‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’ Review – A Name Can’t Carry the Weight Alone
I played and completed Dragon Age: The Veilguard and I have a few questions for BioWare since I don’t know what I played. 15 years ago they gave us the crown jewel, the well-deservedly praised Dragon Age: Origins, which set new production standards for the RPG genre. After Origins, we got everything except a continuation of that undisputed quality – whether in the story, character development, combat mechanics, or other key elements.
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It almost feels as though someone at Electronic Arts viewed Dragon: Age Origins as a failure, as every subsequent installment gave the impression that the franchise is trying to find itself, and change structure, mechanics, and narrative. The only consistency of Dragon Age as a franchise is that in retrospect it’s very inconsistent.
That said, Dragon Age: The Veilguard continues in the same manner, but adds to the problem by being a highly uneven game on its own. It excels in some aspects to heights worthy of the glory days of Origins, while in others it sinks to the depths of utter mediocrity. As a fan, I dare say it is a generic RPG that most players will quickly forget.
Like every RPG, the game starts with a character creator, and while many consider this a winning point for The Veilguard, I’m not convinced. Yes, it has more options than any previous Dragon Age game, but that was expected. In case anyone forgot, Inquisition came out 10 years ago.
I don’t want to say a thing about what they did to Qunari as a race, that is a whole different story, but let me just say that whoever thought making this race look like humans with horns was wrong to the core and should be accounted for. Another thing that got me mad at Bioware is how the continuity with its predecessor was handled. At the start of Veilguard, you can keep some key choices from Inquisition, but what is offered is the bare minimum.
Given the expansive nature of Inquisition, it’s understandable that not every choice or consequence could be carried over, but the lack of meaningful references is more than a missed opportunity. The authentic yet minimal nods to the Inquisition are more of an afterthought, as Bioware is scared to acknowledge the events of the previous game in any meaningful way.
This is done to avoid alienating a new audience who may not have played a decade-old game, but this unpopular approach has certainly left long-time fans, like me, feeling disconnected. The narrative doesn’t build on the rich, established world.
Anyways, once you are done with the character creator, which includes choosing a race, class, and faction, and making all those micro changes to the chest and back, for both the male and the female character, the game pits you, The Rook (yes that is what your character is known as, and if you play well, it might earn the Rookie of the Year award), right into the center of a world-shattering event.
Solas, for those unaware, a character from Inquisition who’s an infamous Dread Wolf, continues his betrayal from the Trespasser DLC – intending to destroy the barrier between the physical and metaphysical realm (known as the Fade). In the opening mission you manage to stop his plan but with dire consequences.
Solas is captured in the Fade, and two malevolent elven gods are unleashed, whose rise to power becomes the game’s central conflict. As Rook, you’re tasked with gathering a team of allies to stop the evil gods from destroying the world and undo the chaos you have caused.
While the story offers a twist and a secret ending, it is not enough. However, as a die-hard Dragon Age fan, this introduction was the best part of the game. From here, the thing starts crashing down. While the looming story connects with Inquisition, and continues it in some way, it solidly drives the game.
But the execution is incredibly inconsistent. The writing shatters every hope I had for this game. At moments, it feels like the writing belongs to a high school project with unconvincing teenage dialogue, and themes that not only miss the mark but seem completely out of place for a Dragon Age game.
Your character is forced to be a hero with the worst dialogue adding up to mildly cheeky remarks or a few ‘humorous’ quips, but the backstory of ‘power of friendship solves every problem’ is what made this game disastrous for me. Despite apocalyptic events, characters toss out ‘jokes’ in the most dire situations. While their backstories had the potential to be a superlative aspect, every companion is a boring do-goodie.
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Moral grayness becomes a distant memory from past franchise iterations. When compared to the relatively serious atmosphere of its predecessors, not to mention other RPG classics like The Witcher, the falls miserably flat. Gone with the moral grayness are the kinds of decisions that could turn your character into an anti-hero.
Every ally in Dragon Age: The Veilguard feels sanitized. Their arcs are designed to align with the game’s obnoxiously optimistic tone, with no room for the kind of companion relationships that made characters like Morrigan, Varric, and even Solas unforgettable. Thinking back to Dragon Age: Origins, all of this makes me a little bit sad and extremely mad at what they have done to a high-fantasy RPG.
To add insult to injury, we have Taash, a Qunari who feels like a self-insert of one of the writers that is not just immersion-breaking, but game-breaking. Whoever played previous Dragon Age games knows that there were instances and storylines that explored and supported the characters’ sexuality.
But here, it is forced and done so terribly, I can’t even try to explain it. I don’t want to question why is it done like this in a Dragon Age game without even a touch of creativity, but my guess is they needed a strong IP. Whether this is an SBI influence or lack of creativity by writers and directors of the game, I am not sure, but I render it game-breaking, nonetheless.
Moving forward, the story offers a disappointingly small number of meaningful choices that can steer it in different directions leading to one of four endings. A single playthrough lasts around 30 hours, but you can easily halve that time by sticking only to main missions or double it if aiming for 100% competition.
The ending could be considered a satisfying conclusion to this chapter in the Dragon Age story and leaves just enough elements to spark the imagination to lay the groundwork for future installments with new protagonists and antagonists.
When it comes to the visuals, Veilguard has a rather distinct visual identity I can best describe as stylized realism. While this is a good thing, there is a purple hue over everything, which is unnecessary, but most of the time, the game presents aesthetically impressive characters and fairytale-like atmospheric areas that can occasionally take your breath away. I’ll give them that.
The art style they went for, though Fortnite-esque, means the game will age better over time, and another good thing, it is less demanding on hardware. On top of that, the optimization is excellent. I experienced smooth gameplay without a single hiccup. The locations throughout Veilguard are stunning. I will give them credit for that. From light to dark, everything is fantastic, and there is enough going on to deprive places of an empty feeling. There is enough content, side missions, and secrets to encourage exploration.
After a bombastic opening, you will spend time in the Lighthouse, a central hub from where you embark on various missions. This is also a remnant of the multiplayer The Veilguard was intended to be. The only bad thing about locations is that you will return to the same locations from different sides, and it took me some time to realize it. However, this is not in vain. As you revisit areas and unlock new abilities they will let you open up new corners filled with hidden treasures and new lore.
In addition to the main storyline, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is full of side missions tied to the main story as you will need to complete almost every companion side story just to get to the ending. There are no generic MMO-style quests, something Inquisition was full of. Unfortunately, every attempt at a puzzle to continue the story is unsuccessful. While they’re a welcome attempt at variety, the puzzles are too simple and repetitive. They fail to become more complex as you progress.
To talk about the combat, the announcement that Dragon Age: The Veilguard will lean towards real-time combat more than any other previous Dragon Age game disappointed me the most, though it didn’t surprise me. Ever since Dragon Age: Origins, the franchises stirred away from the tactical depth, and the last remnants were seen in Inquisition, which tried to combine the action combat from Dragon Age II and Origins.
There is still some strategy involved in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, but it’s limited to a few builds and combos with companions that really aren’t worth mentioning. It’s far from the thoughtful micromanagement seen in Origins. Everything boils down to dodging, a bit of parrying, and then just smashing the same buttons at enemies that lack variety and have questionable designs too goofy for a dark-fantasy RPG. Oh, and did I mention that companions can’t die while in battle? If you lose a companion that will be behind the scenes, like many other notable events in the game that happen when it fades to black.
This complete approach has made The Veilguard an easier game. This just iterates what I said at the beginning. it was made with a new audience in mind rather than giving old fans a satisfying end to the once-eponymous franchise. Your combat style is determined during character creation by choosing one of three classes—warrior, mage, or rogue. While three classes may sound modest, each can later unlock three additional specializations, adding that RPG element to the game, which has been missing in the story and choices you make – or to be honest, don’t make.
The skill tree for each class is full of passive abilities that really don’t affect the combat much, but are there for show. A major plus is that you can reset all allocated points at any time for free, redirecting them into another specialization that changes the combat style. However, as I said, the game is easy even if you play higher difficulty.
All that happens is that the enemies have more health and their hits take more health. But attack patterns are the same and you will need a bit more time to defeat the enemies. I feel like developers at Bioware were too afraid to make the game difficult, fearing players would quit too soon. If there’s anything nice to say about the combat, it’s that it looks good. I was treated to a visual spectacle repeating the same buttons and combos.
Marketing this as an RPG was wrong from the start. Dragon Age: The Veilguard plays like a mix of Fortnite and God of War: Ragnarok with very few RPG elements as choices don’t matter much. I have no problems with linear games, but when they are marketed as such. BioWare games are known for allowing players to make meaningful decisions that shape how side quests and the main story progress.
Here, everything boiled down to the same outcome. While it may seem like you can, you really can’t play Veilguard as a villain. The only real impact your choices have is on your relationships with companions, which may determine who you end up with.
At times, The Veilguard might look fun to play, but it utterly fails in arguably the most crucial segment of any RPG – the story. This game’s narrative is too sterile, sanitized, and sacrificed at several altars – fear of alienating a new audience, the desire to attract fresh players, and the forced inclusion of gender politics – in a way that feels entirely unnatural and misplaced.
So to answer the director’s question: no, this is not BioWare’s return to form. Overall, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a generic RPG that fails to honor the legacy of Dragon Age and will likely be forgotten – or at least I want to forget it.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
PROS
- Visually stuning
- Strong opening sequence
CONS
- Lackluster storytelling
- Very few meaningful choices
- Repetitive combat and boring companions
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