Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review — Rook ‘N’ Roll

After a chaotic development, Dragon Age: The Veilguard has arrived and has become a major topic of conversation across social media. But is Veilguard any good? Well, after spending more than 60 hours in the world of Thedas and obtaining the Platinum Trophy, I am here to answer that burning question.

Players control the protagonist, known as Rook, who is accompanied by previous Dragon Age characters, Varric Tethras and Lace Harding. Together, you have been tasked with stopping Solas (another returning character) from destroying the Veil, a metaphysical boundary that keeps the physical world and the Fade (a world of spirits and demons) divided. However, while your mission was successful, it did not go to plan. During the confrontation, two ancient and powerful elven gods escaped, known as Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, and they have plans to harness the power of The Blight to destroy the world. Rook must unite Thedas to face this threat, stop the elven gods, and ultimately save everyone from the Blight.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard delivers a poor first impression, with the initial 10-15 hours providing an extremely linear action-focused adventure. During this time, you will be introduced to a handful of companions, all of whom seem to join your efforts because the plot demands it, rather than receiving a justified motivation. Fortunately, Veilguard does improve in quality, with players given more freedom to explore after Chapter 6, with the narrative itself lifting in its intensity and quality after Chapter 8. As someone who has played many slow-burn RPGs over the years, I have come accustomed to this structure, but unlike other RPGs, Veilguard doesn’t provide the same interesting gameplay and intriguing narrative threads to keep you wanting more. This is a real shame, because there is a great game hidden in the back half of this adventure, but I could see many players struggling to find motivation to continue after this initial period.

Solas originally created the Veil to imprison the elven gods, but in doing so, he inadvertently caused the downfall of elven society, making his motivation for destroying the Veil quite obvious. However, I still fail to completely comprehend the motivations of the ancient elven gods. Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain are ominous threats, with the danger of their existence emphasised early and often, making each of their appearances ominous and foreboding. But I never found myself understanding or caring about their motivations. Unfortunately, Veilguard also rushes to the credits faster than I’d like. After investing in my companions, bringing all the factions together, and getting the best ending, I would have liked to have seen the ramifications of my actions further explored, rather than a handful of painted murals and a few one-liners from my squad. Overall, Veilguard’s story is a rollercoaster of quality, with an extended poor impression, followed by a fantastic back half, ending on an abrupt conclusion. This isn’t BioWare’s best narrative, but there is enough quality found during the second half to justify reaching the credits.

There are some cringe-worthy dialogue moments and quirky one-liners scattered throughout Veilguard, but good writing heavily outweighs them. For example, I genuinely loved my version of Rook; he was brilliantly voiced, and his sarcastic dialogue options had me laughing out loud. Rook usually has three or more dialogue options to choose from, ranging from heroic to humourous or sarcastic. Aside from a handful of choices that have major ramifications on specific story moments (Veilguard makes these very clear), most of the general dialogue has very little effect on character or faction relationships. My biggest issue with Veilguard’s dialogue relates to the general banter between your teammates as you explore the world. A horrific event had just occurred in the city; people died, and the market had been converted to a makeshift medical clinic, and my companions were joking about a cat. Contextually, this made no sense and made my companions seem completely heartless. Coupled with the fact squad dialogue often gets interrupted, causing them to constantly attempt to finish the same story over and over again. I found myself more annoyed at these moments more than any of the scenes social media is obsessed with focusing on.

Like all BioWare RPGs, companions are a major selling point of the experience. Fortunately, after lacklustre introductions, the majority of companions are likeable and possess their own compelling story. Exploring each companion’s lengthy questline will have players completing missions, personal conversations, and outings with each character. The outings were my favourite instances as they helped humanise each character, making me reminisce about having a shooting contest with Garrus back in Mass Effect 3. They are lovely moments, and they help make you care about your companions, whether it be the bubbly tinkerer Bellara or the overly charming and polite necromancer Emmrich. Completing side quests will also help decrease the linearity of each location, as most usually occur within areas that were inaccessible prior to the mission. This reiterates that Veilguard becomes genuinely better the more you play, as cities and locations become less linear once more side quests are completed. Veilguard’s opening gives you access to the streamlined versions of each location, but more options to explore become available as you invest more time into side content.

The quality of the companion quests themselves is high, but structurally, most side missions usually follow a similar path, as you follow quest markers and dabble in some light (and repetitive) puzzles that usually end with a boss encounter. I never found this to be an issue, due to the fact most of the companion stories and faction quests provide interesting personal plots or intriguing plights of the surrounding world.

The Lighthouse is the player’s base of operations, similar to the Normandy. Each companion has their own room, and this area also offers fast travel, equipment upgrades, and more. Players can also interact with their companions within the Lighthouse, with timed conversations and companion quests initiated within the area.

The Lighthouse does a poor job of notifying the player when companion conversations can occur. For example, when you are on the main map, each area will clearly tell you when a new quest is available. However, hovering over the Lighthouse won’t showcase when a companion quest can be progressed or when a dialogue moment is available, this can only be done by traveling there and checking the local map. This forced me to constantly travel to the Lighthouse to ensure I didn’t miss any of these moments, which was irritating. I genuinely loved these companion scenes, even the standalone interactions, as they helped explore the personalities of each character. This is why I am shocked Veilguard doesn’t emphasise when these are available, making me wonder how many players have missed some of these most memorable companion-based interactions entirely.

Veilguard provides a fantastic character creator with many options to customise your character’s visual appearance. My version of Rook was a warrior aligned to the Shadow Dragons, but you can also choose to be a mage or a rogue who is aligned to any of the factions within Veilguard. Moment-to-moment combat is satisfying, with players able to quickly deliver commands to their squad via control shortcuts or stop time to deliver tactical orders; this is a similar system to issuing commands in the Mass Effect series. Combat itself is responsive, fun, and, at times, challenging. Shielded enemies will require a heavy strike to deliver damage; some enemies will have regenerative shields, while others will continue to spawn until the Blight is destroyed. The combat system doesn’t reinvent the wheel by any means, but it was serviceable and fun enough to keep me entertained across my entire adventure. The worst aspect of combat was the horrible lock-on system. It was inconsistent and constantly unlocking from my intended target—it was bad. I avoided using the lock-on feature because of this, which did make some battles (involving faster enemies) more tedious than they needed to be.

Veilguard allows players to reassign their skill points at any time, meaning you are never locked down to a single specialisation, though your initial class cannot be changed. Each class has three specialisations that begin unlocking at level 20, so having the option to experiment with these at any time was appreciated. I also loved the fact that you could instantly see whether a newly found weapon or piece of armour was stronger than those currently equipped, and within one button press, it could be assigned to your corresponding team member.

Composed by Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe, I unfortunately think Veilguard’s soundtrack might be one of its biggest letdowns. Aside from the handful of moments where a unique-sounding track would appear, the soundtrack is forgettable. It’s not horrible, but it lacks any form of personality and is, instead, extremely generic. As someone who has played most of the best RPGs of 2024, Veilguard’s soundtrack doesn’t come close to rivalling any of them, and I think I would struggle to identify a piece of Veilguard music out of an audio lineup. Veilguard doesn’t disappoint on the voice acting front, with my version of Rook and the extended voice cast delivering outstanding performances, which helped to emphasise the unique personalities of each character.

Veilguard has a unique visual style, especially when it comes to its character models, which reminded me of the Fable series. Almost every character looks incredibly smooth, lacking visual textures, and seeming almost cartoon-like. I quickly got used to this visual style and came to appreciate the striking aesthetics it delivered. Veilguard may also have some of the most gorgeous and realistic hair physics I have ever seen within a video game. The environments across Thedas are varied, with players exploring lush forests, a beachside location, and an ominous underwater prison. Veilguard looks visually at its best when exploring the most colourful locations, with gorgeous lighting and particle effects. Once you become accustomed to the unique visual style, you will come to appreciate how beautiful Veilguard truly is.

Playing in performance mode, I never experienced any lag during hectic battles, and performance or fidelity options can be switched whenever you like. But Veilguard is not without technical problems, with characters constantly repeating themselves when they fail to finish a story, AI getting stuck when you accidentally block their path, and at one point, I found myself in a drowning loop, where I constantly respawned into the water. Fortunately, there is a constant autosave feature, which allowed me to fix the issue without losing more than 30 seconds of progress. Veilguard can be a little rough around the edges, but there is nothing too damning to completely break your experience.