Whilst attempting to stop Solas, "the Dread Wolf", from tearing down the magical Veil separating the real world from the Fade, your team inadvertently unleashes two ancient elven mages upon the realm. Empowered by blight, Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain seek to corrupt the lands in search of power; with Solas now trapped behind the Veil in their stead, it is up to "Rook" to gather allies that can challenge the very gods. Assemble your team and make hard choices in the name of saving the world in this Action RPG, Dragon Age: The Veilguard!

Release Date: October 31st, 2024
Developed by: Bioware
Published by: Electronic Arts

Rook Takes Knight

To begin, a fair warning: I haven't played any Dragon Age game since Origins, 15(!) years ago. I'm aware that the series has been shifting toward an Action RPG direction since the sequels began to take shape, and while that doesn't inherently bother me - the Jak & Daxter series on the PS2 trained me for this - the juxtaposition is definitely noticeable. I don't know who any of these people are (except Morrigan), I don't recognize any of the factions or locations (save for the Grey Wardens), and the events that transpired in DA2 and Inquisition are completely unknown to me. Nevertheless I charged forward, ready to save the land of Thedas once more!

...before running smack into the wall that is character creation. Customizing my "Rook" felt kind of daunting: I've never been good with this part, making my avatar all pretty and whatnot. The face editor in particular was intimidating, combining three faces from a list then using sliders to affect their "contribution" to the overall result. Eventually I gave up, and just went with what I had - with a face, hairstyle, and voice similar to that of Oerba Yun Fang from Final Fantasy XIII, I figured that was a good enough place to start.

Of course, that's just the visuals - I still had to decide on a class and faction! One's choices are the classic Rogue, Warrior, and Mage, with three specializations each within them. Spellblade (Mage) and Duelist (Rogue) seemed interesting, but I ultimately decided on a Warrior: both the defensive Champion and necrotic Reaper sounded appealing - the latter being unusual flavor for a fighter - and Fang was the strongest physical-attacker in FF13, so it felt a natural fit. Granted she fought with a 2-handed bladed lance, and I'm focusing on throwing my shield Captain America-style, but shut up it's close enough!

With each decision taking like 20-30 minutes apiece to settle on, I spent a lot of time determining my Rook. By the end I was itchin' to just start playing already, so without any prior knowledge to rely on, I picked Shadow Dragons as my backstory, messed with my Inquisitor history (romancing "Sera", whoever that is, because that's my name so there ya go), selected the normal difficulty and off I went.

Opening Gambit

After an enjoyable scene where Rook gets into a bar fight and smashes everyone's face in, the game began in earnest. In medias res, naturally, to further confuse me as-to the situation. My party members blathered on about how important it was to stop Solas, but I still wandered into every nook and cranny searching for valuables; after all, saving the world comes second to treasure! I was listening - just gathering supplies for the long haul - and the opening gameplay was fun (now there's a loaded word). The Warrior's Driving Kick is endlessly satisfying, knocking enemies off ledges is always a plus, ziplines were available for some reason to traverse the environment, and altogether I was having a good time. It didn't feel like DAO to me - not by a long shot - but that didn't stop me from being entertained.

This feeling continued throughout my early experience, hacking-and/or-slashing my way through darkspawn and cultists alike. I've since gathered four of the seven main companions:

  • Harding, a dwarven archer scout apparently from the previous game,
  • Bellara the artifact tinkerer, an elven Veil Jumper,
  • Neve, a human mage and detective working with the Shadow Dragons,
  • and Lucanis, an Antivan Crow assassin possessed by a demon.

I've enjoyed each of them for what they are, save for Bellara: she feels too timid for the seriousness of the situation, and also happens to repeat herself a lot in dialogue (more on that later). There has already been a major story beat for Harding, with Varric's narration hinting that something dark and mysterious is waiting for us given the choice I made, but that seemed to be par for the course with everyone. No one is allowed to be happy in a setting like this, after all, regardless of the more cartoony aesthetic.

Speaking of which, I'm honestly kind of glad that all the dirt and blood has been reduced: having a post-battle conversation where everyone is covered in gore may be realistic, but it's not exactly appealing to look at. At any rate, The Veilguard seems to have traded them in for more of a corrupted vibe, reminding me very much of Diablo IV. The blight is gross in its own way, dominating peoples' minds and bodies and twisting them. If you want your grim fantasy world, it's still there to some degree.

Having not played Origins in a long time, I couldn't tell you what the combat was like outside of it being a real-time CRPG with the ability to convey commands while paused. Not that it matters to The Veilguard. Oh you can still pause the game to give commands, and that's how you'll activate companion abilities and direct their targeting. But this is very much an Action RPG, not a CRPG. My character's allusion to Final Fantasy XIII wasn't entirely misplaced, as the companions generally function of their own accord, they have no life bars, and the game only ends when you yourself are downed. It's not bad at all, just different to what came before.

The combat likes to focus a lot of its attention on combos, setting up a condition with a primer and then triggering the combo with a detonator. This usually results in an explosion of damage, and a lot of Stagger, but it also strips the condition from the enemy. You could set off the detonations willy-nilly and presumably be fine on the normal difficulty, but I imagine on a higher setting you would need to consider holding back and letting those conditions linger for maximum effectiveness. Each party member applies and/or detonates certain conditions, so a focused composition would have you consider a team that can trigger each other's primers for repeated combos.

This is slightly annoying from the perspective of having to decide between characters that interest you versus what is "optimal", but for now I'm doing my best to just try them all out evenly. Two Rogues that both apply Sundered and both detonate Overwhelmed seems very redundant, but thankfully Harding and Lucanis have a couple nuances that separate them, like their damage type of choice or how they trigger crits with their abilities. And even then, being on Adventurer, I can probably just brute-force with whatever composition I want, as seen below, against a boss about 11 levels higher than me.

Won the fight, albeit slowly. Defeating him gave me his "champion's essence", which opened an optional door elsewhere leading to more level 25 enemies with a level 34 boss at the end. Alas I was not successful against that one...for now. Still, I'm having fun and that's what matters I guess.

Held in Check

That's not to say The Veilguard is a 10/10 game, no notes. There are various things about it that bother me already, and I have to reason they'll stand firm or potentially get worse with time as I repeatedly encounter them. For example, having to spend 5+ minutes to verify shaders every time I boot up the game is extremely annoying. It ain't getting any faster, and while I could partially blame my hardware for this, I'm not letting the game off the hook for it either. I also tried The Veilguard on my Steam Deck, and even using the Low settings that were suggested, it stutters. Majorly disappointed about that.

Going backward to the combat, while it is enjoyable, it's not without some questionable decisions. The UI for the action menu is a visual mess, for starters, as seen above. You're the only one with a life bar, so enemies basically always aggro onto you personally: makes for a hectic time as the Warrior, but I've heard it can be a very frustrating experience playing the Mage in the early game. Enemies can also have up to three different types of health layered on top of each other, which can lead to spongey encounters and/or having to deal with them in a very particular manner.

Whilst exploring the world, the game has a nasty habit of throwing up spectral walls telling you the area behind them is inaccessible. There's no stated reason for this: if you trigger a quest later - even if you haven't left the area yet - the wall might mysteriously disappear without explanation. It's jarring and just a bit stupid, having an "open" environment so blatantly cordoned off like that. Reminds me of early Assassin's Creed games, where your "synchronization" would falter because you went outside the designated play-zone for that memory. Just throw up a locked door or gate like a normal person!

Lastly, we come to the dialogue. Let me start with this: I don't care that the game is considered "woke". The "anti-woke" people can choke on it, for all I care - representation is a good thing, fantasy setting or otherwise. Not everything has to be as Tolkien envisioned it in Lord of the Rings. That being said, The Veilguard is a tad heavy-handed with some of its writing, and if what I heard is true, that statement will be even more true as I progress further into the game. I roll my eyes when characters over-indulge on their backstory without prompting, and my brow furrows when they repeat themselves in the same conversation. There's also just the goofy stuff, like when "Oof." was one of my snarky dialogue choices, or the occasional swear-word that gets dropped out of nowhere and doesn't add anything to the sentence. Cussing should be used at the appropriate time, for fuck's sake, not just thrown in whenever.

All told, while it's not completely terrible - some of the banter has been enjoyable, like between Harding and Lucanis in particular - it definitely feels awkward to listen to at times. 

Conclusion

So far, I would say I'm enjoying Dragon Age: The Veilguard, despite my gripes. This game has been a controversial subject, and I wanted to try it for myself and release a First Impression review from just a normal player's perspective. Is it a masterpiece? Of course not. Is it the worst RPG ever made? Of course not. Are my standards too low? Not sure, but I also think people need to chill out with some of the backlash, manufactured and otherwise. Some is absolutely warranted - if it's considered "Verified" on Steam Deck, the game should run better - but I wouldn't give it a 0 or a 1/10.

After all the ups and downs in the design process, The Veilguard was never going to release as the Second Coming of RPG Greatness, and yet it sure seems like people were expecting it to cure cancer and walk on water. I want my games to be excellent, too, but maybe set reasonable expectations. The game is still fun in its own capacity, whether you prefer Origins or not; we're three games out from that one, by the by, so evolution of the formula was inevitable, even if it was hastened by the design decisions of Bioware and EA.

Or perhaps some are just salty that trans people can put themselves in the game? To which I say "fuck you", I guess.

Have you played Dragon Age: The Veilguard? What do you think of the game? Let us know in the comments below!