DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD Review

EVERY BioWare game released from 2007 until today ends up being a field of controversy, drama, and meme-making. I mentioned that in my review of Dragon Age: Inquisition back in 2014, and again in my review of Mass Effect Andromeda in 2017, I would probably have mentioned it for Anthem too if I had even bothered to play and review it.. and I have to mention it again now for my review of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Even before the game was released 2 weeks ago, there were so many memes and controversial articles (either praising or damning) published about it, that it is almost certain that a large portion of the consumer public will have formed a fanatically preconceived opinion for or against it without even having played it or at least tried to find a somewhat more objective analysis of it.

Given the atmosphere that has been created around Veilguard, I have to start the review with a lightning Q&A round regarding the elephant in the room:

The events in Veilguard take place about 10 years after the events of Inquisition (fitting, since it's been 10 freaking years since its release) and 8 years after its Trespasser DLC, at the end of which the former party member Solas, aka Fen'Harel or Dread Wolf, is introduced as a future antagonist.

At the game's start, our old friend Varric has located Solas in the city of Minrathous, capital of the infamous Tevinter Imperium, where the Dread Wolf will attempt to complete his plan to destroy the Veil, the barrier that separates the real world from the Fade, the world of dreams and spirits. In Minrathous, Varric meets Rook, an agent he recruited into his team (the player character) and along with other familiar and new characters will try to stop Solas' ritual. This is accomplished literally within the first 15 minutes of the game, with the plot taking on a different direction after the events of the prologue, without (thankfully) completely losing Solas' presence afterwards.

Two things must be pointed out early on regarding the broader background of the plot and established lore. The first is that Veilguard, to my dismay, ignores 99% of the decisions made in previous Dragon Age games. Unlike Inquisition, which took advantage of the excellent Dragon Age Keep to take into account literally hundreds of different parameters depending on our decisions in Origins and DA2, Veilguard allows for literally THREE elements from Inquisition to be customized during character creation, in addition to the Inquisitor's appearance and origin: Whether or not we disbanded the Inquisition at the end, which character the Inquisitor pursued romance with, and whether we set the goal to kill or save Solas. And all of this has a pretty minor and insignificant impact on the game, like affecting 2-3 lines of dialogue.

Forget Hawke's appearance in DA2 and DAI (he's not even mentioned as a character in Veilguard), Loghain and his fate, whether or not Morrigan gave birth to a child with the Archdemon's essence after Origins, and her/their fate in DAI (a childless Morrigan does appear, briefly, in Veilguard), which character became the new Divine as a result of our actions, whether we helped the Mages or the Templars, who rules Orlais, and literally EVERY OTHER IMPORTANT DECISION we made leading up to DAI. Veilguard starts with a strictly defined World State that takes NOTHING into account from what we saw and did in the previous games.

The second point concerns how abruptly and unceremoniously Veilguard "dumps" Solas as the main antagonist after the game's prologue. The Trespasser DLC set up the conditions for a future game involving Fen'Harel's plans in its conclusion, but in the end this is largely settled within 15 minutes and the plot turns in a different direction. It's as if the developers deliberately sought to introduce a different plot into the game either on the grounds that "it's been 10 years since Inquisition and no one remembers what happened in that game" or the (even worse) grounds that "we're a new team and we want to make a new game and story that doesn't depend on previous entries in the franchise". And, based on what's revealed in Veilguard's "secret ending", I'm leaning towards the 2nd scenario. Indeed, the implications of what is revealed in that ending are so infuriating that I'm even considering writing a separate spoiler article dealing exclusively with it.

But let's get back to the game's core for now. Visually, it quickly becomes apparent that Veilguard is different from the previous Dragon Age games, with the art style more reminiscent of Fortnite than the dark fantasy the series was known for. This is evident less in the environments (which are once again GORGEOUS) and more in the characters, whose design is almost cartoonish. Because of this art style, the distinct races of Thedas are almost neutered, as the elves, dwarves and Qunari in Veilguard are more reminiscent of humans that are cosplaying as a different race rather than distinct, exotic races with distinct external characteristics.

In terms of gameplay, the open-world nature of DAI is removed and the game gets more limited maps that are more reminiscent of Mass Effect in their logic. There are of course secrets to be found, as well as loot and lore items, and the... metroidvania nature of the exploration is worth pointing out, with new paths opening up depending on the companion NPCs we've recruited (each of which has a separate environmental ability that Rook can invoke at any time), and having shortcuts that unlock and facilitate future exploration, almost reminiscent of Dark Souls in logic ("So you're saying that Veilguard is the DARK SOULS of Dragon Age games?"... Yeah that's exactly what I'm saying, you arseclown).

There are also some rudimentary environmental puzzles; rudimentary in every sense of the word. Like, a portal whose activation requires you to carry an energy pyramid to it, and the energy pyramid 9 times out of 10 is literally 10 meters away. Others require us to select the correct symbols among 5-6 choices (the correct sequence is right next to them in a prominent position), destroy some blighted tumors in the right order to clear a path, or point some laser beams towards their correct receptacles. In general the puzzles are rather infantile, and end up slowing down the exploration more than providing any real challenge.

Veilguard's combat is clearly the most action-oriented we've seen so far in the Dragon Age series, with lightning-fast moves, combo attacks, status effects, resource stats and ultimate abilities. It completely does away with the game's character as a "party-based RPG" as the 2 companions that can accompany Rook at any time behave more like Pets than party members, meaning they have no health bars and are controlled solely by the AI, except when we choose to use one of their combat abilities through their respective wheel.These abilities can be either support or offensive, with the latter also following the Primer-Detonator logic, meaning that with the right combinations they can create combos with other companions' abilities to inflict increased damage either directly or over time.

In general, I would say the combat is quite entertaining in terms of the action gameplay loop, as much as it deviates from the series' more "traditional" combat elements. Aside from the combos and abilities of course don't expect any particularly tactical elements; especially on the lower difficulty levels and if you're playing a melee character you'll be spamming the left click until enemies fall more than anything else. Even the boss fights don't offer any particular tactical challenge, as most of the time they are either typical 3-staged fights (kill 1/3 of health, the boss runs away somewhere for a while and/or becomes invulnerable, kill the other 1/3, same deal, etc) or require the gradual destruction of marked objects in the environment before the boss becomes vulnerable.

The itemization of Veilguard is also quite strange. The available items typically have rarity levels ranging from common to legendary, but locating items on the map or in vendors is more about upgrading the existing item and less about finding other stronger items. For example, if you have found a Dagger of Andraste, over the course of the game somewhere in the world you will find it again and then its rarity is increased from common to uncommon. A few quests down the road you will find it again and uncommon becomes rare etc... until it ends up becoming legendary towards the end of the game if you have found it 5 times. Except for unique items, which are acquired directly at that rarity level.

I have a vague suspicion that this item upgrade system is related to the Games-as-a-Service system the game had in the early stages of development, before it was dropped a few years later. Meaning that the original intent was for example that the player could find/buy a lootbox that would upgrade certain weapons by 1 rarity level, then lootboxes and other similar systems were removed but the items in the game retained that kind of progression.

And we inevitably move on to the writing section... and this is where the real fun begins. The game's writing ranges from mediocre/boring to TURBO-MEGA-CRINGE. Especially as far as the dialogue and speeches of Rook and his companions are concerned, it's obvious that the writers intended to introduce a more light-hearted, youthful and "Marvelized" element to the game, with constant humor, one-liners, funny swearing and modern slang/expressions. But, unlike Marvel's writers, their BioWare counterparts CAN'T PULL IT OFF.

Imagine a magic user attempting to cast a spell during dialogue, failing, and then immediately commenting "AWKWAAAARD!".

Imagine the historian/tinker companion NPC working on an ancient item with a wrench, being unable to activate it, and then starting to bang on it with the wrench while shouting "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!" as light, humorous music is playing in the background.

Imagine the companions discussing the relationship between Solas and the goddess Mythal, and one of them popping up and commenting "NAH, THEY WERE TOTALLY DOIN' IT!".

Imagine the typical cliché "well... THIS just happened!" said by those who want to make fun of the corresponding scenes in Marvel movies, but appearing in the game unironically and constantly.

There's also dialogue where you really feel like the game is aimed at idiots or kindergarten kids. For example, the party is walking around the forest and darkspawn appear on a bridge that we have to cross. Then the following brilliant exchange takes place:

-OH NO, DARKSPAWN! AND RIGHT ON THE BRIDGE WE HAVE TO CROSS!
-We HAVE TO ATTACK THEM AND KILL THEM IN ORDER TO GO FORWARD!
-YOU'RE RIGHT, ROOK!

For Fen'Harel's sake! It was a given that as the years have gone by we've been moving further and further away from the level of "old" BioWare writing, but Veilguard's writing is headache-inducing from the cringe and rivals even the infamous Forspoken train wreck in meme value.

The 7 available companions are slightly more varied in regards to the quality of their backgrounds and personalities. There are 1-2 who are good or even excellent (notably Lucanis the Antivan Crow Assassin, and Emmrich the Necromancer), and whose stories and personal questlines are even reminiscent of old BioWare I would say. The majority of the rest fluctuate between okay and uninteresting, with maybe some nice touches. For example, Bellara, the tinker I mentioned above, literally makes you want to strangle her in the first half of the game but as the plot progresses her quest becomes more serious, and this is partly reflected in her character development.

Even so, these characters have to deal with the extremely poorly written Rook, most of whose dialogue options are either merry bullshit to lighten the mood, or some poorly written dramatic line (9 times out of 10 he just dramatically repeats his conversation partner's name - if I had a dollar for every time Rook spouted "Neve...", "Lucanis...", "Davrin..." etc., I'd be a wealth mogul and buy all of you IN AN INSTANT).

And then there's Taash.

Taash, to put it simply, is BY FAR one of the most poorly written characters I've ever seen in an RPG. There's been a lot of buzz about Taash's quest arc which is about non-binary orientation, but the problem isn't the orientation per se as much as the fact that Taash's dialogue and personal questline are HORRIBLY WRITTEN.

There are examples from shows like Star Trek that deal with non-binary and asexual races and characters, or other gender issues in general, and there the specific examples are written so well that the issues at hand end up being presented as normal, organic parts of the show's universe. In contrast, Taash, based on her dialogue, leads me to believe that some 19-year-old "writer" who identifies as non-binary decided to use the game as a platform to feel better about himself and, more importantly, to externalize his personal real-life anger towards his parents, society, the world in general, by constantly preaching to Rook (and, indirectly, to the player) in a completely irrelevant context and with extremely poorly written dialogue.

Combine the above with the Marvelized character of the dialogues in general and we have in our hands a mixture of EXPLOSIVE CRINGE. And really those who focus solely on the non-binary element in itself to berate the game end up working in the game's favour I'd say, because if an objective observer sees the fury with which attention is focused there then they will inevitably believe that the character is being attacked because "the snowflakes are bothered by her gender but she is otherwise extremely well written" and there's not much else wrong with her, which is SIMPLY NOT TRUE.

The lack of quality writing is not limited there, of course, but extends to the role-play of our character, which in terms of available options is practically non-existent. I remember in Origins for example where we could play as Blood Mages, murder people (even children!) through dialogue to gain power, and generally play as a highly evil character if we so desired. In Inquisition we could go head-to-head with our companions and lose their approval with varying results, and through the right choices in dialogue we could even run the Inquisition as a near-authoritarian organization that cares nothing for laws, institutions, and religions and simply seeks to amass power. In Veilguard, Rook's path is, like the world state, strictly predetermined as that of a "safe", goody-two-shoes yesman who doesn't want to provoke or offend anything or anyone, and the choices in the dialogues are almost reminiscent of Fallout 4: "yes, yes (sarcastic), yes (dramatic), yes (strong). With most of the choices being poorly written, obviously.

There are a few branching options in quests where we are asked to choose one of two paths, and this affects the world state to some extent. Actually there is just ONE such option within the Main Quest, with 7 other corresponding ones appearing in the course of the 7 companions' personal quests that mostly affect their fate after the conclusion of the story, while in the finale there is an extensive sequence similar to the suicide mission in Mass Effect 2 where, depending on which companion we send on a particular mission (and depending on whether we have completed their personal quest or not), their survival and whether we get the best possible ending for the game are determined. Even these seem completely simplistic and elementary though, given the history of the series and the company.

Based on the above, it becomes clear that Veilguard is a game that comes into conflict with its very existence. It bears the name of a Dark Fantasy series but wants to be "safe", light-hearted, youthfully humorous, and with cartoonish graphics. It's the 4th installment in the series, but it wants to behave like a new adventure disconnected from its previous installments. It's being created by a company that had made a name (a long, LONG time ago) in the public consciousness for writing memorable companions and plotlines, but clearly now its writers don't have the ability to reach that level of quality.

The result of all this is that we are talking about a sterilized, inoffensive, Disney, "Netflix" and highly neutered dark fantasy game, which ends up being only superficially Dragon Age as we know it. And it's a highly disturbing prospect that the same developers and (most importantly) writers will be involved in the future with the next Mass Effect game that BioWare has in the works.

"So the game doesn't have a single redeeming factor? You didn't like ANYTHING about it?"

I wouldn't say that. Lore-wise (and always excluding the secret ending I mentioned above) there are some interesting revelations regarding the ancient gods and the origins of the dwarves and elves. The 2 companions I also mentioned are quite nice and memorable to a certain extent (which is more than I can say for the companions of Andromeda, for example, whose names I literally can't even remember). The action-y combat is implemented well enough to provide mindless fun, the environments are gorgeous, Hans Zimmer's music is predictably exciting... Oh! It should also be mentioned that Veilguard contains perhaps the most impressive hair physics we've seen in a game.

I also liked the fact that the game is technically quite stable. I tested it on two systems, my old PC (GeForce 1060 6GB GPU, Core i7-4790k CPU, 16 GB RAM, installation on HDD) and my newer one (GeForce 4070, i5-13600k CPU, 32 GB RAM, installation on M.2 card) and it ran on both without any crashes (on the first system I predictably had choppy performance with the settings on Low, but it was playable, and I was surprised just to be able to run it truth be told), while not encountering any funny glitches like in Andromeda's launch.

Whether this is enough to justify the purchase of the game, of course, I suppose it's up to the consumer. Maybe someone fanatical about the Dragon Age universe will want to buy it anyway to delve further into the world, maybe someone new to the RPG genre will want to check it out as a safe and easy introduction to the genre before moving on to something more serious. Personally, having completed the game once after 70 hours of play according to my save file, I feel no real desire to ever return to it. And it's a real shame. As I wrote in my review of Inquisition a decade ago, I had already liked it since its release (going against the prevalent sentiment that trashed it mostly because of its memes) because it really gave off the vibes of a real Dragon Age game, and in a new, full playthrough that I attempted a few weeks before Veilguard I had such a good time that I even felt some hype for Veilguard's upcoming release. That hype has now turned into a lament for the series' demise. And the worst may still be ahead of us.

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