Game Review: Dragon Age - The Veilguard

When it comes to discussing and reviewing Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it’s hard not to let my personal feelings come into the equation.  My history with the Dragon Age franchise is deep and filled with so much adoration.  I’ve loved every single entry I’ve picked up and played, flaws and all. I think that’s something I’m trying to hone in on while I construct this review.  Every single game in this series has had some notable issue which has stopped it from being an all time great.  Origins while fantastic in its own right, has aged poorly and I could never come to appreciate it’s more tactical and slow approach to combat.  2 had the benefit of faster combat, but the disadvantage of recycling assets due to its short development cycle. Inquisition felt bigger and bolder, with a layered narrative and rich characters, but its world felt too large and its explorative side felt bloated and tedious. The point I’m trying to get at is the Dragon Age series, while brilliant in a lot of ways, has always suffered from some underlying flaw. It’s sad to say Veilguard is no different in this matter; in fact, I’d go to as far to say it’s the unfortunately the worst example of this issue.

Developed by Bioware and published by Electronic Arts, Dragon Age: The Veilguard serves as the fourth mainline entry in the Dragon Age franchise released on October 2024 across PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.  Development on this entry began in its initial stages all the way back in 2015 after the release of Trespasser, a DLC which served as an epilogue to Dragon Age: Inquisition and set the stage for next entry in the series.  I will try not to go too much into the story of Veilguard’s development, but I feel I would be remiss to not highlight it as part of the larger issues this game had.  To put it bluntly, this game suffered greatly during its development.  Bioware was under so much strain and mismanagement during this period, that staff were pulled left, right and center to support on other projects like Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem.  Once EA saw the potential of monetized live services, development on the game got reset in 2017 to try incorporate it into the title.  Once EA saw the success of Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order and notable failure of Anthem, the decision was once again made in 2018 to reset development and put the game back on track to be a single player experience.  Combine this with the high turnover of staff, loss of several creative directors and low morale at Bioware, it really is a blessing that we’re even here talking about this game at this point.  I’m not trying to justify any of the issues I will be discussing about the game with this, but it’s important to understand the game had an uphill battle from the very start.

The narrative of Veilguard takes places in the Northern continent of Thedas.  After revealing himself as Fen’Harel, aka the Dreadwolf of Elven legend; the elven mage Solas has made it his sole mission to tear down the Veil; a magical barrier which separates the real world from the Fade, a world of demons and spirits.  Sent on a mission to find Solas, Inquisition agents Scout Lace Harding and Varric Tethras recruit your player character, nicknamed “Rook” in hopes of navigating the vast regions of Northern Thedas and locating Solas before he can enact his plan.  Their mission leads them to Minrathous, the capital city of the Tevinter Imperium. It’s here that we find Solas in the midst of the final ritual to cut down the Veil.  By some circumstance, this does not end up happening but in the midst of the turmoil, two legendary Elven gods by the name of Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are accidentally released from their prison in the Fade.  With Solas lost and two elven gods on the loose, things start spiraling from bad to worse very quickly and it's down to Rook to recruit a band of heroes who can face the gods and the evil they intend to unleash on the world.

The quality of the games narrative is part of my biggest gripe with Veilguard.  Coming into this game as someone who really respects Solas and his motivations from playing Inquisition, the decision to shelve him as the big bad in the story leaves me feeling disappointed.  I know there is a lot of love for Solas and his morally ambiguous nature, but I feel the braver choice would have been to take advantage of that and make the journey to stop him feel a lot more of a struggle because of how players can feel about him versus what he is doing.  Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain’s presence in the story isn’t a complete dismissal, I feel they are voiced brilliantly by Joseph Capp and Michelle Gomez and their overall designs are fantastic.  Their evil actions also have great magnitude so it makes the quest to stop them feel impactful.  I just can’t help but feel Solas would have been a much better main antagonist in reflection of it all however.  The balance of quality across the main narrative is also a struggle.  I feel the game loses steam very early on, only to regain it after the first act and then roll with it to a legitimately good climax. It’s just a shame that I can see a lot of people checking out of the game and its story because of the poor first act.

Besides the main narrative, what also poses a major issue for me with Veilguard is its characters.  Don’t get me wrong, the companions you can recruit are distinct and all have their own personal stories you can help them with, and every single one of them is romancable too. What bothers me greatly however is everyone feels very artificial and there’s not much depth to them besides their side stories.  Across the prior three games, you had the amazing ability to not just develop good relationships with your companions, but bad ones.  You could make decisions which would produce their disapproval and you could have bitter rivalries with them in 2 or kick them out of the gang in Inquisition.  Veilguard never affords you this depth.  Every single companion is so overly nice to you and they never have anything bad to say to you regardless of your dialogue or decisions.  That to me is one of the biggest missteps here, because it makes the companions feel less interesting if I know they’re just going to roll over and be nice to me no matter what. On top of the companions, a wider issue I have with the game is its dialogue.  Besides the latter half of the narrative, I really struggle with how it conveys its story.  It’s too surface level and the dialogue options you are offered do not have any sense of difference besides the personality behind how you say them. It feels like I’m playing a Dragon Age game made by the Marvel film writers, they’re too afraid to hurt your feelings but overcompensate with a nauseating reliance on humor.

Moving on from the narrative then, lets discuss the games actual gameplay functionality.  Done away with in this entry is the series tactical option, as well as a party management system.  Bioware made the choice to streamline the combat side of things by only permitting you to use two companions at any single time and you no longer have the ability to play as them, only to direct their abilities or target them to enemies. I don’t really have any gripe with this decision, again I’m one of the few who didn’t care all that much about the tactical elements of prior games.  Just because I didn’t like it though, doesn’t mean I don’t feel for the people who did. Playing as a rogue class character, I did find the combat fairly enjoyable, it doesn’t feel it’s evolved much from prior games however.  It is a very basic, hack and slash function, but there’s enough options with class customization and gear that you can vary it up fairly well, especially in the late game. The enemy variety in the game is a good thing to praise, as the range of factions and enemy types you’ll face off against all range from aggressiveness and tactical capability.

Exploration is also another thing which I feel went in the right direction coming off the heels of Inquisition.  Done away are the large, endless open world biomes, in their place are smaller more structured environments which focus more on depth than scale.  There’s a lot of secrets tucked away across the games and there’s a nice sense of reward for going off the beaten path to explore.  It’s also nice how varied and distinct a lot of the games location are.  There’s a great sense of variety and it helps that I feel Bioware wanted to fully realize these places for the first time as we’ve only really heard about them from prior games. Whether it’s Tevinter, Antiva, Neverra, the Anderfels or Rivain, the game goes out of its way to really set an impression of how distinct these regions are from one another in how you can explore them.

Visually, I know this is another area of the game a lot of people took issue with.  It’s clear that Veilguard looks a bit more cartoony in comparison to Inquisition or Origins. It’s not completely out of left field however, as I feel Dragon Age 2 relied on a more creative art style for its world also.  In any case, I don’t have any issue with the game’s visual lens.  I think a lot of the character models and environments are rendered beautifully and in return they don’t lose any of the familiarity established in prior games.  I think there’s a lot of depth and color used in this game and it helps bring out a lot of beauty in the world quite nicely. Something I’m less appreciative off however is the abandonment of Trevor Morris as the composer from Inquisition and in his place is Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe.  Don’t get me wrong, I love these two, they’ve done great soundtracks, but it’s night and day difference with how little the soundtrack speaks to me like Inquisition did.  Trevor Morris was sidelined, pure and simple and it’s another negative aspect the game sadly produces.

In a lot of ways, this game is a jumbled collection of both negative and positive aspects.  I waited 10 years for this game, I replayed the series over and over in that timeframe, yearning for an epic conclusion to the Dreadwolfs story.  What I got instead, was a misguided attempt to finish that story from a developer too afraid to hurt your feelings or add any sense of depth to its world.  I wanted to like this game, I love this franchise with all my heart, and while I don’t dislike it, it’s hard not to feel my overall feeling of the game comes down more so to being disappointed at what it could have been.  If this is the direction the Dragon Age series is going in in the future, I may have to consider if I really want to continue following it.