Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024)

I went into Dragon Age: Veilguard already half-poisoned about its preamble: my very first post about this title was way back when we didn't know much about the game and I was already second guessing most of the choices that were mentioned in passing. Turns out it was worse.

Dragon Age: Veilguard is the last foreseeable entry to the Dragon Age series, aimed at closing the circle of narrative started with Dragon Age: Origins and brought forward by Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition. It suffered a long development cycle and a long stay in hell before coming out, clawing its way through a retooling that saw the title going from live service to a narrative RPG game.

I came into Veilguard with tempered expectations because I had been witness to Dragon Age: Absolution (animated series) not too long before and felt like the writers had forgotten about the lore they had painstakingly built over three games and several novellas. Imagine my face when I found out you had to have read Tevinter Nights (novel) to have the needed context as to why things are the way they are.

The disconnect between Trespasser and the initial few cutscenes of Veilguard only served to stiffen my attitude towards it which did not go overly well when it came to Solas and his big reveal, as well as Scout Harding and her own big reveal (which throws, more or less, the entirety of Descent into the trash can so we can have a Special Dwarf and not just a regular one for our journey).

Veilguard simply lacks the audacity that the other predecessor had in exposing a world full of racism and overt classism, full of extremely dark deeds that were never mentioned but it has the audacity to demand that all the lore established throughout the years bends to the simplified tale that is being purported in perhaps the weakest pieces of literature associated with Dragon Age. Why are the Qunari in Antiva? Read Tevinter Nights to know. Why does everyone in the game knows everyone but you are given next to no context as to why you even want to associate with Neve (as opposed to Dorian Pavus)? Read Tevinter Nights.

Never once, if your character is an elf, are called anything but your name. Never once are the Tevinter slaves mentioned (so much so Minrathous looks like a generic Orlais if not for the dark and brooding atmosphere and some of the poorer status people) and the Venatori are now an even bigger threat for no particular reason given despite multiple snippets and Dorian himself revealing that the Venatori - ten years prior - were already in disarray and scattering after the death of Corypheus. Everything is sanitized in order to be fit into neat and tidy boxes while adhering uniquely to Tevinter Night's own canon.

The previous games, despite being a core part of why and how we got to Veilguard in the first place, are written away much like Dragon Age: Absolution did and impart little to nothing on those who are voracious fans of the series down to the novellas written post-games.

The gameplay is fine, if that's what you want to hear: it's snappy and particularly responsive, fun in some parts but overshadowed by the fact there isn't really a way to make me care about anything or anyone.

This could have been a decent Tevinter Nights spin-off, much like Tevinter Nights was a fanfiction of its own (no, it's actually not, it's a collection of stories without particular thought or care about the general world at large). Not a main series title.

I felt very excited when I saw the trailer for Veilguard's release. I played all the main games since 2018, so it was thrilling to have a new Dragon Age to play. But that's exactly where my disappointment goes.

The designs were mostly cool and soundtrack was good. Didn't really like most of Rook's armor and weapon designs.

Combat looks good, but gets stale pretty quickly regarding its dynamic. Losing the ability to control the companions was, in my opinion, quite the mistake. Also, making the party a three-person team seems a cheap way of trying to raise the game's difficulty somewhat.

Keeping the maximum level at 50 seems rather pointless to me, since you can get there quite a few missions before the story's end and you keep getting experience. Leaving to the player the ability to chart skills any way you want and refunding points was a good thing, I thought, although I took no advantage of that while playing (didn't even try to specialize Rook).

Now, I think the writing is mediocre in two levels. The story is not as enticing as the earlier games and dialogues are way inferior. The dialogue issue ties in with the reduction in the party. There's almost no meaningful conversations between characters during quests, which is dumbest thing about this game since it's a Dragon Age. I mean, most of the fun comes from the flirting, the bickering, the tidbits of lore that come from the companions. And none of that exists in this game. There's something else about dialogues: there are too many of them when it comes to Rook's interactions for initiating quests. I mean, to go to a companion's quarters just for a two minute scene for a quest that ends up being just a bunch of dialogue while running around? Even if this is present in the other games, which I honestly don't recall (since I've played each one just once), I think it's excessive in Veilguard. To the point which I grew tired of the companions instead of liking them.

Speaking of the cast, I really liked Emmrich, Lucanis and Neve. Harding could have been so much cooler (and I even romanced her). Now, Davrin? Dull. Bellara? Not that cute. Taash? Felt like a teenager trapped in an adult Qunari's body. Between the griffon and Manfred, Fred is way cooler.

The romance mechanics take way too much time to kick in, by the way. At least, that was my expericence. I committed to an exclusive relationship with Harding and I thought it's crazy that there's no sex scene right away and I couldn't get one before the end of the story. And that goes for any other romantic scenes, actually. There are no opportunities to build the relationship.

Not having a New Game+ in a game that you have multiple endings is just dumb, in my opinion. Too much grind and not everyone wants or can afford to put in 90+ hours (I did, regrettably) more than once.

I was really hoping that I could enjoy Veilguard as much as I enjoyed the other games, especially the first and Inquisition.

And, finally: killing Varric? I mean, are these people crazy? That, for me, was just the worst decision that anyone could make for the Dragon Age franchise.

Finally met an important Tevinter character from the lore of the past few games, and it turns out she's trans! My character is trans, too, so we got to have a brief lil heart-to-heart about our experiences of coming out. Feels super reassuring to know I've got a queer elder looking out for me, even if it's just in a videogame.

Still totally engrossed by Veilguard but far enough in that I'm starting to find things to nitpick about.

The ability to alter the combat difficulty on the fly is a nice idea but it feels like it's bugged for me. For one, the parry timing feels woefully inconsistent, with some windows being very short and others being agonizingly long. The muscle memory from FromSoft games and other titles involving parry timings has me reacting far too quickly to the parry windows. Though there are three options for Combat TIming - forgiving, balanced, and reactive - I cannot visually tell or feel a difference whatsoever. The visual signal for parrying starts, and there is about 2 to 3 seconds before the parry has to be executed.

That's too fuckin long, man.

I'm trying to parry the second I see that visual cue. The design of putting in slow or delayed parrying in fast paced combat is frustrating.

I'm curious to see if other players are experiencing this, where changing the combat timing setting appears to result in no noticeable change.

Then there's Taash. Reviews have already spoiled that this character is nonbinary. Let me be very clear that I do not care about their gender. I'm an ally. So what I'm about to say about Taash has nothing to do with their being nonbinary, because I've only just met the character and that hasn't even come up in conversation yet.

I categorically do not like this character. Their dialogue is cringey, anachronistic (and immersion breaking by that fact), and I do not like the voice performance whatsoever. This is a total miss. I groaned when they said, "Watch out for the Antaam, they go hard."

Really? We're throwing in late 2010's colloquialisms in a high fantasy game? Didn't they do the same thing with Peebee in Andromeda? She had a few quips or phrases that felt like they were pulled right out of a conversation between college students at the time. I know people are complaining that apparently, the term "nonbinary" is used and that that feels anachronistic, but that actually does not bother me one bit - it's this insistence on using language and phrasing that is specific to a cultural moment that will undoubtedly feel dated much faster than anything else in the game upon revisits.

I'm up in arms about it because up until now, everything has been damn near perfect, dialogue included, and this really put a dent in that, and just within 45 seconds of meeting this character. I still have the rest of the game with them to go through! I hope it gets better. But seriously, I cannot believe they decided to write, and then direct a voice actor to say, "THEY GO HARD." Another example is when they say "eat shit" as they fight an enemy - more passable but barely - and then there was another line where they said, "That's messed up!" Like, totally dude, those heckin' Antaams are hella brutal, bet. I hate it.

That's how I felt about Alien: Romulus. They just had to stick "Get away from her, you bitch" in there. And it feels like BioWare is doing the same thing here, where it's almost like they're writing Taash to speak to a cultural attitude and moment rather than simply being an interesting character that feels like an organic person that would exist in this world. Why does every single other person in this game speak and sound like they were born in Thedas, but Taash sounds like they were born in California 20 years ago? I just don't get it.

Again, curious to hear what others think.

Presentation is everything. You can tell me this character is nonbinary but that doesn't explain why they sound remarkably out of place in this game. You may as well have Harkin saying, "Wazzuuuup" or Emmrich say, "That dragon is for sure the GOAT." It's just so, so silly to me. Which is a bummer because when I first saw Taash, I was like, "Holy shit this person looks badass." I love their physique, their bold facial features are really sharp and impressive, the long braid and the horns - visually, such a superb design for a character.

My bitching about this one very small, silly thing aside, it doesn't tarnish the game whatsoever to me. I'm still having a blast and finding more and more to be impressed with. It's premature but I think it's my current GOTY contender.

Minrathous is noticeably less interesting to explore than Arlathan Forest or Treviso; the layout's too corridor-heavy to sell the sense of overwhelming urban density that it's going for. But it's also got an absurdly charming running conversation between Neve and Bellara about all the trashy serial novels they're reading, and I found the coolest piece of environmental storytelling in the whole game so far by jumping through a random window. So it's still pretty great overall!

It's a low bar, but Veilguard is shaping up to have maybe the strongest level design in the entire series.

Haven't really been enjoying the Rogue's basic attacks, so I retooled my build to focus on firing off special abilities as often as possible. The combat's way more fun this way!

Don't know that I've ever seen an RPG that gated different abilities behind both MP and cooldowns, but it allows for a fun lil feedback loop where one half of your kit buffs the other, and bouncing between the two halves at high speed causes all the enemies to melt.

This open-ended sidequest area in Arlathan Forest is great! It's like the devs built a playground in the middle of the woods, seeded it with little stories and puzzles and buttons to push, and set players loose to scramble up and down its walls. Love this kind of level design that criss-crosses a bunch of paths on top of each other, instead of going completely linear or fully open.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has its hooks in me pretty strongly. In the past few years, I have an itch to return to my regular rotation of live service games (Diablo IV, The Division 2) even when I'm in the middle of a single-player game. But Veilguard has commanded my attention such that I would be content for those games to be permanently deleted from my account.

There's a weird feeling I'm getting as a result of diving into a game as immersive and deep as Veilguard, where I've been jarred out of a sort of complacency. In other words, playing Veilguard has allowed me to see how meaningless those live service hamster wheels of games are. I don't mean to say they're meaningless as a whole, but when you're well, well past the hundred hour mark and just grinding The Pit for three hours for a measly drop of XP in the ocean that comprises the journey to level 300 or replaying recycled content for a poor quality cosmetic keychain for your Division agent, what's the point?

Anyway, I'm further into the game now. I'm in no rush so progress is at a snail's pace. I'm interested in the lore and the craftsmanship of its writing, so I've been reading all the Codex pages. I'm also interested in the craftsmanship writ large which translates to checking every corner of every environment and admiring the layout, the design, the assets, and everything in between. Sure, I can fast travel, but I elect not to right now. This world is gorgeous and I want to see it, whether that's traversing the Crossroads for the fourth time or simply enjoying the streets of Minrathous. I haven't played a game like this since Hogwarts: Legacy and as much as I loved that one, it didn't hold my attention like Veilguard looks to be.

Because despite being so enraptured by Veilguard, I'm not really chomping at the bit to play it. Isn't that strange? I'm loving a game, but I'm not using every opportunity I have to dive back in. It's almost like I'm just as content thinking about it and processing it all. I didn't have that with Hogwarts: Legacy. But what if that wears off? What if I get tired of it and just decide to wrap it all up abruptly? My friend describes his way of playing RPGs as meandering about for 50 hours and then beelining through the story in the last 10.

I don't see that happening with this game. This is BioWare, after all. I know it may be hyperbolic and inaccurate to attribute the trait of 'BioWare-ness' to this game since a lot of the original crew and leads from 'golden era BioWare' have turned over, but the fact is this: with every BioWare game since ME1 (except Andromeda and Anthem), I have taken my sweet time to get through them and have never rushed. My initial exposure to the Mass Effect games was back in 2013. A friend got them for me as a Steam gift. I think I put about 50 hours into ME1; 65 into ME2; and I distinctly remember hitting 70 hours in ME3 and my friend saying, "What the hell are you doing in there?" Well, I'm living in the game world, man. I'm listening to every conversation I can. I'm checking out every room of every building I get to go in. I'm standing in the middle of a town square looking at the merchant stalls, the architecture, the skyline, and just soaking it all in. I'm revisiting NPCs between every mission to see if their dialogue has changed or they have something new to offer. I know my character is a resident, but I'm playing like a tourist.

I've said it elsewhere but games are made by people and those people spend lots of their time and energy, and most importantly, care into making games. I don't think you get a game as realized and deep as Veilguard is turning out to be with a cynical crew that's there just for the paycheck. It's evident that a lot of passion has gone into it. Maybe part of me is so enraptured with this game because it's getting bullied by cunts, but I don't think so. I loathed Mass Effect: Andromeda and I was highly critical of Anthem. I think this is just a really impressive, charming game.

I hope it does well in sales. I hope BioWare gets more shots to make great games. I hope EA gets off BioWare's ass and stops forcing them to commercialize their art to death. Veilguard was supposed to be a live service and that decision was overturned a while into its development, so let's hope that's a sign that the cooks will continue to be allowed to cook. Because if Veilguard is a sign of what they're looking to put out in the future, I absolutely want more.

The lock-on camera for fights in this is driving me nuts, the vertical angle it snaps to is way too low to the ground and causes your character to obscure whatever's directly in front of them. The game tries to skirt the issue by keeping your character offset from the center of the screen, but that just makes moving around the field feel clumsy! And it constantly drops focus on your target, too.

It's really putting me off a battle system that seems mostly fine, otherwise.

Something is up with GeForce Now. I can play DA:TV on my home rig, which has a 4070 Super, on high setting with full ultra raytracing without dropping frames. I can even boost up to ultra settings if I reduce raytracing to regular or selective.

But GeForce Now Ultimate, which I believe utilizes a 4080, can’t run the game with ray tracing on at all without dropping to 50fps in some areas. If I turn raytracing off, it’s fine. Something is really off about this because technically GeForce Now Ultimate is supposed to be a more powerful virtual rig than my home rig.