BioWare and Electronic Arts recently invited a select number of media and influencers, Wccftech included, to their western California campus to get some of the first hands-on with their long-awaited sequel to the Dragon Age franchise. It’s been a long time coming and a series of iterations to get to where we are now and with the release only a handful of weeks away, gamers will finally have the opportunity to take up the mantle of The Veilguard.
Built upon the narrative started nearly two decades ago and touched on as recently as Dragon Age: Inquisition’s DLC, Dragon Age: The Veilguard starts with a daemon attack upon Tevinter and the swift introduction to the player’s chosen Rook and only a small selection of the Veil jumpers that will form the basis for the player’s faction of interlopers this time around: the Veil Jumpers. Varric and Bianca also make their presence known early on, but this time around, the plucky thief is more content with taking a more passive role along this adventure.
This opening act was the very same that’s been present from the very first gameplay footage shown to the world of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. From character creation up through that fateful encounter with Solas (which for many players may indeed be the first time that they’ve met face to face if coming in having skipped Dragon Age: Inquisition), I got to see firsthand the carnage that attempting to tear open the Veil might cause despite some good intentions behind the act.
BioWare has invested a great amount of time into the character creation suite of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The Keep has sadly been left behind in an earlier console generation and, with it, a way to carry forward the status of Thedas and choices made prior. BioWare remedied this to a lesser extent by permitting the player to make a few key observations about the state of the world but this is a feature that they intend to keep under wraps until much closer to release. For the player's own iteration of the Rook, players can change everything from the body type and pronouns down to freckles and hair growth. A player could easily spend a solid hour trying to come up with the perfect character, only to change their minds midway through the adventure. To remedy this, there is a magic mirror inside the main base of operations that serves as aesthetician and barber all in one.
Throughout the roughly six hours of playable gameplay to Dragon Age: The Veilguard, we had to jump about within the narrative to experience a variety of the story without taking part in one solid block of time. Following the initial reveal of Solas and his end goals, the story then jumps forward to a bit of time later on in the first act as players have already formed up a minor resistance band known as the Veil Jumpers. This dysfunctional troupe of heroes and anti-heroes are united together to follow a path first laid out by the Dreadwolf and Elven god himself.
In these early formative quests of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, a majority of the cast has already been assembled for those common goals. Progressing the narrative will not always be a straight line. Side quests routinely break up the pacing of the story without feeling rushed to save the world, even if there should be a proper sense of urgency in the battle of gods. Many of these sidequests were locked out from accessing during the preview as EA instead wished for players to continue on a familiar path across all early players. There is a fair bit of exploration available to the player in The Crossroads, another familiar locale for Dragon Age veterans, but the kiddie rails were left on to prevent any one of us from delving into uncharted spoiler territory.
The primary choice offered to me was in regards to bringing the Veil Jumpers to one of two catastrophic events to protect and resolve. For me, the obvious choice was to track down a blood mage and put them down; from taking a moment to peek at the neighbors around me during the preview session, this appeared to be the less popular option. While I was a veritable powerhouse with a two-handed hammer for much of the quest, facing the mage while she was bathing in an infinite pool of blood slowed down to a halt. No longer was I cracking kneecaps and hurling shields for kills in one or two hits.
Instead, this boss fight was an exercise in tedium as the fight itself lasted close to ten minutes of constant attacks, darting behind pillars to avoid bloodborne missiles and smacking the occasional zombie minion to recharge my champion’s ultimate ability only to repeat over and over. Presumably, there was some key conversation or dropped lore entry that might have yielded a weakness I could have exploited early on in the fight, but I was unsuccessful in locating it during my demo session.
Any fears that Dragon Age: The Veilguard may be watered down in its combat were quickly washed away as I settled into the roles of Mage and later Warrior. Each class offered at least two different distinct playstyles depending on the primary and secondary weapons along with a relatively small list of equipable actions that almost all ran either on some sort of timer or required some energy to charge up in the case of Rook's ultimate attacks. The combat itself sits somewhere between Dragon Age II's action combat and a character action game. Dodges and evasive maneuvers are critical in combat with only a few healing options available to the character (players can bring three health potions at a time into battle, although I did find a piece of gear later on that would expand that with an additional potion slot) and only a very few actual healing spells across all of the various classes and specializations.
Assuming direct control of the Rook's party members is a thing of the past in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, with the crew actually playing relatively smart and synergizing automatically with the player's given playstyle with their own abilities. There is still a pause menu where players can issue specific commands and utilize combo attacks under the right conditions, but players will spend most of the time in combat assuming control of Rook to slash, cast, and roll their way through hordes of enemies. It's a change that will take some getting used to but I've rather enjoyed the evolution to role-playing combat that BioWare has devised in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
In the years since Dragon Age: Inquisition graced our Xbox Ones and PlayStation 4s, BioWare has become master craftspeople with their facial capture technology. Far more impressive than the exotic landscapes and gruesome evil monsters are the fine touches they’ve put into every little thing for the Rook and their various party members, from gentle smirks to glorious shouts. This is one title I’ll have to look forward to playing on PC or the newly announced PlayStation 5 Pro at the very least.
It’s rather fitting that players will have had to wait roughly the same amount of time since Dragon Age 4’s initial reveal between the canon events of Dragon Age: Inquisition: Trespasser leading Dragon Age: The Veilguard, but that wait will be over soon. Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be available across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and PC on October 31st, 2024. PC players with an active EA Play Pro subscription will also be able to journey through Thedas the very same day.
