Dragon Age The Veilguard Review – An RPG with an Identity Crisis

Dragon Age The Veilguard is a difficult game to review in isolation. That’s because it doesn’t exist in isolation. As part of the Dragon Age series, known for its immersive world, branching stories, and rich lore, Dragon Age The Veilguard has much to live up to. Following the release of Dragon Age The Inquisition in 2014, Bioware had a tumultuous decade. 

Projects like Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem shook the fanbase’s trust in the once-legendary RPG developer, responsible for kickstarting beloved series like Baldur’s Gate and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic. Dragon Age The Veilguard is a game that was rebooted several times since it started development shortly after The Inquisition’s release. Dragon Age Dreadwolf became a live-service multiplayer game which then became Dragon Age The Veilguard, officially revealed once more just 6 months ago. 

How long the game has actually been in development is anyone’s guess, but now in November of 2024, we finally get to play the fourth official installment in the Dragon Age series. Has Bioware delivered on the fans’ expectations in terms of gameplay and continuation of The Inquisition’s story?

TL;DR

Dragon Age The Veilguard is a good RPG and a fun action game—but it wants to be great at both. It’s a game that belongs to a cult-classic series but steps too far away from what made Dragon Age iconic in the first place. The result is a competent action game with surface-level writing and a thin layer of RPG systems to appease long-time fans.

Story – On the Shoulders of Giants

Dragon Age The Veilguard picks up 10 years after the ending of Dragon Age The Inquisition’s The Trespasser DLC. You play as Rook, a character with one of several different backstories depending on your choices in the game’s character creator. 

As the game opens up, you’re hot on the trail of Solas, a character Dragon Age fans will be familiar with and eager to make a return in the fourth game. As the game begins, Solas is the villain you’re focused on stopping, as he aims to open the Veil, a dimension of demons, onto the world. 

Dragon Age The Veilguard opens up in a bombastic action setpiece, different in tone and style compared to previous games in the series. As the game progresses, you’ll gather a party of various specialists from different factions to take down Solas and restore peace. At least that’s how the game begins, as many of its chapters focus on isolated scenarios and crises you’ll solve throughout the world of Thedas.

A Simplified Approach to Writing & Dialogue

Dragon Age The Veilguard has two things working against it, and one of them is the writing. From the get-go, it’s clear that Bioware had a very clear vision for what this game would be like. Following the trend of games like Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League and Concord, Dragon Age The Veilguard chooses to be quirky and funny rather than true to its roots. 

This is reflected in everything from dialogue between party members to choices you’ll make throughout the game. It’s a very approachable and digestible story but compared to previous games, it falls short of following up on the potential of The Inquisition’s ending. 

You cannot interact with NPCs or party members unless the game explicitly says it’s time to do so. You also can’t talk to every random NPC in the world, like you could in previous games or games like Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, just to hear a bit of world-building flavour dialogue. In that sense, the world feels devoid of interactivity and believability, which is a shame. 

Dragon Age The Veilguard struggles with its tone, trying to be just like previous games in the series but then surrounding the player with characters who are snarky, don’t take situations seriously, and are inoffensive and polite in everything they say. For a series that dealt with heavy themes of racial identity, slavery, abuse, and trauma in a very nuanced way, Dragon Age The Veilguard, unfortunately, takes a step in the opposite direction. Metaphor ReFantazio handled these themes much more successfully just recently, and that’s coming from a Japanese developer with an additional language barrier to work through.

Gameplay – Under the Veil of an RPG

Dragon Age The Veilguard is a third-person action RPG where you’ll control a single character joined by two more party members. While you can’t control your party members, you can instruct them to cast skills, perform various actions, as well as customize their equipment and skills. 

You’ll explore the world of Thedas on foot, with fast travel points scattered throughout every area. As you explore, you’ll be able to use three active skills and your ultimate ability, as well as temporarily slow down the game to cast your party’s skills. It’s a very different gameplay loop compared to past games and can best be described as early Mass Effect combined with Dragon Age II. 

Environmental puzzles are simplistic and never take more than a minute to solve and you’ll only ever be able to focus on a single quest at a time. This is because the game treats every quest as its own ‘instance’, similar to games like Warframe or the original Guild Wars.

In terms of combat, the game is action-based, with light and heavy attacks, dodges, ranged attacks, and skills you’ll cast to overcome the enemies. Experience is only rewarded at the end of every encounter, equally to all characters. There is no random loot you can pick up from fallen enemies in terms of new equipment, so combat can get repetitive, especially on higher difficulties where enemies simply have a lot more health and take longer to beat. Luckily, combat is flashy and responsive, and with three distinct classes with three specializations each, you’ll have plenty of options to choose from.

A World Signposts and Corridors

While Dragon Age The Veilguard and its world are gorgeous to look at, there’s not much there to interact with. You’ll travel to various zones from a central hub you’ll call home for the duration of the game. Every zone you visit will be made up of corridors with very strict movement options. Truly open environments are few and far between, which is especially evident when you visit ‘cities’.

These consist of bottleneck corridors cordoned off by crowds, gates, obstacles, and other artificial blockers preventing you from actually exploring the city. While an argument can be made for streamlining the player’s experience and guiding them to their goal more quickly, Dragon Age The Veilguard doesn’t seem to trust the player to find their way around. 

This is reinforced by characters constantly reminding the player of where they should go, what they should do next, and how. It’s a deliberate design choice, one which will be appreciated by more casual players but not by those looking to experience ‘aha’ moments on their own.

A Highly-Detailed Character Creator

Dragon Age The Veilguard features a very detailed and in-depth character creator which will let you express yourself to your fullest. Starting with the selection of your Rook’s race, all the way down to their origin, class, features, gender, pronouns, and voice, you’ll really feel like your character is ‘yours’. 

The game also lets you carry over your decisions and Inquisitor from the previous game, along with their ultimate destiny and ending. If you don’t have an EA account with Dragon Age The Inquisition, the game lets you start with a default world state or customize your own. And thanks to the game’s Frostbite engine, you can spend hours simply tinkering with your character before actually starting the game.

Visuals – Immersive World, Questionable Character Designs

The visuals are the second reason Dragon Age The Veilguard stands out from its predecessors. Contrary to past games in the series, this one relies on a stylised, cartoony art style to present its world. This means that all races, biomes, and architecture feel distinct and stand apart from past games with mixed results. 

Qunari, a warrior-like race with metallic grey skin and huge distinct horns has undergone the most radical redesign, followed by characters returning from previous games looking entirely different. While its character designs are very Pixar movie-like, its world is gorgeous to look at and explore. 

Every region feels unique and simply exploring all of it is a joy. The world is less interactive than ever, however, especially when it comes to finding loot, which is relegated to specifically set chests and places to collect materials or gold with no random element involved. 

Character equipment is locked onto specific party members and cannot be swapped or mixed around, leading to less gear variety. The Dragon Age The Veilguard UI is also streamlined and easy to navigate and you’ll never have to guess what button to press to perform any action.

A Technically Polished Experience

Something worth praising in Dragon Age The Veilguard is its technical polish. Running on the Frostbite engine, the game features solid performance and practically no bugs from day one. Players can choose between a 30 FPS mode with a higher resolution and details or a 60 FPS mode with a lower resolution but a smoother gameplay experience. 

Apart from that, the game features accessibility options and gameplay modifiers which really make the Dragon Age The Veilguard approachable to a wide range of players. This makes it a good game for both casual and hobby players to pick up and enjoy.

Audio – Quality Voice Acting, Lukewarm Soundtrack

Dragon Age The Veilguard features a soundtrack by the legendary composer Hans Zimmer, known for his long collaboration with the director Christopher Nolan, producing music for movies like Interstellar and The Dark Knight among others. Here, he doesn’t really bring his best foot forward, resulting in a soundtrack that’s predictably fantasy-like. 

It’s music you’d come to expect from a game set in a magical fantasy world, not stepping away from genre standards. It makes the game’s music blend and seems unmemorable, apart from its main theme which is evocative of the game’s story and atmosphere. In terms of voice acting, Dragon Age The Veilguard is competent and diverse—you’ll never hear the same voice actor twice. 

Each character has a distinct tonality, voice color, and speech patterns which adds to their believability. The same can be said for the overall audio design, with skills and various actions sounding meaty and responsive. You’ll never get bored of casting spells or attacking enemies because of how good it sounds to do it.

Conclusion – Should you Play Dragon Age The Veilguard?

Dragon Age The Veilguard is a solid entry-level RPG with action combat elements that anyone can pick up and enjoy. However, as part of the Dragon Age series, the bigger question is whether long-time fans will find something to hook them here. The writing is far less mature and far more direct and superficial this time around. 

The game has the overall look and feel of a fantasy Guardians of the Galaxy, a far cry from past games that felt dark and atmospheric. In that sense, picking up Baldur’s Gate 3 might be a more worthwhile investment, at least until Dragon Age The Veilguard is on sale.

Bioware has already publicly shared that the next Mass Effect won’t share the art style of Dragon Age The Veilguard and that no DLC is planned for the game. These statements came only days before the game’s official launch, seemingly reassuring the studio’s fans that Mass Effect is ‘safe’ regarding its direction. If they were 100% confident in their design choices in Dragon Age The Veilguard, such statements wouldn’t have to be made. The game is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and the PC.

Thanks to Bandai Namco EU for providing us with the review copy!