Expectations are a dangerous thing.
This is the thought that has rattled around in my head whenever I start thinking about Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Even before it came out people where commenting on what the game should be, how it ought to mold to their expectations for what a Dragon Age game is. This conveniently forgets the fact that the last Dragon Age game was released over 10 years ago and so much has changed since then. The world in which this game was created is not the same as those that came before it and setting expectations on what’s come before is just as likely to disappoint as it is to excite. But, even with my low information diet on these things, I still sat on my hands with it until the game was on sale thinking that the amount of criticism being levelled at it likely warranted at least a half skeptical eye. Well after sinking some 30+ hours into it I can say that there’s an absolutely solid game in here and, whilst some of the criticisms are valid, too many of them are the product of missed expectations from those who only like their Dragon Age in a particular way.

It has been ten years since the Inquisition and Solas, now going by his ancient true Elven name of Fen’Harel, is seeking to tear down the veil. He was the one responsible for its creation, made specifically for the purpose of sealing away all the other Elven gods who had became corrupted by the blight and were beyond redemption. Solas also believes that sealing the Elves away from the fade is what caused the downfall of their empire and this is his last chance at redeeming himself and bringing them back to their former glory. You are Rook, recruited by the Viscount of Kirkwall Varric and the Inquisition’s lead scout Harding to assist them in stopping Solas and protecting the veil that keeps back the horrors that once tormented this world. If it was that easy though your story would be nothing to remember and your first confrontation with Solas is nowhere near your last.
I wasn’t onboard with the art direction change initially but came around to it after a couple hours. To be sure it shifts the aesthetic (and by some extents the overall tone) of the game away from the series’ more dark and gritty roots but we’re also now in a time where we have dynamic range that we could only dream of in years gone by. The over-saturated colours and stylized visuals feel a bit more at home today than they would’ve in years gone by, especially given the numerous other games that have gone a similar route (Immortals: Fenyx Rising is the first one that comes to mind). Level design is well done with great attention to detail paid to almost all areas, something which is a necessity given how often you’ll be retreading familiar ground in the game.

One call out I do have to make though is the animations which, for whatever reason, are rather stiff and robotic. A quick search shows that they did use motion capture for at least some parts of the game, but there was enough robotic movement in various scenes to make me wonder just how much was actually used. There were also some slight performance issues in larger areas which was most notable in contrast when you went to slightly less populated sections. Now my rig is no slouch, and this is numerous months on with various patches in between, so I figured it should be pretty smooth sailing but you’ll still be reaching for the graphics options if you want fluid performance all the time.
As we have all come to expect from a Bioware RPG the scope of the game is massive, the game offering up enough content to fill the boots of even the most dedicated completionist for hundreds of hours. The core gameplay is an updated version of the action-RPG combat system that Bioware has been endlessly tweaking with this time the knobs dialled almost all the way to blow by blow action with only a small sprinkling of tactical elements to play with. Progression comes in various flavours with the tried and true levelling systems, talent trees and different coloured gear to keep you grinding on. Some of the more in-depth elements we’ve come to expect, like crafting, have been vastly streamlined and in their place other progression mechanics like enchanting/upgrading have taken their place. There’s a main campaign which you can endlessly hammer away at should you wish, although the game will spend no small amount of time reminding you that the side objectives are going to have an impact on how things play out. Tied to these side quests are various factions which you can increase in strength by doing quests and selling them goods which, in turn, gives you access to better vendor items from them. To be sure, for those who are wanting a true Bioware experience, all the ingredients are there but whether they come together as a whole for you is a question I can’t answer.

It takes an unfortunately long time for the combat in Veilguard to be enjoyable, or at least it did for me. I figured I should try something new and different for my playthrough as basically all the previous Dragon Age games have seen me be the frontliner warrior, prioritising on survivability whilst leveraging my companions to deal the damage. This time I instead went for a mage and settled on the Death Caller specialisation. I was initially intrigued by the Spellblade build, thinking it’d be a bit of a laugh to roll and mage and then try and make it melee, but honestly what I ended up building with my mage was better than I could have imagined. Indeed this leads me onto one of the core parts of my experiences with Veilguard: it finally let me have the power fantasy I’d be chasing for so long.
You see I’ve long bemoaned games that feel the need to give us an awesome new ability, power or level increase only to have that met with a direct counter shortly after. This is directly from the FromSoftware playbook where they seek to keep you around the same relative power level whilst pushing you, the player, to become better at the game. Whilst I enjoy that challenge when I’m seeking it I’ve grown exceptionally tired of games half-assedly copying it which just makes you feel like a wet noodle for the entire game. In Veilguard though I was on the verge of stopping at about 8 hours in, that was until I found a staff that transformed me into an insanely overpowered weapon of mass destruction that could almost instantly lay waste to anything I came across.

The secret to my build was the fact I could use the ranged beam attack infinitely, thanks to the Death Caller talents that allow you to keep using it past having mana for it (draining life in the process) whilst also stealing a percentage of the damage done. This meant I could mow down legions of minions without breaking a sweat before ducking out to regen to use my bigger abilities on the things that didn’t survive that. This, of course, meant I was pretty much always pulling aggro however, something even the taunt abilities couldn’t keep away for long. Despite that though it was a ton of fun and the exact thing I’ve been wanting from modern RPGs for ages.
Progression feels quite slow in the game’s opening acts, mostly because you’re doing all the fetch quests required to unlock all the companions before the game is finally opened up to you properly. After that it’s usually a case of taking time out of quests to see what you’ve progressed, whether it’s your levels, companion levels, Caretaker’s Workshop (enchants/upgrades) or what gear you found rarity increases to. The last part is probably one of my favourite parts of Veilguard’s progression systems as it means that newer armour doesn’t replace older stuff. Instead you’re always seeking out new drops to improve the armour you already have. That’s amazing news to someone who already feels like they’re just a touch overpowered because it means there’s even more broken builds to come, even in the game’s later stages. The no-cost respec’ing of…everything is also a nice touch, meaning there’s never a huge barrier between you and the next build you want to try out. I think I only did my main character once and a couple companions once I’d settled on my preferred team (Bellara/Davrin) but it was still nice to have the option to shake things up if I wanted to.

Now I did blitz the first few chapters of the game so I’m not completely sure how much of the side quest stuff gets locked out (apart from the obvious ones) but it seemed like a lot of content was available all the way throughout the game. This was helpful given I’d decided to change tack then to doing the companion side quest missions to get most of them up to hero status that the game kept bugging me about. There were a few which I think I’d somehow managed to lock myself out of (Lucanis for example) but thankfully that didn’t seem to have too much of an impact on the storyline I felt I was chasing.
To that point though the relationships (both the romantic and platonic ones) aren’t developed as well as I would’ve liked. Many of the interactions feel stilted, even when you’re choosing the “right” choices that they approve of. The romantic ones, or at least the one with Bellara, are the worst example of this as many of the romance options just seem like other dialogue options with an small flirty angle to them. This doesn’t seem to progress much even when you finally get into a relationship with someone, the dialogue not really changing in a meaningful way to represent the fact that you’re committed to each other. Some of the scenes towards the end go a ways to fix this, at least showing some form of intimacy (both physical and emotional) between the characters. Perhaps this is due to the choice of partner I made, I haven’t looked into how the others progress, but given I got to the point of non-committal stage with Neve and it felt the same I feel my assessment is pretty accurate.

Which brings us to the story itself, something which I’m in two minds about. To be sure with a game this scale there’s going to be some poorly written sections, and there are many, but there were enough of them to make me wonder how much effort was put in to bringing all the disparate pieces together. This is very noticeable in a man of not-so-well-planned arcs in the game that criss-cross each other in weird ways that don’t come together in the way I think the writer’s wanted them to. There’s also a rather unpleasant undertone of infantilizing the player, notifying you of key moments again because you’re just too enthralled with everything else that’s going on. This comes through in things like those story choice pop ups (yes I can remember giving Solas a bit of sass an hour ago) and the direct reiteration of “You’d better do X so everyone is at their best for the last fight of the game!” which, I think we could all do without. Is it the worst writing I’ve come across? Not by a long shot but given Bioware’s history of putting together compelling, larger than life narratives I have to say this felt like a bit of misstep on their part.
But for every bad moment there’s another one on the other side of the coin, little flashes of brilliance that were enough to keep me engaged with the story and want to follow it along. The companion quests, of which I completed all bar Emmrich’s and Lucanis’, gave the characters ample time to develop and breathe over the course of their journeys. There are side quests that seem meaningless if done in a certain way but, if the right companion is there, you get yet another layer of depth to the world. For those who’ve been following the series since Origins there’s a lot to chew on but, thankfully, new players aren’t locked out of enjoying the experience without that either.

So it would seem this is a Bioware RPG like any other: one that is both equal parts good and bad that somehow translates into an exceptional experience. I was ready to give up on it, to leave it behind and join the raving masses that using this as a signal of Bioware’s downfall. But there it was, a single pivotal moment, where the game transformed from a boring slog to the realisation of the power fantasy that, in my mind, has been lacking from RPGs for far too long. Could it be better? Hell yes it could and you’ll find little argument in me for the many who’ve taken the time, more time than I have in many cases, who point out the game’s shortcomings. For me though the fact that I’ve stuck with the game for so long says something and I’m glad I didn’t let this one pass me by.
Rating: 9.0/10
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is available on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S right now for $89.95. Game was played on the PC with a total of 32.1 hours playtime and 55% of the achievements unlocked.