Dragon Age: The Veilguard | Review

BioWare’s Best

Jesse 'Doncabesa' Norris October 28, 2024Last Updated: October 28, 2024

8,197 11 minutes read

Many reviews start off with a “Best Game of the Year” mention. This Dragon Age: The Veilguard one begins, instead, with a “One of the best video games ever made” declaration. I’ve been a fan of BioWare and the Dragon Age series for decades, and The Veilguard is the best title they have ever released.

Veilguard is a thrilling ‘conclusion’ to the previous three games in the series, adding to the lore in ways I had never thought of. Solas, the Dread Wolf, is set to pierce the veil and you need to figure out why. Over just under sixty hours I failed, triumphed, lived, loved, and made incredibly tough choices. Every relationship, faction, and choice I made dictated how this story ended, and it was glorious.

Character Creation

Dragon Age: The Veilguard begins with a fantastic character creator, that I am terrible at using. You’ll have four different races to choose from, each having access to certain classes. They are:

Dwarves (Warrior, Rogue)
Human (Warrior, Rogue, Mage)
Qunari (Warrior, Rogue, mage)
Elf (Warrior, Rogue, Mage)

Poor Dwarves, and their lack of using magic in the world of Thedas. I spent this playthrough as an Elf Warrior. Your next key decision is the faction you choose as your character’s background. They are:

Antivan Crows – A group of assassins who help protect the city of Treviso. This gives your character the last name of de Riva.
Grey Wardens – The famous anti-blight army who played large roles in the first three titles. You get the last name of Thorne with them.
Lords of Fortune – A collection of treasure-seekers and explorers who live in Rivain. Laidir is the last name this choice gives
Mourn Watch – A group from Nevarra full of Necromancers who watch over the Grand Necropolis. They’ll call you Ingellvar if you choose them.
Shadow Dragons – They protect the innocent of Minrathous, the capital of the Tevinter Empire, from the shadows. Mercar is your last name with them.
Veil Jumpers – A group focused on exploring the Elven ruins of Arlathan Forest. This last choice gives you the surname of Aldwir.

After setting your appearance, choosing your race, gender, pronouns, class etc. You’ll be tasked with rebuilding one character from the previous game. They’ve asked us to be as light on spoilers as possible, so I’ll say that this game does not pull anything in from past Dragon Age titles. I was disappointed when I first learned this. After completing the title, I fully support the decision. Some characters return that might have been lost in your runs through previous DA titles. Still, the story told here is so damned good that I was OK with it in the end.

The Veilguard

My character was an Antivan Crow Warrior. I tried out every warrior build and ended up focusing on the classic sword and board one. Early on you’ll work with Varic, Lace Harding, and Neve Gallus to try and interrupt a ritual Solas has started to tear down the Veil. That is the magic barrier that keeps demons and the blight out of Thedas. Things go awry and immediately your choices will matter.

Team members are hurt, and you’ll face a new threat. Ancient Elven Gods are back, and you’ll need to recruit a team to stop them, the Veilguard. As you progress through the story you’ll meet and befriend:

Taash: A Qunari Dragon Hunter who works with the Lords of Fortune. Utilizing fire attacks and athletic melee combat I took them with me on every mission. This turned into a romance over time.
Lucaris: The “mage killer” and member of the Antivan Crows. Lucaris had a demon forcibly bound to his body. Spite, the demon, allows him to glide through the battlefield like an angel of death.
Emmrich Volkaren: A Necromancer who works at the Grand Necropolis alongside his Wisp-inside-a-skeleton assistant, Manfred. Emmrich focuses on Necrotic damage and spellcasting.
Bellara Lutare: She is a Veil Jumper and an expert with ancient Elven artifacts. Using a bow for damage, she can help pacify angry machines. Bellarahas an energetic personality.
Neve Gallus: A detective from Dock Towns, in the lower part of Minrathous. She is famous for helping the people of her city as they suffer through slavery under the Magisters. Neve is an ice mage.
Lace Harding: Returning from Dragon Age: Inquisition, and this time in a far bigger role. Scout Harding is here to use her connections and a lot of arrows to help the Veilguard stand against the Old Gods.
Davrin: A Grey Warden, Davrin fights alongside a young griffin named Assan. Long thought extinct, he’s training Assan to help him against the blight. The Grey Warden is a sword and board warrior, focusing on tanking damage and rallying the group in combat.

Abilities

Every team member has a talent tree tied to 5 or so abilities. To gain talent points you’ll need to up their Bond Levels via side quests or playing through the game with them in your three-person team. All have an armor slot as well as one weapon slot, outside of Taash and Lucaris who dual-wield. Finally, they each have a trinket slot, to help align their abilities to your preferred playstyle.

Your player character has a lot more to worry about. Not only is your skill tree massive in comparison to your companions, you have more to equip as well. Player characters get weapons (one or two if you’re a rogue), helm, armor, rings (two), belt, and a trinket slot. Alongside these are three runes that you can equip for passive bonuses as well as use by holding the left trigger and press Y during fights. As you see your character the entire game you can play dress up and utilize a transmog system to always have the look you prefer for weapons and armor slots.

Classes

There are a variety of playstyles for each class, I played all of them during my preview session and focused on Warrior during this review. The classes and their specializations are:

WARRIOR

Reaper: A necrotic damage-focused class that uses Necrosis to both deal damage and leech health.
Slayer: Utilizing two-handed bonkers, axes, and more they can leap into the fray and deal massive damage to groups of enemies.
Champion: A classic sword and board user who can rally their team while taking the brunt of enemy attacks. I chose this one and absolutely loved it.

MAGE

Evoker: An elemental caster who wields lightning, ice, and fire to deal damage and control the battlefield. Lightning damage is a p.i.t.a. if you’re standing in water, it hurts.
Death Caller: This is for Necromancers who use spirit magic to deal necrotic damage and pacify foes.
Spellblade: A close-ranged magic user, focusing on melee attacks infused with magical damage.

ROGUE

Duelist: A dual wielder who focuses on big crits to take enemies down quickly.
Saboteur: The tricks and traps Rogue can help keep enemies under control amidst the chaos of battle.
Veil Hunter: The ranged fighter who uses a bow and lightning based magic to kill from afar.

Combat

When I saw there were only three classes at the preview event I felt flummoxed, until I saw those specializations. After hitting rank 40 and having the build I wanted ready I felt like a monster on the battlefield. I played through the game on normal difficulty, and it was a great mix of power fantasy and challenge. While you do get a talent point every time you level there are puzzles to solve involving wolve statues that can earn you a handful more.

Combat is a third-person melee and/or ranged focused chaotic, beautiful mess of color and explosions. BioWare, for all its recent faults, has become one of my favorite third-person-focused combat designers. Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda’s greatest strengths were their gameplay. Coming in from Anthem directly is the combo system.

C-C-C-C-Combooooo

Primers and detonators of various types are assigned to you and your team’s abilities. My main pairing of Harding and Taash helped set upon-stop combo explosions during combat that had my screen filled with constant, beautiful chaos. You have potions to use for healing, as well as support companions (Harding, Emmrich, Neve, Lucaris) who can throw their potions at you. While they have potions, none of them have health meters that you’ll worry about.

All of these moves have various cooldowns, which can be altered greatly with the gear you acquire. By the end of my playthrough, my potions no longer healed me. Instead, they added to my ultimate meter, and every time I used that I healed to full. Combining that with a rune that turned all rage generation into ultimate gen, with a passive 10% gained bonus, I could use my ultimate to heal every 20 seconds. There are so many possibilities between your gear and enchantment choices (more on the latter in a bit), that no two playthroughs are likely to feel the same.

Those enchantments come from a vendor in your home base that can use items to upgrade each character slot. There are mementos to find in the world that power up this shopkeep and as you reach higher ranks (up to 10) you can gain free enchantments to put on your gear. There are faction vendors as well with a similar leveling-up system. You’ll need to get all of them to max rank if you want access to every memento needed to hit rank 10 on the upgrade vendor.

Enemies and Shields

Enemy types come in a few flavors of variety. You’ll have Darkspawn, Demons, Mercenaries, the Antaam (evil Qunari), and more. While all have a health meter many have either a yellow armor bar or a blue barrier. To break through armor, you’ll need to focus on your heavy Y abilities as that deals extra damage. For barriers, your right trigger ranged abilities have a similar damage bonus. Knowing when to use your light (X), heavy (Y), and ranged (RT) is a constant dance to keep you on your toes.

Holding down the left trigger lets you use your three assigned skills via X, A, and B. This goes along with Y being your currently selected rune. Every other button the controller is used to let you quickly have your two companions use their moves or you can hold the right bumper down and the game pauses. This tactical menu offers a brief respite during a fight as you assign ability usage against specific foes.

The left bumper is your parry button, and you’ll want to hit it whenever the little arc of light over your head flashes yellow. As a sword and board user, I could also hold the button down to block attacks. This failed against any heavy swings, indicated by a red meter either above my head or on the ground. Eventually, I did unlock the ability to perfect parry all attacks, even the “unblockable” ones and it made me feel like a gaming God every time I pulled it off.

Quests and Conversations

BioWare’s biggest strength has always been the team. How they come together, and become a cohesive unit of disparate people who start out as strangers and end up like family. The Veilguard is as good as it gets in taking a handful of different people, from all walks of life in Thedas, and earning that incredible bond that builds between them. Your choices matter in how all of it develops, and the writing is stellar overall.

You’ll begin small, just Harding and Neve on the team, though it quickly grows. We rarely get enough time to properly see through a game this large, for review. Getting nearly two full weeks and spending over 60 hours in The Veilguard has let me see every choice, play every side mission, fulfill every companion request, and build the greatest team I possibly could have. I cannot recommend this enough. Play through every single side quest and partake in every conversation you can find.

Your home base is known as The Lighthouse, an area in the Fade. I returned here after every mission, finding new conversations to be had that helped me gain the trust and respect of the team. As I built my relationship over time with Taash I got to see new sides of them, and experienced one of the most heartbreaking questlines I’ve ever seen as our characters fell in love.

No spoilers!

Spoilers is verboten, so I’ll say that there are a surprisingly large number of places you’ll visit. They’re big, look great, and get reused smartly throughout the various main and side missions you’ll complete. I don’t know if there will be more Dragon Age any time soon, but I hope they take what they’ve built here and reuse it as much as possible in future iterations. As you are now in Northern Thedas, an area only referenced in past titles, they still have new areas they can explore if they want to.

It is clear as well that the issues of Dragon Age: Inquisition here were a focus when it came to level design. There are no mounts, and every area is a large hub full of direct paths, shortcuts, puzzles, and world-building to explore. This is no open-world title, and it’s all the better for it. Even with a more refined focus, the levels feel gigantic thanks to the scope afforded by the Frostbite engine, in what might be its final hurrah before the entire industry pivots to UE5.

How It Looks and Runs on Series X

I played through the entirety of my 60-ish hours on an Xbox Series X in performance mode. The game felt like a rock-steady 60 on my VRR-capable OLED. The image is a soft one, with obvious reconstruction artifacts prevalent in certain areas. I found it most noticeable around water, where strange outlines would be around the outside of any object in front of it. Overall, the game looks fantastic, with some of the biggest set-piece moments BioWare has ever achieved.

The Veilguard is a brighter, more colorful title than past Dragon Age games. It keeps that rotten dread at its core, with the blight being a key aspect of every part of the game. While there isn’t a focus on gore this isn’t a happy game. Dragon Age’s world is one of utter misery at times, and they pulled no punches here story-wise or visually.

For those with a super-powered PC, you can expect things to look amazing. I played on a 4080-powered one at the preview event and the game, while similar overall to the Series X, looked crystal clear and ran like a dream. For those with a PS5 Pro, the game should support slightly higher graphical settings and a higher base resolution. I’ll be curious to see how the use of PSSR works compared to other reconstruction methods.

Writing, Voice Acting, and Music

As stated previously, BioWare’s greatest strength was always their writing and world-building. With the Veilguard they’ve finally blended their ever-improving gameplay into what might be their best work yet. Every character had a fulfilling arc of self-growth and healing of past wounds. Going through all of these arcs led to improvements that helped me earn a satisfying ending I would not have otherwise. I wish I could say things more specifically, especially about Taash’s journey. It really is best served to see for yourself, as you choose how to help your friends grow and get through life’s difficulties.

Every character in the main team is well-acted with only some of the more mustache-twirling villainous side characters feeling a bit cheap. Hearing Varric’s dulcet tones once again was a warm blanket as the game began. Harding being the main returning Inquisition member who is part of your team helped keep things feeling more grounded. They also did a great job at pacing how companion quests became available. None of them could be completed until near the end, but it felt natural as they were all long enough to feel like a proper arc.

Tying it all together was a phenomenal soundtrack by Lorne Balfe and Hans Zimmer, who co-composed. This is the first time Zimmer has worked on a video game soundtrack in 10 years and it is some of his best work. The main theme that resonates throughout the game’s key moments is an absolute banger, and as you’ll be in combat a lot the various songs that play during it never grew old on me. There’s an odd choice for the end credits, a full-on song with singing that sounds modern, but everything else is so great that I can’t take points off for it.

Wrapping Things Up

Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn’t just in my Game of the Year rankings, it’s in my Best Games of All Time. BioWare has finally matched their recent excellent third-person combat with some of, if not their best, story work to date. This game is an absolute triumph for those old and new to the series.