Dragon Age looks better, plays better than ever in The Veilguard

Bioware hasn’t exactly had a good reputation for the last few years — between adding multiplayer to Dragon Age: Inquisition and the failure of Anthem, to say nothing of the rumors it was planning to make Dragon Age 4 a live-service game, fan confidence in the legendary studio has withered. Now all hopes are hanging on its next game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Coming out 10 years after Inquisition and 15 years after Origins, Veilguard brings with it the hopes that the studio can return to its strengths.

Well, having played seven hours of Veilguard during a special preview event, I’m happy to report that, thus far at least, Bioware seems to doing just that. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is everything fans of the series have been asking for in terms of lore and story, and everything they might not have known they needed in terms of gameplay.

While at the preview event, I had a glimpse of several different areas and characters within the game, and played a few different missions. I also got to toy with the character creator and built my own Rook from the ground up, testing several of the different options. I also got to visit several areas of the game and meet several of the characters players will encounter in the game.

Before I get to anything else in the game, I have to shout out Veilguard’s character creator. Whatever character you’ve ever wanted to make in the Dragon Age setting, you can make them here. You’ve got gorgeous hair options, asymmetry, makeup options that for once don’t feel gaudy and ridiculous. I don’t say this lightly: Veilguard has a better character creator than Baldur’s Gate 3.

Thedas: 10 Years Later

I’ll refrain, in this preview, from speaking about the story at length. To be clear, I don’t believe what I was shown in the preview consisted of the most spoiler-heavy parts of the game – in fact, I have my doubts that I saw any of the most shocking moments the game has in store. However, I also know how long the fans such as myself have been waiting for this game, and that they want to have as pure and unspoiled an experience as possible. To that end, I’ll keep this preview mostly focused on gameplay to avoid even tripping over spoilers.

All I’ll say about the story that I saw in the preview is that protagonist Rook feels like they’re privy to some of the parts of Thedas that have thus far only been hinted at. They tangle with factions that have only existed on the periphery in previous games, and visit places that have only been spoken of by other characters. And not one single one of these places or people disappoints when they’re revealed. Rook themself isn’t a figure of myth like the Inquisitor or the Hero of Ferelden, but they feel like they are familiar with and connected to more of the world.

One of the places I visited was Treviso a gorgeous city in Antiva, a land whose lush beauty has only been implied in the mellifluous accents of Zevran and Josephine. It features some stunningly beautiful art design, a hybrid between European romance and Near Eastern scale. Absurdly, my first though upon seeing it was that I now understood why so many characters saw Ferelden, the medieval-style country where Origins takes place, as the biggest shithole in Thedas.

My one complaint — and, again, I won’t go into specifics for fear of spoilers — is that the dialogue and choice system, a staple of Bioware games, sometimes feels a bit over-explain-y. When you’ve had an encounter with a character that has lasting impacts of some kind, a text box pops up onscreen telling you so. And it’s not just “X approves” or “Y will remember you said that.” It’s more like “X feels he let you down” or “You and Y traded banter while you were on this mission.” It’s okay to leave some of that to the player’s imagination, Bioware.

Becoming the hero Thedas needs

The first thing veteran players will notice is a difference in movement of every kind. Both in combat and out of it, characters are far more dexterous and nimble than they have been previously. If I could find a good point of comparison, it might be Horizon Forbidden West. Rook feels far less restrained than the Inquisitor, though the places they navigate are smaller or more contained.

Combat has shifted away from RPG tactical control over the player character and their companions to action-style focus on Rook. That said, the titular Veilguard can still sync with Rook mid-battle. In fact, the game rewards you for doing so, as setting off two complimentary abilities in rapid succession deals devastating combos. It’s certainly more fast-paced than any previous title, and that’s to its benefit: It means that Rook can fight bigger, tougher enemies without the game’s pace slowing to a crawl.

Perhaps my favorite part of the gameplay: The mage is actually fun to play now! No more are you relegated to just parking on the backlines wildly swinging a stick around while your companions get up close and personal (which felt like 90% of all mage gameplay in previous Dragon Age titles). Now you have options: The mage gameplay is split between the traditional staff and a dagger-and-orb combo that incorporates melee combat. Like the other classes, they also have a long-range attack that can best be described as a magical laser beam.

The focus on Rook does leave your companions sometimes feeling a little unfocused in combat. They can’t die, or if they could it never happened while I was playing, which robs the gameplay of a bit of complexity. It’s not a dealbreaker, by any means — but I suspect it might take some getting used to for game veterans.

Rook takes Queen, Checkmate

In short, Dragon Age: The Veilguard appears to be a return to form for Bioware. I got to speak with John Epler, the franchise’s creative director, who told me, “For us, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is about getting back to what the studio was built to build. We were always a studio about single-player RPGs and character-driven narratives. For The Veilguard, getting to go back to what we did and even deeper, it’s been really exciting. I’ve been at Bioware for 17 years, so it’s really been a great feeling to see that resurgence of excitement.”

It remains to be seen if Dragon Age: The Veilguard can live up to the potential it showed during this preview event and in the footage Bioware has thus far show. However, all signs are positive at the moment, so here’s hoping Halloween — when the Veil is thin — will deliver the Dragon Age experience fans have been craving for a decade.