After ten long years, the expectations placed on Dragon Age: The Veilguard feel monumental. The fanbase is devoted, yet rabid, with wishlists longer than the time it took to get through the Hinterlands in Dragon Age: Inquisition. I won’t pretend I wasn’t one of those fans, who hoped beyond hope the game would reach these increasingly high goalposts.
So when Electronic Arts offered GamesHub the opportunity to go and check out Dragon Age: The Veilguard in California last month, I leapt at the chance. I wanted to see for myself whether the team had raised the stakes high enough, whether the character customiser they’d raved about socially was really as in-depth as it claimed, whether the combat felt clean and sharp.
I wanted to feel the thrill of a sequel that engaged both the grimdark and the glorious light that imbued previous games. I am thrilled to say that, at least for me, Dragon Age: The Veilguard has hit the mark.
I’m the first to admit that personal circumstances and life events can affect the way you feel about a game at any given time, and during that trip I was (as the youths say) going through it. But in playing through Dragon Age: The Veilguard over the course of a day, scratching away at what the developers are calling “Act 1” and enveloping myself in the world again, I felt a wash of something more than relief. If you’ll forgive the pun, I felt an element of solace.
They weren’t kidding about the character creator
When each of the media representatives in attendance at the Dragon Age: The Veilguard preview sat down at their computers for the day, we were given a very important piece of advice – one that I promptly ignored. “Try to limit your time in character creator to about half an hour, or you’ll miss out on some of the gameplay beats we have planned,” they said.
Now, as someone who routinely dives back in to games like The Sims and Baldur’s Gate 3 exclusively to make fun characters and see how they come alive, this was a big ask. And yet, for all their claims and hints on social media, actually being in the Dragon Age: The Veilguard creator made me realise that the Bioware team have (unbelievably) been underselling it.
Knowing that statistically most players will automatically seek to create themselves, that’s what I strove to do in my initial run – which immediately felt far too self indulgent when I realised I could actually make that happen.
What I didn’t expect, however, was just how many times I would audibly react to options that I’d never even conceived of in the creator (and yes, I giggled at the bulge slider). With an insane amount of options that truly impact the most infinitesimal degrees of change on the face, you can get a very realistic, lifelike visage.
Representation has always been so integral to the franchise (and to games more generally) that seeing things like age sliders, vitiligo sliders and heterochromia didn’t really surprise me. These are, or at least should be, mainstays in any good creator. But in all my years of playing, I’ve never seen any button in a character creator that goes to the depth of asking, “hey, do you want to give your character cataracts?” and have them look legitimate.
Possibly the most impactful addition to the Dragon Age: The Veilguard character creation system though, is the dynamic lighting – and to that I say, “thank god.” The Bioware team have clearly listened to the litany of complaints that players had from the creator in DA: Inquisition, wherein you’d spend hours constructing a perfect character while bathed in a green light, only to find that in the brightness of the main game, they look grotesque and bizarre.
With a selection of lighting options, you can see exactly how your character will appear in the moonlight, directly under the sun, in the dappled light of a mid-afternoon adventure, and more. Not only does it rescue you from the hell that is redoing everything because of a dodgy eyeshadow palette, it just gives you a really lovely sense of how well your chosen character will slot into the wider world of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
The steady guidance of a narrative undercurrent
Once I escaped the clutches of the character creator, it was time to dive in to Dragon Age: The Veilguard properly. The preview kicked off right at the beginning, tracing the threads of the gameplay trailer. My character accompanied Varric through the rain-soaked streets of Minrathous, hot on the tail of Solas, who was elbow-deep in a spell that could cause unbridled damage to the world if left unchecked.
I was worried that playing through these events would feel lesser having watched the gameplay trailer, but it really didn’t have that effect on me at all. Along the way, I grouped up with companions Scout Harding and Neve Gallus, and made a series of seemingly small choices that blended together to feel distinct from the story I’d seen already.
And, while eager to reach what I knew was coming, I found myself distracted. I lingered in side streets and environments just a little longer than required, to fully scope out the breadth of what the world had to offer. I examined textures and reflections in the pools of rainwater on the Minrathous streets. I gazed upon this new city like I was sketching out its silhouette.
This activity continued the further I progressed further into Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Once I reached the endpoint of what was shown in the trailer (best experienced for yourself, so I won’t speak on its climax), we had the opportunity to skip forward to a series of separate, pre-prepared saves that would give us an opportunity to explore different areas, classes, companions and more.
These jumps forward demonstrated the breadth and depth of the game’s offering. The establishment of the ‘Big Bads’, elven gods Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, feels sufficiently bigger in scope than in past games. Getting the opportunity to play through snippets of those later storylines really went a long way towards emphasising how scary and imposing these antagonists are.
From accompanying new companions on lore-laden personal quests through to eliminating enemies in lands nearly overtaken by Blight, the undercurrent of the narrative carries you through purposefully yet gently. Dragon Age: The Veilguard‘s main storyline is linear, but allows for the freedom of some exploration amid its guidance. As a completionist with ADHD, I was pleased to note that this guidance felt welcome without being obtrusive.
Read: Dragon Age: The Veilguard officially launches in October 2024
Combat that feels smooth and shapeable
One of the main concerns I had heading into Dragon Age: The Veilguard was the combat, and I think you’ll be pleased as punch to know that it seems like it’ll be very strong. While the game has moved away from allowing you to play as your companions in battle, I do think the interplay between your team and their abilities is still represented well.
Over the course of the various save files, I had the opportunity to try out each of the three classes: Rogue, Mage and Warrior. As a diehard Rogue who will actively choose to get freaky with double daggers and a bow at any given opportunity, I was apprehensive about how much I’d really enjoy the other classes – until I stepped into their shoes.
Boiling it down, that’s in large part thanks to the extensive skill trees that each class can access. You’d be forgiven for feeling almost intimidated by the expansive branches and blends you can create over the course of the game, with different skill combinations creating sizeable differences in the way combat plays out.
It also means that the cornerstone of Dragon Age: The Veilguard‘s combat is interactivity between you and your companions. Selecting the right group, with the right skills, allows you to tee up startlingly effective combo manoeuvres via the ability wheel.
The Mage class was my first run at another playstyle, and despite feeling a little more damage-prone, it held its own remarkably. Pairing up with companions like Lucanis Dellamorte, an expert assassin with a secret, meant that I could unleash very specific combinations that proved wildly effective on the battlefield.
As a Warrior, I felt more comfortable taking some of my weaker companions along, bearing the brunt of the attack with a seriously sick heavy weapon while I directed my companions to pepper enemies with spells and sneakier attacks at range. On paper, it’s not rewriting history, but in practice it feels smooth and slick.
I do think that in my real playthrough, I will stick to my roots and play as a fiendishly quick dagger-bearing Rogue. But now that I’ve tested out even just a single quest for each, I can easily see myself revisiting the story over and over again to try out each flavour of combat.
Getting by with a little help from your friends
I could waffle on about each of the companions for about twelve hours apiece, but all that is to say that they’re a great deal of fun to interact with. From sulky assassins through to sassy mages and more, the companions feel tonally spot-on.
While the preview’s time constraints meant we weren’t able to fully explore things like the romances for each, there were still opportunities to test out a flirty dialogue here and there. If anything, that actually made me feel more confident about the romances moving into the full game, because the snippets demonstrated that these are relationships built over time and shared trust.
The interaction and banter between the companions you take with you was also satisfying – and the fact that they pick up where they left off if you open a menu or endure an interruption was a huge relief.
All in all, Dragon Age: The Veilguard‘s dialogue options feel very good. When in doubt, I will always choose the smart-ass option, but exploring the flavour of each approach and how the companions react proved to be a really engaging part of my preview time.
The only thing that gave me even the slightest amount of pause was the voice acting, and even then, it’s not to say it’s not good. As someone who has sunk an insane amount of hours into watching Dimension 20, I did find myself getting taken out of the story by hearing Erika Ishii’s voice as my Rook. I loved hearing them, but almost too much – though most players won’t have to worry about that.
Read: Dragon Age: The Veilguard will star Erika Ishii, Matt Mercer, and more
Lingering thoughts on Dragon Age: The Veilguard
When writing up my initial feelings after the Dragon Age: The Veilguard preview, I made a point of sitting myself down and examining whether my love of the franchise was in any way clouding my judgement. I wrote up a list of cold, hard facts, separate entirely from my personal feelings about the story, the history, the lore.
Regardless of how I sliced it, no matter how removed I felt emotionally from the experience, I kept coming back to the same verdict: Dragon Age: The Veilguard seems incredibly strong. Extremely strong. After ten years of waiting, it feels like fans are about to get a solid reward for their patience, and despite my initial doubts that the Bioware team’s claims were setting themselves up for risk, they’ve so far hit those expectations and then some.
I’m not saying my experience was perfect by any means – there are some areas that feel tidier than others, and there’s always the caveat that previews like this have the game’s best foot forward for a reason. But if Dragon Age: The Veilguard can follow through on the promises that this preview issued, I truly cannot wait for this game.
Electronic Arts provided flights and accommodation to GamesHub in order to play Dragon Age: The Veilguard and interview developers. Electronic Arts did not have oversight of this article.
