Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Developer: BioWare
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (Reviewed), PC
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $69.99 USD – Available Here $109.95 AUD – Available Here
Overview
It has been practically a decade since Dragon Age fans were able to experience a new game, as Dragon Age: Inquisition was quite some time ago. Since then, BioWare has seen quite a few struggles over the past ten years, with Mass Effect: Andromeda failing to live up to the franchise’s expectations and Anthem missing the mark, fans were worried if we’d ever see a new entry in the Dragon Age franchise. Thankfully that all changed when Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was initially revealed in 2022 before becoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard closer to release. So, with nearly a decade of waiting and numerous changes throughout its rough development until release, does Dragon Age: The Veilguard feel like a proper continuation to the saga?
Story
Now, before we begin, it is worth noting that those unfamiliar with the Dragon Age series will likely feel rather lost as the game does very little to try and catch players up on the various plot elements that are being continued from the previous entry. That being said, there are surprisingly few smaller elements that are actually carried forward from past games, especially any further back than Inquisition. The larger story plots of course are at least explained well enough that newcomers will be able to get the gist. Of course, those who have played through the previous entry, and most importantly its Trespasser DLC, will get the most out of the countless references and even minor plot elements that pop up as easter eggs.
Our story begins ten years after the previous game with Varric seeking to track down and put a stop to Solas’ plans, the former party member from Inquisition has long since been known to be an ancient elven god known as the Dread Wolf thanks to the last piece of DLC for the previous game and is seeking to potentially destroy the world by taking down the Veil, the mystical barrier that separates the material world from the Fade, where raw magic runs rampant and incredibly powerful entities lay dormant. To assist Varric he has gathered the help of the returning Harding and a new mage named Neve, as well as the wildcard Rook. Players take on the role of the brand new Rook whose class, history, and other selected elements during character creation will alter elements of the story slightly.
Finally tracking Solas down, the group manages to interrupt the powerful ritual only to trigger a massive blast of energy that leaves not only Varric critically injured but unleashes two extremely powerful and highly dangerous elven gods that had been imprisoned in the fade for thousands of years and now that they are free, are ready to sink the world into darkness. Nevermind the fact that Solas somehow ends up trapped within a dimension of the Fade and only able to speak directly into Rook’s mind. With Solas’ former base, The Lighthouse, serving as their new home within the Fade and as a way to quickly traverse Thedas thanks to Solas’ network of portal-esque mirrors called Eluvians via the Crossroads, it is up to Rook as the new de facto leader of the group to try and not only defeat these two elven gods before they destroy the world with their Blight and other disastrous plans and try to save anyone they can along the way all while gathering new allies to fight by their side.
In many ways it feels like Dragon Age: The Veilguard is trying to be two things at once. The game is weighed down by the fact that it has three games worth of lore and plotlines to work with to the point that it is practically buckling under the pressure to try and work in cameos and references to various events in the past that doesn’t quite do enough to please longtime fans. On the other hand, it is trying to create a story of its very own within that lore, pitting Rook and their small ragtag group of allies that they gather throughout the game to take down a pair of sinister gods all while doing its best to at least keep some tenuous connection to the events of Inquisition through limited character interactions with Varris, Morrigan, and even the Inquisitor themselves from time to time.
That doesn’t mean that the storyline for Dragon Age: The Veilguard is bad. In fact, it is actually handled fairly well as long as players take to heart that this is a more dialed back experience compared to Inquisition despite the high stakes that Rook and their allies are facing. There is no gathering an army or making allegiances, but assembling a team of skilled allies in a manner similar to Mass Effect 2 to take down the big bads. Of course, there are still plenty of important decisions to be made but some of these big grand choices are unfortunately few and far between. In fact most dialogue choices are simply picking the tone of how Rook will reply to a statement, rather than actually making a choice in any way. That being said, there are plenty of smaller decisions that do play a factor into various developments though these are usually smaller in scale and tend to only result in some dialogue changes or a few extra scenes. Ironically, the player’s choice of background and factions will play a decent role in flavor text and ambient dialogue as well with the party.
There is once again plenty of focus on making sure that the party members in Dragon Age: The Veilguard are as memorable as possible and for the most part the team at BioWare has done an excellent job here. While some characters may take a bit to grow on players upon their initial introduction, others feel like winners right out of the gate. Seeing Hardin change from a minor NPC to a full dwarven ally with her own significant storyline is impressive, just as much as learning more about the detective-esque mage Neve whose work with her faction pits her against the shadier aspects of the cities she deals with. Nevermind the likes of a certain demon possessed assassin, necromancer with a skeleton butler that’s a real hoot, a gray warden finding themselves rearing a young griffin, and even a Qunari torn between their life by being raised apart from the Qun or embracing their current life.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for these characters and Rook will have plenty of time to interact and even romance every character if they so choose, though only one romantic option can be locked in here. No harem for Rook, but plenty of flirting. There is something of a dissonance to the characters and the way they interact with one another however There is very little in the way of… edge let’s say, to introducing party members to one another. While characters will talk when out in the field and question each other, there really isn’t any friction between team members even when some of their skills are less than savory or may put the whole team at risk, they are just readily accepted. That being said, it is nice to note that party members will talk quite a bit while traveling through areas and will react to story events alongside Rook who will make their own quips, helping provide plenty of interaction even if players aren’t able to make direct choices here when it comes to answering their party members. In fact, the whole storyline as a whole feels like a lot of the darker aspects have been brushed off to provide a more sterilized narrative, especially in regards to certain . Sure, there are still a number of dark developments as well as some dastardly reveals and evil machinations, but they are far fewer in number than what fans of the franchise will remember and the overall gritty nature of the series has been dialed back heavily.
This is partially due to the fact that, with the exception of Solas that serves as initial antagonist to a trapped voice providing double-edged wisdom for the majority of the game and numerous elements involving his history and how the Dread Wolf became what he is, the actual villains that players will need to tangle with are comically evil. The writing for nearly every villain is so thin that it makes sense that there is very little dialogue interaction with them at all, instead players will mostly have their weapons do the talking in most cases and very rarely actually have conversations with any sort of meaning with the villains here. This leads to a storyline that feels like its smoothed some of the rougher edges of the world for its own service but despite this, thanks to both a wonderful cast of characters and plenty of emphasis on making sure to keep players invested in their developments through near unmissable markers when someone is willing to talk or has a quest as well as some side-quests that actually contain meaningful lore, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard manages to deliver a surprisingly satisfying storyline even if it doesn’t quite feel like it’ll be able to pull it together sometimes.
Gameplay
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is designed around using The Lighthouse in the Fade as the player’s home base. here players will be able to talk with their party members, upgrade equipment they’ve found or even improve the workshop itself if they’ve found enough mementos in their journey, and directly set out to whichever location they want to go to next through the Eluvian that leads to the “Crossroads.” It is worth noting that players will be able to fast travel to any unlocked fast travel beacons but this is only outside of the actual missions. The missions that players undertake, including side missions, are strictly designed and follow a linear path with extra routes literally blocked by fog and labeled as inaccessible. This is a bit disappointing, especially since the maps themselves aren’t the most helpful for remembering and marking locations, but also because of how linear it makes the title feel during said missions.
Thankfully, outside of missions players can travel back to most locations and freely explore, often finding that new side-quests are available and that previously locked off areas are now open. This gives players plenty of room to explore as well as take advantage of various shops, including faction shops. Throughout the title players will interact with the numerous factions in the game and, depending on if they do side quests for them or sell treasure (junk) to their primary shop it will increase Rook’s favorability and the power of the faction, often unlocking special weapons and gifts that can be given related to said faction. It is interesting to note that there are also non-faction shops scattered around as well that not only sell bonus equipment, decorations for the player’s room back at the Lighthouse, but also mementos to upgrade the Caretaker’s workshop as well, increasing the total power player’s equipment can be upgraded to.
As players are venturing out, whether it is to freely explore a location or on a mission, they will find that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has drastically altered almost every element of traveling around as well as combat. Players will travel with Rook and two party members of their choice, though some missions lock certain party members in, and they will only be actually able to control Rook with the other allies simply providing support both during exploration and combat. While venturing around there will be various interactables in the environment that make use of a party member’s skills (if they have been recruited yet) to either open or clear a path but thankfully Rook can trigger these skills even if the character isn’t in the party. It is also worth noting that there are some oddly interspersed platforming sequences that really don’t fit the feeling or nature of the game, especially with how floaty the jumping is.Ironically, there is no fall damage. Should players fall a certain distance, even with the ground in sight, the game will treat it like they fell into a bottomless pit and respawn them at the top. Rook cannot swim either, making our hero drown in chest-deep water.
When players encounter enemies is where Dragon Age: The Veilguard also takes its biggest step away from previous games. In fact, the combat itself is designed to be more like a character action game rather than an RPG with party members since, as mentioned before, players only have direct control of Rook in fights. Allies will fight on their own and can use skills on their own as well though players can use a quick-dial to order them to use specific skills on a target. This also allows for the use of Mass Effect styled “Prime” and “Detonate” combo where some combinations of skills can be chained together to trigger a bonus effect for massive damage. In fact, party members have no health bars to manage, players only need to worry about keeping Rook alive to stay in the fight and this can be done using limited potions to heal, dodging and perfect parrying attacks and of course, defeating the enemies.
Rook has three initial classes to choose from, mage, rogue, and warrior, with each of these classes then having their own variations that players can build towards using skill points obtained from leveling up as well as completing various in-game puzzles. These playstyles offer plenty of variation as we took our Rook down the path of a rogue, speedily using twin-blades to take down enemies up close and dodging around or vanishing through their attacks or whittling them down with a bow at a distance before closing in for a kill. Some of the skills that players unlock are as simple as straight bonus buffs to the character, specific ability boosts, and more and it is nice to note that players can reset both their and their party’s skill tree at any time with no cost. Unfortunately there is no way to quickly re-distribute or save previous builds, meaning every reset requires unlocking every node again building in the player’s newly chosen direction. As for the player’s party members, their skill points are actually tied to their bond levels and level up trees are far smaller and a bit too simple.
Combat feels extremely quick and has quite a lot of impact at times,especially when playing as an up close and personal rogue, but it is rather unfortunate that there are a handful of issues with the game’s combat mechanics. One, they just don’t have that much enemy variety to work with which is a shocking disappointment. There are only a few mechanics to deal with enemies that have certain shields or barriers and that’s about it with only a few fights actually changing things up. Along these same lines, the game’s lock-on mechanic is absolutely atrocious, often losing lock-on simply because the enemy moved out of sight which happens far too easily thanks to the large wind-up on some skills, especially some specific subclass skills for the rogue. This is an annoyance that should have been remedied, especially for a game designed to be character action centric with the player being the main damage dealer. This also means that those who like playing a supporting role won’t find that here anymore, nor even an option for stealth. Ironically, trying to snipe enemies with the bow at a distance isn’t possible since the arrows have a surprisingly short travel distance or will make enemies “immune” to damage if they aren’t engaged directly.
The equipment managing in the game is a bit of a mixed bag. It is nice that most weapons can be seen as viable as nearly every piece of gear can increase in rarity by discovering or buying a duplicate version of it, unlocking additional perks alongside simply upgrading it at the Caretaker’s workshop. That being said, it almost always feels like players are simply moving from chest to chest, with each piece of gear being stronger than the last with few exceptions. This does diminish the game’s loot system a bit, unless players are designing their character around a specific build that one weapon enhances greatly compared to another. For those who like the looks of certain pieces of gear over another, the game does allow for transmogrifying armor or any weapon into a previously obtained one, be it from finding it in the field or even a skin bought from a vendor or found in-game.
Audio & Visuals
Among the many things that Dragon Age: The Veilguard has changed from previous entries, the art style is one of them. Rather than keeping the grittier and slightly more realistic tone of past games, this release takes on a brighter and more stylized approach to both the characters and the enemy designs, with enemy designs being a bit of a mixed bag as a result.. The character designs are nicely detailed even if some races may not look quite the same as fans remember them but enemy types have seen some significant alterations from past entries. This is unfortunate when combined with the fact that actual enemy variety is quite low for an RPG like this. Thankfully the world design is absolutely breathtaking at times, with many of the locations that players travel to being a real treat for the eyes as they navigate the environment and, thanks to the Eluvian mirrors allowing for quick travel across Thedas, there is tons of variety to be had here. It is also nice to note that the character creator for Rook is extremely in-depth to the point of offering some never before seen options, though it is also limiting a bit in some areas at the same time.
The voice work throughout the game is handled excellently. There are a few characters that take some getting used to, especially the chippy Elven girl in my case who slowly grew on me over the course of the game. There are tons of moments throughout exploring that a player’s chosen party members will banter or even joke about what’s happening, making for unique interactions every time depending on who Rook’s traveling with. As for the soundtrack the game features some rather impressive background music that is fitting for the game’s themes, including some really special tracks for vital battles.
Overall
Dragon Age: The Veilguard feels like a game that is sometimes at odds with itself, trying to do two things at once and only barely managing to hold itself together as a result. The storyline is engaging though this is primarily thanks to Solas as well as the great writing that Rook’s companions bring with them and their lovely interactions. The combat itself is also fast and fluid even if it feels like the largest departure from Dragon Age‘s history of combat yet, though even then it isn’t without its flaws. Combine this with the feeling that player interactions are kept rather minimal in impact outside of a high impact choices that come few and far between and this RPG has all the makings for an engaging and gorgeous looking action RPG, but is hampered by many strange design and gameplay choices.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
