming spider terror.
Veilguard won't have an arachnophobia mode, because Veilguard simply won't have any spiders in the first place. In the business, we call that efficiency.
Our confirmation of Dragon Age's bold, spider-free future comes from BioWare community manager blackhairvioleteyes on Reddit (via The Gamer). In a thread discussing a recent Dragon Age: The Veilguard official blog post covering its accessibility options, redditors had noted that that the blog didn't mention any arachnophobia filter. To clarify the omission, blackhairvioleteyes said that Veilguard has "no arachnophobia mode because there's no spiders!"
I'm thankfully not burdened with the curse of arachnophobia, but in my book? The less I'm forced to fight spiders, the better. Sometimes you get a bespoke arachnid horror like the upcoming Lala Barina we'll be fighting in Monster Hunter Wilds, but otherwise, few developers are going to have the time, resources, and interest necessary for adding exciting new dimensions to spider combat.
When you reach one of the many Spider Caves in videogames, you know exactly what's going to follow. You're going to get poisoned. You're going to get stuck in webs. You're going to have to avoid walking into egg clusters that'll hatch a bunch of spiderlings. Spiders are every videogame frustration at once. They're the antithesis of delight, and every game where we don't have to fight them is a gift.
Thankfully, that's a gift that Veilguard seems happy to provide.
