I waited ten years for Bioware to produce a follow-up to Dragon Age: Inquisition. During that time, I found myself disappointed by Mass Effect: Andromeda, and I never even tried Anthem after testing out the demo. For me, Bioware has taken ten years to finally give me the game I want. Inquisition ended on a cliffhanger, and the Trespasser DLC seemed to indicate where things were going. My hope at the time was that a rapid iteration of Inquisition’s engine and gameplay would create a sequel worth loving. I adored Inquisition for all its faults, and I wanted to see those ideas flourish and grow.
However, the nature of AAA games is that a company either gets to rapidly iterate on the same idea over and over or we wait an incredibly long time for a sequel that reinvents the wheel. With Dragon Age: The Veilguard (DATV henceforth), we got the latter. While this isn’t necessarily the worst thing to happen, it does make comparing this game to its predecessors even harder. DATV is in many ways doing its own thing creatively. The design must be judged for what experience they were trying to deliver, not necessarily the one that I expected from this franchise. And yet, it is impossible to divorce this game from the larger franchise and the expectations of the fanbase. My analysis will veer somewhere in the middle. I will try to approach this game for what it is, but I can’t help but think about what it could’ve been if Bioware’s development priorities and directives from EA had worked out differently.
Presentation
DATV kicks things off with a heightened level of fidelity and presentation that showcases the ten years of time between it and Inquisition. Much of the time spent in the game’s press cycle during the months before launch was devoted to showcasing how this game was a visual spectacle. There’s absolutely no denying the immediate draw of the improvements to the game’s graphics as you dive into the character creator. Hair flips and sways almost too aggressively to demonstrate the new hair physics. New options for body proportions are a first for the franchise and faces animate with new liveliness. It’s not hard to get sucked into making the perfect Rook, the nickname of our protagonist. My first attempt ended up a bit too stylized, and I found myself making a few fixes as the game went on before I completely redid the basics of my facial structure. The game gives you quick access to a magic mirror that will let you redo your core appearance, so any mistakes are quickly rectified.
Past character creation, we see the new art style of DATV put to work. Each game in the franchise has seen something of an art reset, with many assets and styles being revisited and touched up, or completely redone. DATV takes the style of Inquisition as a base but then sees its own rework put on top of it. Characters all tend to be much prettier, with some of the ruggedness of past games lost as we move towards stylization. Some decry the game as “cartoony,” and it’s not hard to see why. Monsters look far less like Lord of the Rings as we saw in Origins and instead take on an aggressively deformed look. Some efforts are made to justify the differing looks of Darkspawn compared to past games, but we all know the beat with Dragon Age at this point. Each new game tends to take a run at what the franchise even is, and the art style is no different.
Presentation extends beyond the fidelity and art of the visuals, of course. In terms of direction, these are some of the best cutscenes that Bioware has pulled out in a game. Your character fits in perfectly among the NPCs in a way that hasn’t always been the case. Movement is fluid and the camera makes scenes incredible and dynamic. By the time you reach some of the game’s biggest setpieces in the third act, you may find yourself in awe of what the game can show you. No punches are pulled as the game takes you into places under siege or filled with ancient magic. DATV wants to be the biggest adventure the franchise has ever sent you on, and it succeeds in many regards.
Action
DATV will immediately draw the attention of franchise veterans for being more of an action game than an RPG. Much effort was spent in the marketing cycle to showcase the game’s classic RPG features, from leveling and skill trees to equipment customization. Make no mistake, however: the game is an action game in the vein of God of War or Devil May Cry. Combat centers around mixing up light and heavy attack combos, blocking and dodging, and building up enemy stagger meters. Rook and their companions can each have three abilities equipped at a time, which cost resources and have cooldown periods. While the game is not completely free from strategy, it’s easy to get sucked into combat feeling focused more on dodging and attacking than preparing some intricate tactical approach.
Speaking of companions, they are heavily reduced in importance with regard to combat. Much like in the Mass Effect franchise, Rook can only have two companions at a time, and they aren’t playable. You will find yourself only controlling Rook here, not able to swap between characters to set up strategies yourself. Companions here don’t have health bars and if they happen to get targeted by enemies, it’s mostly a way for the game to remove some of the aggro Rook is constantly dealing with. The only thing you are made to worry about is Rook, with the focus being on keeping them alive and engaged with your foes. Companions can provide healing and buffs, or set up status conditions that can be exploited for massive damage. They are integral to how the game’s combat flows, but purely as support for Rook.
While Rook is free to pick one of the three classes that the Dragon Age franchise typically provides (Warrior, Rogue, or Mage), you won’t find yourself able to build Rook as anything but a badass who charges into the fray. Rogues and Mages may be able to build around a ranged approach, but the game doesn’t give you much time to keep out of your enemy’s reach. It is common for half a dozen or more monsters to be rushing you at any given time, or sending their own ranged attacks. Combat flows largely around the visual indicators of big enemy attacks (represented by red circles and lines mostly), as well as the indicator above Rook’s head telling them when to block or dodge. Once you get used to these elements, the flow of combat becomes simple but rhythmic. It is satisfying in its own way, like any other action game.
Enemy variety is lower than other games in the franchise, but this is mostly so you can identify unique tactics that the various enemies provide. Each faction has a handful of enemy types, and the eventual mixing and matching between factions makes the encounters into what they are. You may find yourself inundated with many smaller foes, or dealing with a large foe who draws in weaker enemies to distract you. I found myself lowering enemy health in the settings eventually as I found fights to be dragging out in the early game. Making combat more high stakes and fast-paced suited the game’s style, although every player can customize difficulty to their liking if they don’t enjoy one of the presets.
The game’s combat can in many ways be boiled down to simple action game fare as opposed to the franchise’s RPG roots. This isn’t really surprising, however, as each game since Origins has shed RPG mechanics more and more. Inquisition always felt like an odd middle ground, where assigning moves like dodge rolls or shield blocking as abilities felt like a far cry from the well-designed combat of a Souls game. However, DATV finally breaks free of most of the RPG mechanics the series was known for and focuses on its fast-paced action.
Characters
A lot of Bioware fans will tell you that it’s the characters that make the company’s games. It can be hard to deny this, and the developers tend to lean into these characters as what centers the game’s heart. The concepts of found family and a team coming together are what make most of these games function. DATV relies on this heavily. Rook has a mission, and your various party members have the knowledge and skills to handle different parts of the conflict before you. One character may specialize in a type of magical artifact, while another is proficient at dealing with a particular foe in your way. Forming a relationship with these characters and watching them form relationships with each other will take up a tremendous amount of game time. Every return to the game’s base, The Lighthouse, will often grant you new dialogue options and personal companion quests.
A newer feature to DATV is the formalization of conversations as their own quest type. Companions will ask you out to a location as part of a quest, but you won’t find yourself fighting or solving puzzles. Instead, you will follow them along as they talk and ask you for your help collecting items or looking around a specific area. What these quests lack in gameplay they seek to make up for in flavor. By putting conversations on the move, the developers are offered new locations and opportunities for improved visual direction. In the past, new conversations with party members would frequently take place in the same locations, limiting them to shot/reverse-shot composition. Now, characters will take you on quite the journey as you help them feed a pet or explore some ruins. While many may find that they drag the pacing of the game down a bit, they are necessary to build the care you need for later story moments to properly hit.
Romance is of course back, and all seven companions are options for Rook. This time around, romances will simply add an additional angle to the story quests you already find yourself offered for each character. You will always see a companion’s narrative play out, but choosing to romance them just adds an extra spin to things. Bioware’s sexual scenes have been made fun of since Origins, and you won’t find yourself scandalized at much of what the game has to offer beyond some light upper-body nudity. Inquisition was quite frankly much spicier, and DATV lacks scenes like what fans have come to appreciate from games like Baldur’s Gate 3. Despite this, if you find yourself liking a character, the romance with them can offer some genuinely cute interactions.
Exploration
The world in Bioware games always matters since deep lore can be found in every corner. DATV focuses on a handful of large areas, both urban and wild, each with its own aesthetics and vibe. Much of your time in each will be directed by quests, although some amount of free exploration is available for those who want to uncover secrets. Movement is sped up from past games, with Rook running and vaulting over obstacles or climbing up ladders. Gone are the days of slowly ambling around and trying to find the exact pathway up a hill.
DATV doesn’t offer much in the way of genuine puzzles or complex movement, however. Most things are solved by running, jumping, climbing, or destroying obstacles in your way. Attempts at puzzles are repetitive and largely simple. Either you drag an item somewhere to unlock a path, point a laser at a node to open something, or destroy barrier crystals in a specific sequence. Nothing about the gatekeeping of movement and progression ever feels meaningful, often coming across as a way to simply prolong the game’s experience. It makes sense that the villains would halt your progress, but the gameplay behind it doesn’t lead much of anywhere.
The environments are beautiful, and there is a healthy variety of things to find as you make your way through these levels. Dragon Age has never been a game of big open exploration like other Western-style RPGs, so anyone expecting that should be more aware of what these games are like. Environments aren’t quite as big and open as Inquisition’s, being much more focused. In many ways you might be reminded of Dragon Age II, revisiting the same areas again and again. However, much more effort is put into unlocking new parts of areas instead of simply taking you through them from a different perspective.
Spoilers
From this point, I must speak on more important plot details and spoil larger aspects of the game. If you seek to play DATV for yourself, please do so before continuing.
Continuity
All choice-driven RPG franchises must make decisions when it comes to how player options are carried over. Bioware has shown a predilection towards letting players transfer their decisions and doing their best to honor them when possible. DATV, however, marks the start of the company taking a different approach. Dragon Age II used the save file from Origins, and Dragon Age: Inquisition used the Dragon Age Keep tool to carry decisions from both prior games forward. DATV abandons all of this and only lets you make three key decisions related to the Inquisitor: Will they save or stop Solas, did they disband the Inquisition, and who did they romance? You make these options during character creation, along with the option to decide the Inquisitor’s appearance and voice, and from that moment forward the past of the three games is locked into place.
During the marketing for DATV, Bioware stated that past choices would simply not be referenced or become relevant to this particular story. Ten years after Inquisition and in a part of the world we never visited, those options simply didn’t matter to this story. While it is easy to see where this intention came from, it does not bear out to be entirely accurate as you play through the game. Harding will discuss some of the characters from Inquisition and in doing so wipes over a lot of the decisions you could’ve made involving them. Some characters could’ve been not recruited at all, or their quests could’ve been ignored. This game largely eschews that, setting up a base canon of who joined and stayed in the Inquisition.
Returning characters are filtered into a generic end state regardless of what you chose for them. Morrigan is the same person no matter what, as are Dorian and Varric. Past decisions like the Well of Sorrows, the birth of Kieran, and how you convinced characters to handle their personal troubles are irrelevant to their ultimate fates. Isabela is around even if you sacrificed her to the Qunari back in Dragon Age II. Hawke and the Hero of Ferelden aren’t mentioned, and you can’t even clarify if they lived or died. No mention is made of the identity of Divine Victoria, despite the vast differences each option had in policy. Harding will even mention Leliana in one of her dialogues, which seems a bit odd since if she was Divine you think that would come up! Despite what Bioware has said, this game effectively decides a number of key issues and makes it clear that others don’t matter. While the past games have certainly done this with a handful of choices, this is a first in terms of seeming to wipe the slate clean.
Based on information received from the Inquisitor throughout the game, much of the Southern part of Thedas is destroyed in the course of this game’s story. While that doesn’t mean every prior choice is wiped clean, it gives the developers a fresh start if they decide to head there in the future. While this was always likely to be the case, the story of this game seems explicitly written to let us move on from the past games and free future developers from ever needing to reference the choices of past games. This stings, but it is something I grew to accept as I played the game. I don’t like it, but it doesn’t ruin this game.
Choice
Bioware games are often about the magic of offering choice in a way that doesn’t force the developers to make multiple entirely different games in one. You will need to visit the same areas, fight the same bosses, and solve the same conflicts. There can be variance within here, perhaps sometimes offering a choice of who you fight or who you save. As the series has gone on, however, the increased cost of creating visually compelling content has made it harder and harder to honor player choice in a big way.
Right off the bat, it is clear that Rook is going to be the kind of character you can’t change in both story and gameplay. They are a leader, they handle the frontlines, and they need to get things done. Your enemies are established from early on as Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, and that stays true for the entire game. There’s no “evil” ending, and no major difference in how the story resolves. Perhaps you’re something of a jerk or tough cookie, but you still mostly become close to your allies if you play out the cutscenes with them. Ignoring them and letting them die in the conclusion is more of a gameplay choice than a story choice. While the ending does a good job of offering Mass Effect 2 style options to send specific characters on specific jobs, most of the endstates revolve around whether you did a character’s quests or not. One character will die no matter what, which almost stands in opposition to the idea of your choices mattering.
A big early game choice centers around saving the city of Minrathous or the city of Treviso. The one you choose not to go to will face serious consequences. The companion associated with the city you don’t save will see minor mechanical changes and a relative personality shift, heading down a darker path. Ultimately, however, you can still work with them to undo as much of the damage as possible and keep them as a key ally. Even if you don’t do all their quests, they never permanently leave the party or refuse to help. While this big choice produces many visual changes and quest differences, the rest of the game is largely the same regardless.
If you expect big sweeping choices leading to entirely different acts or endings, that won’t be on offer here. Even Solas’ fate is largely the same regardless of what you choose, simply altering whether he takes his place willingly or not. Changes are derived mostly from vibes and the energy of scenes, and not the ultimate results.
Writing
This game’s writing feels stark from the prior games. Perhaps the departure of lead writer David Gaider has helped influence that, although most of the current writing staff has experience on the prior games. The narrative is fast-paced and exposition-heavy, driving home key points about the lore and making sure you understand the threat at play at any given time. Characters are focused on the mission, and their personal quests are about removing those distractions so they can fight at their best.
Rook takes on the role of support and must push their allies to do their best. Complex relationships aren’t given time to blossom here, as everyone has to do their part to save the world. Inspiration from movies like The Avengers is well on display here, with a variety of different personalities getting reduced to opportunities for quips and minor disagreements. Ultimately, the purpose is to bring the crew together for the big fights, not handle any serious differences of opinion. Characters will disagree but always make up, and you never have to choose between allying with them like prior Bioware games have asked you to sometimes do. Gone is any requirement to build up certain amounts of approval or influence in order to make sure characters all get along. Harding isn’t going to shoot Taash like Ashley might shoot Wrex, and you aren’t going to see a moment where Davrin challenges you for leadership like Sten might. Characters dying is largely resorted to the end, which again will mostly only happen if you didn’t complete their quests or if you send them on an obviously bad assignment.
None of this is to say that the dialogue is bad. Many characters are compelling and well-acted, and it is easy to get lost in scenes. The big moments hit well and feel well-earned. When a scene is set, it works. The game definitely relies on its visual presentation and on big setpieces more than quiet and introspective moments, however. While characters do have those conversations with Rook, there is little opportunity for complexity. Rook will offer their supportive platitudes or not, and the characters move on. There’s no time for this while the world is ending. While that was arguably true in both Origins and Inquisition, this game takes the constant dangling of stakes to a new level.
Final Thoughts
How do all of these components come together? Unfortunately, not the best. It is sometimes unclear who this game is for. If it is meant for long-term Dragon Age fans, it often feels like a betrayal of our past choices and engagement. If it’s for new fans, it has constant inaccessible lore and spends much of its time answering questions or resolving lore concerns from the prior games. The majority of the untold mysteries of Dragon Age are put on display here, from the origin of the Darkspawn to the true extent of what the Elves did to make the world the way it is. Reveals about the Titans are certainly cool and exciting, but it often feels like the series’ biggest reveals are just dropped on us without much opportunity to handle it. We’ll have a conversation or two with the characters to whom that info matters, and then we move on. Since the developers open the game with impossibly high stakes, those stakes will always take the focus away from the cooler lore dives.
In terms of gameplay, there is so much stacked on top of itself that often feels like it’s unnecessary. Combat is fast and engaging, but it’s not deep enough for individual fights to always feel worth it. A certain amount of the combat becomes so mindless and repetitive that you’re mostly over it by the time the game is drawing to a close. Many playthroughs will simply fall into Rook spamming their main attacks alongside dodges to weave their way through enemy after enemy. While this is fun on its own, it is a far cry from the tactically sound RPG people may have wanted. Outside of combat, the game does not involve complex enough movement or puzzle-solving to justify the amount of time we spend doing those things. If a game isn’t going to be about complex movement or puzzles, then so much of that shouldn’t be in the game. Key story moments grind to a halt as I solve a puzzle with wisps or lasers, or seek to find a series of fires to light in the correct order. It never adds anything to the game beyond a time-sink to block the availability of some loot.
In terms of loot, the endless amount of numbers, enchantments, and options makes it become as much of a chore as any other Dragon Age game. While the transmog system is appreciated to let us keep the look we want, the removal of dyes and a variety of color options from Inquisition is very disappointing. The game tries to guide you into looking like one of the six key factions despite the fact that you are forced to be a member of one at the start. Ultimately, if you want to look distinct from your party members, there’s only a handful of unique options.
Rook is both extremely well-defined and incredibly generic. Picking a faction at the start provides many alternate dialogue choices, but it doesn’t amount to Rook being particularly important. You tend to feel like an outsider within your faction, with the companion of that faction having more ties to all its NPCs. We never get a sense of why Rook is with Varric at the start or of what draws them to this mission. We are told that they care about stopping Solas, and then from there they are the leader to take Varric’s place as he is out of commission (or, y’know, dead (I said spoilers!)). Rook is fun to play, but an opportunity to play their origin would’ve added a lot to the game. We start in media res and aren’t really given a great understanding of them before we have to decide who they are. I for one would ditch the faction connections and make Rook more disconnected since that’s the way they took things in the story. But I didn’t make the game.
Despite all of these critiques, it’s hard to call the game bad. It is well built, not featuring substantial bugs or issues. It runs well, plays well, and often feels good to get lost in. With constant fast pacing, you never feel bogged down in any of the aforementioned issues. Getting to big moments feels good, and the constant drops of lore make the game feel consequential. It is in so many ways not what the fandom wanted, but in many others an attempt to give them closure. The game’s overall design feels like it needed another pass, to cut out excess fluff in the traversal systems and make navigating the world either easier or more complex. Instead, it sits in the middle and is just annoying and time-consuming. Combat either needed to take a page from Final Fantasy VII Remake in the way it lets you control your whole party, or it needed to stop pretending my companions mattered in combat as much as dodging and weaving did.
In the end, DATV will not go down as Bioware’s greatest triumph. I also don’t think it will go down as its greatest failure. The gameplay is not horrible, the story is not forgettable, and the characters are not awful. None of those things, however, are impeccable either. In a realistic world, this is an above-average AAA game while never hitting the heights of more popular releases. Compared to games in the RPG genre, it neither offers the deep RPG richness of a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 nor the cunning combination of action and RPG like Final Fantasy VII Remake. Bioware seems to have already abandoned furthering this game and is instead all-in on the next Mass Effect. I worry that means that once again, the next Dragon Age will not iterate on this release and will instead once again start from the drawing board completely fresh. I hope that Bioware can take the good of this game and drop the bad to produce something that can really make the fans happy. For now, I will take this game for what it is and hope that Bioware listens to the fans about what really matters.
