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From romance to character classes, BioWare has made made almost all the game’s options compelling.
Before I played Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I created a list in my head of all the choices I was going to make. It’s a ritual I employ for any decision-based RPG. I research the kinds of choices I can make through previews, demos, and conversations with friends, then make my determinations ahead of time. Through this system, I’ve found that my enjoyment of these kinds of games is formed in the gap between what I originally decide and what I actually wind up doing – the wider the gap, the better the game. And the gap for Dragon Age: The Veilguard was huge.
Spoilers for Dragon Age: The Veilguard below.
My first thwarted choice came with the game’s character creator, specifically class. There are three choices: warrior, rogue, and mage. I’ve never liked Dragon Age’s mages. Up until this game mages, along with elves, were the game’s stand-in for an oppressed minority class, something I have no interest in experiencing. But Veilguard presented a new opportunity. For the first time, Dragon Age has ventured beyond the lands where mages were oppressed and into a place where they’re celebrated or at least not treated with fantasy racism. With the change in location, I could try at being a mage free of the baggage the writers saddled them with in previous games. And I’m glad I did.
I loved being a mage. I had two weapon types at my disposal – a knife / orb and a staff – that I could switch between on the fly. Using my knife / orb to stab and stun up close enemies, then quickly switching to my staff to attack enemies at range lent this kinetic, almost chaotic energy to combat. Unlike typical casters in RPGs, Veilguard’s mages aren’t the type to stand in the back, slinging spells from relative safety while the melee classes get their hands dirty. They’re more like Gandalf, right in the thick of battle, smacking enemies around like everybody else. It ruled.
I also loved the new elemental system that assigned my weapons and abilities an elemental affinity and each enemy an elemental vulnerability or strength. It made each encounter a rock-paper-scissors match that I had to puzzle out. Knowing that I’m about to face a gaggle of evil mages who are weak to ice and their demon summons who are weak to fire, I can equip one weapon and ability of each type and cackle as their health bars all but dissolve. But my absolute favorite were the lightning powers. I loved calling down bolts of lighting that knocked enemies prone with a satisfying rumble from my DualSense controller.
Another new feature is the combo system. One party member applies a status effect like sundered, weakened, or overwhelmed, and the other detonates it resulting in huge, health-melting explosions. The problem, though, is that combat encounters can run long with wave after wave of tanky enemies with multiple health bars. That incentivizes parties that can blow shit up. But if you only craft your parties around ability synergy you’ll miss out on some fun banter – one of the main reasons people play these games – because not all party compositions are compatible. Emmrich the necromancer and Taash the dragon hunter don’t start out with a compatible combo (through companion progression you can change that later on), but they have some of the funniest exchanges and the best relationship evolution that I only got to hear because I ignored that fact. I suggest you do too.
