Dragon Age: The Veilguard is finally here on October 31st, and it's BioWare's big return to Thedas—a world that fans have loved for more than a decade. Veilguard itself is now stepping into the spotlight, ready to bring some curated nostalgic feels while also pushing things in some exciting new directions that will change the Dragon Age games for years to come.
Veilguard isn't just any Dragon Age: Inquisition sequel. BioWare pushed through several iterations and really put effort into ensuring that what they created would weave together the deep, complex stories and characters the studio and property itself is known for. In my initial preview, I was impressed with how well the game delivered on the gameplay, which I’ve generally felt was the most lackluster part of most BioWare games. I was also a little skeptical that Veilguard’s narrative would fully captivate me throughout the entirety of the game. Now that I've had the full experience, it's time to dish on if it really delivers.
Back when it was still Dreadwolf, the team had kicked around a lot of ways in how they planned to push the game in new exciting directions, which included floating multiplayer options. However, with name change to Veilguard, so too came changes to the games’ development philosophy and from what I can tell, these changes were for the better.
Veilguard sticks closely to BioWare's popular core formula, full of rich storytelling and character-driven experiences, but modernized with more fluid, dynamic gameplay. The Veilguard feels like it was built for a brand new Dragon Age, and the end result feels like a classic Dragon Age adventure brought forward into the present, for better or for worse.
Finding Solas in Dragon Age
The game kicks off with a familiar face—Solas, the Dreadwolf himself, opening the Veil to flood the world with demons. Inquisition fans will find a lot of familiar faces and given that you still have your old game of Inquisition available, you might even run into your own character.
You as the titular protagonist “Rook” will begin your initial mission to stop him, but in the process, you’ll have no choice but to unleash two elven gods, which sets you off on a journey full of twists, trysts, and risks. From the very start, you're thrust into making choices that shape the direction of your quest, and it's clear that BioWare wants you to feel the weight of every decision you make along the way.
The story is the primary driving force behind why Veilguard is worth playing. BioWare's triumphant return to form is built on the back of exceptional storytelling—something you just don't often find anywhere else. With a cast of seven companions, each with their own side stories, relationships, and motivations, your job isn't just about saving the world. It's also about nurturing those relationships, getting to know each companion, and making sure they're ready to give their best when it matters most. With distinct personalities like a hot-headed demon-possessed assassin and a cordial yet mysterious necromancer, you’ll be in good company for many interesting interactions.
Throughout your journey, you'll be faced with tough decisions that don't always have a clear right answer. In the beginning some of these felt like weird one-off situations, like judging a town’s leader for selling out his people to the gods. The way these stories cascade, there were several situations I never saw come to fruition in a meaningful way like the comeuppance of that greedy mayor, so from that perspective, some choices did culminate into an anticlimactic footnote. However, Dragon Age casts such a wide narrative net it’s difficult for me to determine if there aren’t paths that delve deeper into situations that seem like a mere after thought masquerading as an important choice.
One standout moment early on is when you must decide whether to save Minrathous or Treviso. The choice has cataclysmic, rippling effects, impacting not just the world but also your companions and their abilities. It's these kinds of moments that sharpen the narrative edge just enough, so it cuts deep into the heart of why Dragon Age is so enjoyable—making choices that feel significant.
Of course, it wouldn't be a BioWare title without a little romance into the mix. What Veilguard was supposed to change is the interplay between how characters interact with each other, not just the player character. While it's been said that you won't be locked into particular gender roles for your romance choices, I spent a lot of time attempting to romance several different characters. After a while I hit the point of no return, and I was invariably stuck with Neve. Little did I know that the final battle would throw some compelling twists that made the Neve plotline particularly engrossing with the choices I made along the way.
With a successful romance under my belt, what I didn't see much of was any inter-group romance, even if it was clear that some companions did have a flirty rapport with each other. There may be some conversational paths that might lead two of your companions into a relationship with one another, but it wasn't something I was able to cultivate my frist time around. I've been excited at the prospect on my second playthrough, and companion mingling is just another dynamic that has been fun to explore.
Since the story is such a huge focus, I refuse to spoil anything major, but I will say this: there are so many twists and surprises that by the time I finished my first playthrough, I was already planning my next character. The story itself can easily take up to 50 hours if you're focused, and that's with minimal side questing, so reliving it entirety or attempting to get all achievements will be no simple task. In addition, the way you craft your character from the beginning, like the faction you choose, will shift a lot of how characters will react to you, and your story going forward. All of thee little pieces are part of a grand narrative complete with their own unique challenges.
In terms of quests, during my first run, I barely scratched the surface of some of the areas simply because I was so eager to see how the story would unfold. By not diving into everything, I know my ending will probably differ greatly to many other players. Some characters weren't ready for the final battle and some lives were lost that probably didn't need to be.
How the final battle may change through repeated playthroughs are certainly my reason for returning. Maybe if I had completed every quest the overall preparedness of the Veilguard wouldn’t have been so impacted. Yet, the end battle cinematics had me brimming with anticipation and anxiety, and in the end the story that was told was beautiful and tragic. By all counts Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a narrative masterpiece.
VeilGuard, Then Riposte
Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s combat has shown that BioWare has really come into their own with such a variety of ways to play. Each class has a distinct feel to them, spurred by their inherent weapons. My first playthrough was with a Rogue, as that was the one class that particularly interested me during my preview—and it turned out to be a great choice.
Normally, I stick with magic users, but the idea of using traps and gadgets as my skill set felt like a lot of fun, and it turned out to be intensely satisfying. The unique thing about gadgets is that they don't require resources such as Momentum that other Rogue skills do. Each class has their own abilities that don’t require resources and instead utilize a cooldown timer, and I liked having so many skill options.
As I dove deep into the skill tree, I found a lot of possibilities on how to make a full gadget build work, which included boosting quickness which decreased cool down time significantly. During the preview, I was in love with status builds, and while it was easy to create several affliction builds dealing bleeding and necrotic damage, sometimes the gear I found was more important than the skill tree theory crafting I had in mind.
I didn’t uncover all of the unique weapons and armor, but I did find a few really interesting pieces of gear—one of which changed all my status effects into burning damage. This made it easy to stack burning up to five times. In the Rogue skill tree, I selected abilities that let me apply statuses while my Momentum was over 100, and since I didn’t need Momentum for my skills, I ended up creating a satisfying build that burned through most enemies with ease.
The combat is quite robust. As you flesh out your skill tree, you unlock a lot of new combos and options on how to play your character. But what I liked the most was that if you're skilled in combat, you can still win almost every battle, even if you're grossly under level. I learned this when I started hunting champions with my rogue. Champions are these ultra-difficult monsters and beating them unlocks unique gear that can fundamentally shift how you play.
What I didn't realize at first was that these champions are often quite high-level. I fought my way through several champions while being severely under leveled, even taking on a dragon while I was at half its level—and I succeeded thanks to my understanding of the combat and companion system. However, when creating your character, and at any point if you’re playing through a non-nightmare difficulty, you can change how strong monsters are, how much health they have, and how aggressive they are, which is also great for players who can’t get down the timing needed for some of the more difficult enemies.
There are so many nuances to combat with the addition of blocking, parrying, dodging, and a mix of both melee and ranged combat which includes weapon swapping for Warriors and Mages. You’ll also need to manage your companion skills and choose whether you want them as support or if you’d prefer to have them apply and detonate powerful combinations during your battles. If you’re a fan of action combat, you’ll find a lot to love here, but if you’re just here for the story, BioWare has thought of that, and they’re totally here for it.
Dragon Age—Of Discovery!
Thedas is a huge world and there's a lot to accomplish that isn't specifically story or combat related. One of my favorite things is treasure hunting, and you're a completionist like me you’ll likely enjoy the puzzles and exploration that goes along with it too. There are tons of treasure chests to find throughout the world and finding them can sometimes be a bit of a challenge. I really enjoyed my time agonizing through some of the puzzles, but there were some obstacles that made exploration unnecessarily difficult.
One thing I didn't enjoy too much was that a lot of the world is locked behind character and story progression. That means if you love exploration and you want to check out a new area you just found, you'll find yourself restricted until you either unlock new companion abilities or reach a specific story point. I get that BioWare wants you to return to these areas, but there were some cases where I was blocked from an area, and I wasn’t sure what needed to be done to bypass the white barriers.
The barriers could be a simple side-quest or something that had to do with a specific character. The completionist in me needed to get through those doors to get those chests even if it didn't always pay off progression-wise. The items obtained in many chests were at worst nominal upgrades and at best unique items that often didn't fit my build.
With a game as expansive as Veilguard, you'll want to find all the little quests, library books, and mementos, many of which will help grow your reputation with vendors and the Caretaker who you’ll find in the lighthouse and will help you upgrade and enchant your weapons and abilities. As you build your reputation, just like with your companions, you can unlock new things that help you grow stronger or at least obtain items you didn't have access to before.
Buying gifts and mementos from vendors will be crucial in boosting your affinity and unlocking special items as you progress. It's something you'll want to start doing early so you don't have to worry about it at the end, and you should prioritize picking those up when you can, so you don’t forget them.
Piercing the Veil
No game is without its issues, and The Veilguard is no exception. Visually and functionally, Veilguard looks great and feels very fluid in most cases. I did encounter several issues related to pathing while I was exploring. One of my gripes was seeing an area I could normally traverse to, but if I decided to drop down from a higher place, sometimes the game would stop me and port me back to the top. I understand that the team probably wants you to do things the way they’ve envisioned them, but in multiple cases It was frustrating as I was quite capable of reaching those areas in alternate ways, and going the long way around was a chore.
I also encountered several minor bugs throughout my playtime. There was one crash that will reportedly be fixed on launch, and I experienced the screen freezing in certain encounters that would eventually fix themselves, but it was definitely a distressing moment when it happened in the middle of combat.
Another major sticking point for me was the clunkiness of jumping. There are parts of Veilguard where platforming is necessary, and the jumping mechanics never felt particularly good. At the worst of times, it caused me to misjudge my jumps, falling into deep water or diving nonchalantly off a cliff, and at the best of times, it made me feel like I was a giant sack of potatoes being tossed across a pond.
In most cases these issues were inconvenient, but they were ultimately just footnotes in an otherwise great experience. The game’s world, storytelling, and depth are still its strongest elements, and they overshadow these technical flaws.
On Journey’s End
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is an ambitious return to form for BioWare, delivering a rich, character-driven story that spans a vast, familiar world, modernized for a new age of potential fans. The storytelling is the driving force behind the experience, filled with impactful choices that will make multiple playthroughs unique.
With deep, rewarding gameplay and skill trees that provide contrasting combat styles it should appeal to gamers looking for simplicity, but also to those that might want to delve into something a little more for their character build.
The game may stumble occasionally in its technical aspects, but its core—compelling storytelling, rich character relationships, and engaging combat—makes it an easy recommendation for not just BioWare fans, but any RPG fan. Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
Full Disclosure: A copy was provided by PR for the purposes of this review. Reviewed on PC.
