Dragon Age: The Veilguard is not the zero out of ten failure of a game that half of the internet wants you to believe. There is an interesting story there, with fun and intuitive combat, satisfying exploration, and some enjoyable new characters to the series. But that being said, it is far from flawless.
There are many decisions in Veilguard that, quite frankly, don’t make a lot of sense. These vary from the tone of the game to the amount of customization you have (or, rather, lack thereof) and even smaller things like how long it takes to see certain classes.
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Limited Customization
As a Western RPG, one expects you to have a decent level of gear progression and armor and weapon customization. The game does well in the weapon department, having lots of interesting designs and weapons with different abilities. The game also has a transmog system for all pieces of gear, which is great.
However, the game really falls short on the armor side of things. You only have two slots: helmet and whole-body. This severely limits the control you have over your gear/builds because instead of having four (or more) slots that have perks and buffs, you have two. It also heavily impacts your appearance customization, as you basically have to work with complete pre-set costumes instead of mixing and matching.
7
Dialogue Choices
In Bioware’s RPGs, a staple of conversation and decision-making has become the dialogue wheel, in which players can choose from one to around eight options (usually one to three), and sometimes they display emoticons to show what emotion they are supposed to be representing. For example, a sarcastic, jokey dialogue choice will have a jester’s mask, while a stern, possibly rude choice will have a knight crossing his arms.
The problem is that these dialogue choices are not nearly distinct enough. In previous games, choosing an agreeable option would sound far different from the disagreeable one, with others in between. But in Veilguard, they are all pretty much the same. It is more like an illusion of choice or personality. Whether you choose to be agreeable, sarcastic, or brash, Rook’s personality is pretty much set in stone and won’t affect anything in the game outside of major decisions that the game will present you with.
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Factions Don’t Have Unique Openings
In Dragon Age: Origins, the reason it has that title is that when you create your character, you get to choose between a few different “origins,” which would both decide your character’s background and give you a unique opening section to play through. Similarly, in the Veilguard, you will choose a faction as a background to your Rook and have unique interactions with the factions as a result.
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However, there is no special opening like in Origins, and this is a big missed opportunity. When we heard that there would be this faction system and that it was a part of character creation, most players thought that we might go back to the first game and have various opening segments based on our chosen faction. Unfortunately, though, this has no bearing on the opening of the game and merely gives you some special interactions with characters your Rook has already met, as well as witness discussions about events from the past.
For example, as part of the Veil Jumpers, they are constantly alluding to an event in which Rook made a poor decision and lost an important map. Why do we merely get to hear about this when we could have played it ourselves?
5
It Takes Way Too Long To Get A Warrior
In most RPGs that consist of a party system, players will unlock or find party members as they progress through the main story or sometimes even from side quests (in much more open RPGs). In the Veilguard, the companions you begin the game with are Neve and Harding, a mage and rogue, respectively, so one would expect the next companion obtained to be a warrior in order to give a nice even spread and options to choose from before you get the rest of the party.
But, for some reason, the next companion you get is another mage. And even after that, another rogue! This means that if you choose a Mage or Rogue for your Rook, you are stuck without a frontline fighter for quite a while, especially if you choose to do side quests and explore rather than rushing the main story to get all companions. This is an odd choice for the game and one you wouldn’t expect from veterans of the RPG genre.
4
Ability Combos Look Too Similar
Taking notes from its sister series’ most recent game, Mass Effect: Andromeda, the Veilguard allows you to perform combos of abilities in the form of primers and detonators. These do big damage to your enemies with flashy animations. The only thing is, even when using different characters and different abilities, the animation is exactly the same.
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The animation is pretty to look at, being a sort of glowing geometric shape that ends in an explosion. And technically the actual animations of the individual abilities themselves are distinct. However, the game puts a big focus on combo primers and detonators, even though they didn’t put any effort into having distinct animations for them. After a while, it starts to get boring looking at the same animation every time, even using different builds or party duos.
3
The Lyrium Dagger Lets You Use Companion Abilities
One new aspect to the series for Veilguard is that each companion has their own abilities that unlock new levels of exploration or solving puzzles. For example, Neve can freeze things or unlock magical locks, and Taash can burn pyres and explode special barrels. This is one of the more fun parts of the game’s exploration, and unlocking new companions unlocks new secrets. However, the game will allow you to use every companion’s exploration ability, even if they aren’t with you, through the Lyrium Dagger that is at the focal point of the story.
While this is arguably convenient, it kind of takes away the fun of only being able to solve certain puzzles or explore certain areas with specific party compositions. Plus, it just doesn’t really make any sense. This dagger is magical, sure, but why does it allow me to direct Assan the Griffon the same way Davrin does (and where does he come from if Davrin isn’t with you)? Why does the dagger allow me to use Taash’s fire breath unique to them, or the abilities of Spite, the demon inhabiting Lucanis? It just feels like a lazy way to never lock you out of options while not forcing you to explore areas with everyone.
2
The Tone
The tone of the game is probably the biggest criticism that it faces on a daily basis. The Dragon Age series is known for having humor and light-hearted moments, but it is also a dark fantasy series at its core. The Veilguard has missed the mark on this aspect by quite a lot. This may be fine for another game or another series, but as the next installment in the series, it feels like it betrays the rest of the games before it.
Even though it is the end of the world, with ancient Elven gods released and a new Blight unleashed upon Thedas, the tone of dialogue and interactions with characters doesn’t really reflect that. The game does not feel dark enough for the series it’s in and the story it’s trying to tell, and this even leads into the companions and how they are.
For example, one companion is Lucanis, a member of the Antivan Crows and the “mage-killer.” The Antivan Crows in the lore of the series are cutthroat assassins who do terrible things, and having a companion from that order with such notoriety could lead to some really interesting conflicts and interactions. However, the writers never go that dark; the Crows themselves are painted more as heroes, and Lucanis’s biggest vice is that he is addicted to coffee.
1
Too Many Romance Options
Normally, more choices would be better in an RPG, especially with romance options, which players always love. RPG fans love to get with their favorite animated characters. But even with all these choices, being all six of the available companions in the game, it feels more hollow rather than a crafted experience.
In Bioware’s previous games, there are specific NPCs, ranging from party members to non-party members, that you can romance, and it is a thing you attempt to do throughout the game with an eventual payoff. But when your options are just everyone available to you, along with the main thing you have to do just being to choose the “heart” dialogue choice whenever it appears until they are your partner, it makes it feel more like a tacked-on feature rather than an interesting addition to the game that has you make choices.
No character has a preference of sex for your character, which makes them feel less like people with their own tastes and personalities and more like objects to just choose from. Having a smaller number of available options and characters preferring specific sexes makes the choice to romance them feel more special and the outcome more deserved. Sometimes, too much choice is a bad thing.
- Released
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October 31, 2024
- Engine
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Frostbite
- ESRB
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M For Mature 17+ // Blood, Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence
- OpenCritic Rating
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Strong
- PC Release Date
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October 31, 2024
- PS5 Release Date
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October 31, 2024
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
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October 31, 2024