Dragon Age: The Veilguard - A Light in the Darkness
As this review goes live, it’s been ten years to the day since the release of Dragon Age Inquisition – a massive game by many measures with a dramatic stinger that made it torture for us to wait a decade for the sequel. That sequel, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is now here, and it somehow manages to feel both like the clear successor we’ve all been waiting for, and also a surprising departure for the series from some of its touchstones. It’s a tough one to talk about – partly because it makes some gameplay departures that are easiest to discuss as compared to other (non-Dragon Age) games, and those departures are by no means going to be for everyone. But also because it’s one of the most consciously inclusive games I’ve ever played, and it does it in a way that is impossible to ignore. Honestly, it’s still a little hard for me to comprehend that this game exists.
I can’t imagine trying to play The Veilguard without the context of at least Dragon Age: Inquisition. From the early stages of character creation, the game expects you to have at least some knowledge of the story that’s come before it, and to have opinions on the way that played out. You’re asked to not only customise Rook, your hero throughout the events of Veilguard, but to also customise your Inquisitor, including their background and who (if anyone) they chose to pursue a romance with throughout the events of Inquisition. The Inquisitor plays a role in this part of the story, too – they are intrinsically linked with Solas, aka the ‘Dread Wolf’ whose fault it is that the world of Thedas is in the state it’s in when the game begins. You’ll get a little refresher at the start of the story on how exactly things played out, but if you tried to jump in completely fresh, I can only imagine it would feel like a lot of important context was missing.
Of course, that isn’t new for this series. In previous entries, a function called ‘The Keep’ had allowed players to import the choices from their previous Dragon Age games into the latest one, to give the impression of one continuous journey in a world of their creation. The Keep is absent here, but the philosophy is still present – except, it seems, only for Inquisition. A lot of love and care has been put into ensuring that The Veilguard holds continuity between the two games, but none into providing a link to any personalised version of the games before them. Characters from previous games will make cameos, many of whom have links to the Inquisitor, and will comment on those granular choices – and it’s great. But then there are characters from earlier games (slight spoiler, sorry, but we’re a few weeks past release now) who may have played a big part in the story of your Warden, or of your Hawke, who appear here without mention of those characters at all, and it feels a little disconnected. There’s such reverence for some parts of the story so far, and others feel like they’re being cast aside.
Cameos and throwbacks aside, Veilguard does have plenty of its own story to tell, and it does so in a way that masterfully weaves together main quests, quests for your companions, and quests related to the many cities across Thedas. At its core are Rook and Solas, bound together by a ritual gone awry that left Solas imprisoned and unable to carry out his plan to tear down the veil between Thedas and a whole heap of demons. Rook, originally asked by writer and general scoundrel adventurer Varric to help thwart Solas’ plan, is now the only one who can talk to Solas as the world deals with the consequences of said failed ritual – a pair of ancient gods who want to tear the world apart. Their relationship is complex, but at its heart are questions of trust – what are Solas’ motivations? What are his goals? Can he be trusted? And more importantly – does Rook have a choice?
Rook’s relationship with Solas is of course one of many important relationships you’ll need to navigate in order to save the world. You need your team of experts, assembled from across the cities of Thedas, working together to take on the various threats that present themselves. Some are familiar faces – like the dwarf ‘Scout’ Lace Harding, but most are new faces from familiar factions like the Grey Wardens or the Antivan Crows, and all of them come with their own baggage that needs to be dealt with. Living in a now-broken and doomed world means that their homes, friends, or families are in crisis, and most of them won’t want to focus too hard on helping you play your part in saving the broader world until you help them fix things a little closer to home. Every side quest feels like an important part of the bigger plan, as well as helping you get to know those you’re fighting alongside.
And while you won’t vibe with all of the companions, or their journeys, their stories will make you feel something. These people come from such different backgrounds and are dealing with such different personal, political and environmental struggles that each story feels very unique without the story as a whole feeling disjointed. Journeys about identity, oppression, grief, revenge, and culture are all given equal weight, and each companion’s world feels as rich and diverse as the companions themselves. BioWare are obviously very clear on the type of world they wanted to create, and the things they wanted beloved characters to believe and champion, and I’m astounded by how strongly they’ve stuck by that mission. As much as I wish bravery didn’t have to look like this, in this current hellscape climate this game is brave in how explicitly it discusses these themes, and while BioWare has always been on the front lines of diversity and representation, it’s still mind-blowing to me that a huge AAA title like this would be telling these stories. It’s magical.
The choices you make throughout these quests also have some of the most meaningful impacts on a game world that I’ve ever seen, especially without ever making you feel like you’ve made a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ choice. There are no right choices, just the best ones to make at the time – and what those look like is up to you. You can shape everything from your companions’ opinions on themselves and their world, to the course of a battle, or the more trivial things like the decor of your home base in ‘The Lighthouse’. I don’t often necessarily feel like replaying a game like this in its entirety would offer me enough to warrant putting in the 40 or so hours to do it all again, but here I do – I’m already wondering what it would look like if I chose some different paths.
But while the story is exactly what you’d expect from a game in this series, there has been a switch up in some of the gameplay elements that for me made combat far more enjoyable, but to others may feel like a loss. On the battlefield, Rook can now only take two companions with them at a time – as opposed to the three players had grown used to in previous Dragon Age games – and those two cannot be directly controlled. Much like they are in BioWare’s other darling Mass Effect, companions are much more like soldiers to be ordered. You can tell them who to attack, and which attack to use, but they are mostly autonomous. Each of them have special skills that when used in the right combination can be deadly, which means you do have to think about whose attacks will work best together on the battlefield when choosing your party – but if you’re anything like me, you’ll just choose whoever is best for the plot and make it work.
Rook, meanwhile, has an active combat style that plays much more like the recent God of War games than any Dragon Age games of yore. It’s all about parrying and fitting in special attacks where you can, and making the most of your chosen class. The classic options of Mage, Rogue or Warrior are available to you, each with three sub-classes that can be freely swapped between as you’re playing. Once you’ve committed to being a Rogue, for example, you’re locked in, but whether that means you’re a Veil Ranger, shooting arrows from the sidelines, or a Duelist, fighting up close in a flurry of blades, can change from moment to moment – you an respec your character as you please. Combat feels far more fast-paced than it has in previous titles, and for me it was certainly a welcome shift.
There are so many little things that make this game great. Each location has its own unique feel, and manages to never seem too big or too small. Weapons and armour upgrade in a way that means you can stick with a build you like without worrying it won’t stay strong enough. It’s goofy, and earnest, and consciously inclusive in a way that makes me, a queer person, scared to talk about on the internet (even after all these years). It’s bold, and comfortable in itself, and even in its weaker moments, It does feel different to the past games, but for me, it’s a good kind of different. It gives you those quiet moments to get to know your team, and to feel like they’re getting to know each other, and to really cement that it’s you against the world. Rook is a dork, and I know that’s not going to be to everyone’s tastes – but I love a dorky protagonist. Sometimes you need someone around to make light of things when you’re up against only darkness – and Dragon Age: The Veilguard does a perfect job of straddling that line between light and dark.
Also, there are no spiders in this game. Game of the year.
Player 2 reviewed Dragon Age: The Veilguard on PC using a code kindly provided by EA.
