Dragon Age The Veilguard Preview Hands-On Gameplay Impressions
Sep. 19, 2024Dragon Age The Veilguard Preview Hands-On Gameplay Impressions
In thisDragon Age: The VeilguardPreview I will share my impressions from my Dragon Age Veilguard Gamplay during an exclusive event held in September. Dragon Age is one of my favorite franchises of all time but I, like many fans, was initially shocked with the direction for Veilguard and had apprehension about how the game will come out. Having now played the game some and with a lot more information at hand, I feel like I’m now much better informed, so I want to share all this with you.
Before we get into it, two warnings! One, there are spoilers of the previous games and some mild setting spoilers of very early game events – skip toCharacter Creationif you don’t want them. Two, while I had fun attending the event and meeting the developer team, I hate travelling as it means very hectic long travel, waiting times and days spent away from home couped up in a budget hotel. I don’t get any remuneration for this, and it costs me in time and effort. I go to these things because I want to play and be able to give a first hand account of what you can expect.
If you have been following the game for a while, you are probably quite familiar with the setting and have knowledge of the events of the first few minutes of the game that trigger your adventuring. The game begins by explaining these events simply via zoom/pan animations with a Varric voiceover.
The story setting is as follows: The game is a culmination of Inquisition, that opens up withSolastrying to tear down the Veilguard. For better or worse, you stop Solas in his quest which imprisons Solas but releases two older gods who are seemingly hellbent on destroying the world, forcing Solas to act as a reluctant guide so you may rectify the situation.
As all this is developing, you don’t get an easy cut explanation as to who is bad, or good, what their agenda is, etc; or if the actions you’ve taken are righteous or misguided. I am personally all for that, as the moral ambiguity of the series and the complex choices that I had to make were one of the main factors that kept me coming back for more and more playthroughs of previous titles.
During the gameplay, I got to see more of that morality and choice system play out, so I think for now, from my basic interaction with the story and not having been able to delve deeper as this was a limited demo, I’m actually on board with it shaping up to be good and what I want.
The dialogues, however, are a separate thing. While the complex and interesting story of Dragon Age is there, I did feel like the initial situations I ran into were rather “gamey” and that the dialogues were trying very hard to give me background information under the assumption that I am a new player or I have ignored the codex. This happens with returning series and there aren’t easy solutions for it, but I have no way to know if it’s just the start of the game or if the writing stays average throughout.
I often felt my responses had predetermined flavors of “overly good, snarky, overly stoic” without additional nuance or depth that I have now come to expect thanks to games likePillars of Eternity,Pathfinder,Divinity Original SinorBaldur’s Gate 3. You could simply conclude that those games are much further along the path of a CRPG and that the aim of Dragon Age is to give a more casual or accessible approach to RPGs, and if that is the aim it’s going to work for people looking for that. For me, so far, the dialogues were a weaker point of a story that I am quite interested in. They aren’t bad, but they just didn’t feel “good” so far. We’ll see how that plays out when we’re further along the plot.
Now for something we all really, really want: character creation & customization! This is such an important part of an RPG and I spent a silly amount of time going over all the options because I couldn’t help myself. First let get out there that I do not like the character models, they have weird proportions and conform to an art style and direction that in my opinion clashes with the facial features of the characters and creates a weird feeling of something not adding up.
Having said that, I got over it quite quickly, and I’m very happy to report that there is a good amount of customization and tinkering to be done to get yourRookto look the way you want. You can pick fromElf,Qunari,HumanorDwarfand customize everything from your head shape to your nails, so you will be able to recreate your Warden or Inquisitor if you so chose. Special mention to the incredibly intricate tattoo selection of the character creator, I was actually quite impressed by them. I ended up with a giant forehead Qunari, it just happened, and it looks really silly everytime I rewatch my gameplay now but I’m very much looking forward to seeing community creations for everyone’s Rook.
Next up you’ll be picking your class from the three typical options ofWarrior,MageandRogue. As is common with Dragon Age, each class has optional “specializations” that allow the player to narrow on a specific style of play – if you haven’t played before then think of it as a subclass.
Mages are mostly elemental fighters using fire, ice and lightning. They specialize as aDeath Caller, which is a ranged lifesteal build,Evokers, that focus on freezing and crushing enemies, orSpellblades, that use mostly lightning in close-range combat.
The Warrior is the bread-and-butter melee soldier of your party. You can pick to go sword and shield for tank roles, or focus on a heavier two-handed DPS style. The specializations are familiar to returning players:Reaper,SlayerandChampion, that act as a scythe wielding lifestealer, two-handed berserker and tank role respectively.
Rogues can use bows or dual swords, and are of course all about quick lethal attacks. Rogues can specialize asDuelists, gaining buffs from parrying and dodging,Saboteurswho set traps and crowd control to range from afar, orVeil Rangers, that use dangeours magic to pull of amazing sniping feats.
I tried out the classes to get an idea of how they work and will cover that on the gameplay section, but of course we weren’t able to see the proper progression or such yet.
Continuing with character customization, you will also be able to pick a background for your character. These backgrounds are tied to Factions, and will affect your conversation options as well as other game elements such as reputation gain or combat effectiveness against specific types of mobs. There are 6 backgrounds to pick from, and if you’re a returning player you’re probably going to be quite interested in this as it does bring you into the “Dragon Age” feel to get all these options as each of these choices has a more in-depth backstory for your character. Your background faction is ackowledged and your background events are mentioned as you play, so this is actually an important decision in a day and age where companies try to minimize these aspects so people don’t feel trapped into an early game choice.
The factions are:
The last selection you will make for your character before playing is the Difficulty Modes. I of course haven’t had the chance to explore these in detail, but on the surface it does look like a good array of options. There are six difficulty settings to pick from, and they balance incoming damage, enemy aggression, tactical challenge and defend timing.
Combat seems simple on the surface, but actually has a lot of mechanics running in the background that I don’t think are easily seen in preview footage. The UI is quite simplistic, showing you your basic skills and resources, and expands into a quite busy pause menu once you have unlocked more abilities andCompanions.
The basics of combat are very standard. You will deal light attacks as a combo with a “final attack” finisher, block with your shield if you’re a warrior, and be able to perform “agile attacks” by springing and light or heavy attacking. You can dodge and also perform a longer, ‘extended dodge’ by repeating the button press. You can also switch between weapon sets seamlessly in combat, so your sword-and-shield warrior can swap to a two-handed hammer midfight.
Your class will determine a specific resource that you generate when attacking with your weapon and is consumed to use some of your special class abilities. For example, the Warrior generatesRage, can accumulate 150 rage, and would use 50 rage to perform a flying kick on an enemy. This ability is accessed via the pause menu and lets you specify who to do it on, so the hectic nature of battle doesn’t have you flying in the wrong direction.
But the skill itself reveals a bit more nuance when you have a look at its tooltip. It will show its cost and a specific amount of damage, a high amount of Stagger, which will let you do a “takedown” move on an enemy you have staggered, and will “Detonate” “Weakened” enemies. You can also perform this ability over an over as long as you have enough rage to spend. This already gives you a glimpse that there’s more below the surface, which we found by going through the combat codex during the preview.
I saw many status effects as expected, such as bleed, blighted, burning, chilled, necrotic, shocked, staggered, sundered, etc. These are returning form Inquisition or being added, with mechanics such as “takedown” and “knocked down” impacting defense or critical hits, etc.
I also found that creatures have Enhancements, like affixes in Diablo Elites. There’s a decently sized list of effects ranging from a magical orb floating around the enemy that deals electric damage to “Sadistic” enemies that regain health and increase their damage when their allies die.
When you put all this together and consider three player classes, specializations and companion abilities, you start to see a much better picture of how combat could come together and actually be quite engaging. There are two crucial components for it to actually be good, however, and the jury is of course still out on it, but we need to have good Skill Trees and good Itemization so that builds and combat can be a big part of the fun.
I could actually see the skill tree so let’s start there. The skill tree is a hexagon with three exit points that go in opposite directions toward each of the three specializations. At the very center is the “core” of your class, which are your bread-and-butter skills that you begin the game with. From here, you will navigate through an ample selection of active, passive and greater passive skills that unlock special moves, change the way your resources are managed, or add effects to your actions based on enemy or player status.
My warrior was feeling quite dull and underwhelming at the start of the session, with limited range options and weak equipment making me feel carried by the ranged companions. So I explored the warrior tree further and found that actually there are a lot of really cool options for special effects, gap closers and even ranged and elemental attacks. Looking at the tree and the higher level characters (level cap 50) actually made me quite excited as build versatility is one of my top asks for games and I am already thinking through so many options to build up a warrior this or that way and wondering how this or that effect may synergize with other party members etc.
I then swapped to a mage to see how different the game felt when playing and it was actually a big and pleasant surprise. It is common for CRPG mages to be more or less stuck in place during battle, but I found I would stay on the move and enjoy flashy elemental animations that dealt great damage and didn’t take an eternity to cast. I also tried the Rogue but unfortunately the footage corrupted, which is a real shame because it was very fun to play as well. In general I enjoyed all archetypes and it felt they both matched their roles well, but were not limited to a stoic version of those roles. So my warrior could perform ground-shaking, fire-exploding AOE feats, and my mage could deal a crushing blow with the staff. The mage skill tree has some incredible looking spells down the line that also sent me down the theorycrafting path and made me even more excited to play.
Next up I want to touch on itemization,equipmentandcrafting. The game has the expected color-coded gear system of common, uncommon, rare, etc. You get two weapon sets, a helm, chest, two rings, a trinket and a keepsake. You can also apply runes to a unique item that you are using throughout the game. Your companions have one weapon set, chest, a trinket and a keepsake.
Since this was the very start of the game, I didn’t get any high level loot to really determine how itemization will work, but even the early game uncommon items had special locked bonuses that would seem to be available later through some other means. It was mentioned by the developers that some gear scales to your Faction reputation, for example. I also found references to schematics and picked up lots of materials of different qualities and we’ll be able to upgrade the quality of items. I think we’ll be seeing a system similar to Inquisition for crafting equipment with specific bonuses. I feel like this is still too little information to know how much this will impact possible builds, but I am hopeful that when mixed with the many effects and skills there will be a pleasant degree of complexity for us build addicts.
Aside from combat, the game is heavy on exploration and dialogues, with intermittent cutscenes and animations to progress the plot. Exploration seems to have the elements you expect for the game, I saw some puzzles, discovered loot by exploring corners and small rooms, found some hidden collectibles by taking a couple of weird jumps, and collected a fair amount of codex notes that add flavor and vibrance to the world. Frankly I got really into the whole thing and it was easy to forget this was a demo and I had limited time with it, which is a very good thing from a preview perspective as it was successfully drawing me in.
I know I have done a huge infodump so far so I want to bring it all together now to give some final impressions and explain how this has left me feeling. As I said early in the video I have been so torn with this title because I loved the previous games and I’m just so scared of what “modern gaming” is doing to development by making them focus on marketing instead of passion.
During my time with the Bioware team, I got the impression that they are actually quite invested in respecting the story and lore of the series, but also they are looking to open this title up to gamers who are not familiar with or fans of it. The developers said that they appreciate the world and companions are so important and it’s what has kept the series alive, so they tried to give autonomy and realization to that world and characters and that is partly why you can’t directly control your companions. They also returned to mission-based world instead of open because they felt it was a better way to tell a story, focus it and make each location feel purposeful while still keeping exploration and discovery as options for player freedom.
I asked questions about performance, game length, endings and branching paths, romance, nudity etc and most of my questions got stonewalled by PR answers. We were reassured that all companions can be romanced but they are not “player-sexual” and have their own fleshed-out romantic histories and preferences, but stopped short of saying some characters may turn you down if you don’t meet their criteria. The only juicy morsel I got was “it’s M rated for a reason” when asking if we’re getting sex scenes with full nudity like Baldur’s Gate 3. I doubt there are bears included but you never know, chose your dialogue options carefully!
The Q&A session in general would have left me feeling quite unsatisfied if I had not had the chance to play as much as I did, but the reality is that my time with the game was worth so much more than any dev response could have promised me.
I got to see and experience myself getting drawn into the world that I love, with familiar and unfamiliar locations, events and characters. I walked away from the demo wanting to play more, wishing it was out, and thinking about all the things I wanted to try. It actually did a great job of making me way more interested than I was when I first grabbed the controller, and it’s moving my apprehension needle down.
I still have issues with the game, mainly that I don’t like the UI and that the dialogues didn’t seem to be on par with what you can get in other story-focused games that have come out the last decade, and that I didn’t yet get to a point where I felt a bond or much interest with my companions, who are integral to the story. It’s funny that I have pretty much been playing these games for the story and getting through the combat, but I may actually play Veilguard to enjoy the combat and get through the story to see the end.
How everything works together and progresses into a full game remains to be seen, and there were several big and impactful events that I cannot discuss, but so far my opinion on this has become more positive, and I would like to urge anyone who loves CRPGs to hang in there and wait for reviews and not write the game off yet. I will be making more content covering other updates as embargoes lift, and I have a special video coming with the history of the three games so you can catch up or refresh your memory.
So what do you think after seeing all the new gameplay and previews? Are you getting more or less excited? Will you be giving it a chance? Let me know in the comments below.
Fexelea
MMO raider by day and guide writer by night, Fex enjoys multiplatform gaming, good books and animes, and streaming with a cold beer.
