dDeveloper Bioware was never going to have it easy with Veilguard. It’s been a decade since the last Dragon Age game, a decade for fan theories to leak and expectations to spiral out of control, and that’s not to mention all the conflicts that have occurred at the studio after the disappointing Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem. Veilguard is by no means a bad game, with plenty of charming characters to meet and new places to see. But the writing, the heart of the previous games, is surprisingly lackluster, while the new style of combat becomes repetitive rather quickly.
You play as Rook, an associate of Varric, who served as a companion and narrator in the previous games. Varric and Rook have been searching for the elven god Solas for most of the year. Just when it looks like you can stop him from tearing down the Veil between the physical and nether worlds, unleashing hordes of demons in the process, a magical mishap leads to the release of two others, including worse chicken coop. These new villains are comically evil, but they are a disappointment compared to the compelling character of Solas, who is there after all. Veilguard also tells its side of the story through side quests.
As we travel across the continent of Thedas, we visit places that previous games haven’t explored: the city of Minrathous in the wizard-run Tevinter, or the sunny peninsula of Rivain. Each location is beautiful and full of detail, from glowing butterflies fluttering through the Arlathan Forest to animated skeletons swinging brooms in the Nevarra Necropolis. Veilguard allows you to travel freely, but certain areas of each map are closed until a mission unlocks them; This can be jarring, but it also offers freedom to explore without becoming overwhelmed. Exploration is also fun and there are many treasures to find. Each area is home to a different faction of characters, and they immediately start asking for favors. There is a lot of variety in these tasks, which unlock vital equipment for each companion.
Combat is now completely real-time. You can still command your companions to use their abilities through a Mass Effect-like circular menu, which I sometimes had to do because my companions wouldn’t do useful things like heal Rook or slow down time without my permission. But for the most part they act autonomously. All I have to do is attack and dodge, pressing the same three buttons over and over again, launching the occasional combat skill or finishing off a move while my teammates yell at me to be careful of impending ranged attacks or explosions. It’s useful, but we’ve seen it before in plenty of other games and there isn’t much room for strategy. However, the boss battles are quite challenging. Dodge is vital and you won’t get ahead by blindly attacking your enemies.
Generally, Veilguard is reluctant to let go of your hand even for a second. While many of the default damage numbers, route finders, and flashing treasure indicators can be disabled in the options menu, the writing seems to assume that no player can retain information for more than a few seconds. Characters will endlessly repeat events that just happened and point out things they just saw, often using the exact same words: “Our rogue necromancer might be behind that door.” “Well, I hope our rogue necromancer is behind that door!” As if this were not enough, there is a written summary of each mission so you can be absolutely sure what happened. The important ones are discussed again in team meetings.
Big decisions that affect the story are few and far between, and the game will tell you exactly what they lead to before you choose. Decisions, for the most part, have real consequences, which is nice, but it would have been better if the game didn’t tell you multiple times before committing. These options become rarer as time goes on, almost as if the time to implement them runs out later in development.
Rook is our hero of the moment because, by his own admission, “no one else was there to do it.” It’s nice to play as someone other than a magically chosen superhero for once, but Rook doesn’t have much personality behind his ill-timed quips. No matter which dialogue option you choose, much of it inevitably ends in some kind of joke and sometimes even slightly cringeworthy pop culture references and idioms. (I never want to hear a character say that a gryphon is “feeling his oats,” please. Please.) Veilguard isn’t the Guardians of the Galaxy-style gag-fest that fans feared it might be after its first trailer, but Rook is written less as a person with opinions and more as someone who makes witty observations.
The central story is the least interesting thing about Veilguard, both in its narrative and its gameplay. Many quests require you to endlessly place crystals into receptacles to open doors or defeat boils, fleshy, pulsating growths that prevent you from traveling to a location to fight a monster. This isn’t out of the ordinary for Dragon Age, but coupled with the subpar cameos and by-the-numbers gameplay, it left me disappointed.
The companions save the day. The quality of the writing varies wildly, but it’s fun to get to know your new team. Necromancer Emmrich genuinely cares for the dead and wields his magic like a conductor, and Qunari dragon slayer Taash struggles with issues of identity and gender. Romance options don’t immediately focus on awkward flirting and instead often constitute just the nicest thing you could say to someone who’s struggling, though the game has a habit of ruining the fun by jumping in and saying, Watch out! ! You’re being romantic! Are you sure you want to commit to a romance? The biggest annoyance here is how they behave when you take them on a mission together, making small talk like two colleagues meeting at an office party. “So, Taash, you hunt dragons? “I hunt monsters.” It’s a far cry from the jokes in Dragon Age: Inquisition.
There are a lot of things to like about Veilguard, but at times I had to dig deeper to overcome its flaws, from repetitive gameplay to a story that doesn’t know how to tie it all together. So, it’s a perfectly fun RPG, but a disappointing Dragon Age game.