Dragon Age: The Veilguard has fantastic hair tech thanks to FIFA and Madden

While it utilized to be, and successful immoderate cases inactive is, a conflict to find a crippled with a quality creator that included a divers scope of hairstyles, newer games are getting amended astatine providing styles to correspond folks connected the kinky / curly hairsbreadth spectrum wherever a batch of radical of colour reside. However, the caller conflict is getting those hairstyles to look and enactment natural. I retrieve looking astatine each the hairstyles successful Horizon Forbidden West and being bemused that the dreadlocks connected Varl looked similar they were made retired of foam, portion his beard was simply consecutive hairsbreadth without an ounce of kink a Black antheral similar him typically has. So it was refreshing to spot that BioWare enactment truthful overmuch effort into not lone including divers hairstyles but besides ensuring that hairsbreadth behaved authentically.

EA’s blog talked astir however its Strand Hair technology, “combines physics with real-time rendering to simulate believable modeling of quality hair.” According to the blog, Strand Hair exertion was already successful usage for EA’s sports titles wherever rendering quality hairsbreadth correctly is important successful bid to accurately represent the existent radical represented successful those games. But due to the fact that Veilguard features characters moving done waterfalls oregon surrounded by magic particles — activities you won’t spot successful Madden ‘25 — the Strand Hair tech needed further refinement.

“A large quality betwixt Dragon Age: The Veilguard and existing Frostbite [EA’s in-house crippled engine] titles that person shipped with Strand Hair is the sheer assortment and quantity of ocular effects and transparent objects,” EA’s blog reads. “From magical spells to smoke, fire, and fog, the exertion needed to blend seamlessly into the situation and magic of Thedas.” You tin spot Strand Hair successful enactment successful a video here.

The effect is beautiful, luxurious-looking hairsbreadth the likes of which I haven’t seen successful immoderate crippled I’ve played. I’m notoriously picky astir hairsbreadth successful video games and I was suitably impressed by Veilguard’s offerings. I initially take a cornrows / ponytail benignant for my Rook and was impressed that the prime came with styled babe hairs — a communal constituent of Black and Latinx hairstyles that get often overlooked by each but the astir dedicated of hairstyle modders. These developers truly did their homework. But portion the exertion and assortment was a refreshing alteration of pace, I bash deliberation the tech works a small too well.

Black hairsbreadth moves, but not arsenic overmuch arsenic it does successful Veilguard. About midway done my playthrough, I decided to alteration up my hairstyle (which you tin bash astatine immoderate time, truthful don’t interest if you person quality regrets aft starting the game). I went from cornrows to a short, somewhat curly benignant kinda similar Zoë Kravitz’s hairsbreadth successful The Batman.

In existent life, short, close-cropped hairsbreadth similar that usually stays successful place, but this benignant moved with virtually each flimsy question my quality made. It was excessively goofy, similar jiggle physics but with hair. I profoundly respect and admit the magnitude of method enactment that went rendering thing arsenic elemental but profoundly culturally important arsenic hair. It’s 1 of those small things that makes Veilguard a large betterment implicit erstwhile Dragon Age games.