Review: Dragon Age: The Veilguard Continues BioWare’s Downward Spiral
Where are you, BioWare? This is a question I have been asking for about a decade now and, sadly, with the release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it seems I won’t be stopping anytime soon. Dragon Age: The Veilguard features solid, engaging action RPG combat and decent characters, but it does little to make up for an overall linear, by-the-numbers product.
The past Dragon Age games have been BioWare on its richest fantasy lore, and The Veilguard finds itself in a strange position. This is one of the most unwelcoming RPGs in recent memory to newcomers, as it hinges entirely on the events of the previous title, Inquisition, and even as a diehard fan myself, I felt lost at times.
But then, on the other side of the coin, The Veilguard feels so disconnected from the rest of the series. Sure, it continues the ideas of the Fade, Darkspawn, and even has familiar characters like Solas. But it all feels almost like a reboot, with a completely different vibe and tone compared to past titles. This is even more apparent in certain brief cameos where characters act almost completely differently. A huge part of this issue comes from the lack of depth to the writing and story.
Outside of the linearity (more on them in a bit), the story of this BioWare RPG is the most disappointing part. Even when I didn’t love Dragon Age 2 or Inquisition, they made up for it in the writing department. This isn’t the case here. The main plot takes a good bit to get going and I don’t find the end result as worthwhile as it needed to be in the decade since the last game.
Worse still, the moment-to-moment elements lack depth as well. Take, for instance, the myriad throwaway side quests in the experience. There is an early optional quest where you have to go to various areas to appease a ghost and lay them to rest. In another BioWare game, this would include tearjerker moments about this person and their group’s lives. Instead, it felt like checking off a list to complete a quest for rewards. Even the final cutscene with the ghost was way too short and almost incoherent to the point where I still don’t understand why I was doing this.
This is a far cry from what I expect from BioWare. Heck, even this year’s The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak did a better ghost girl side quest in a shorter time, too. This general writing problem is seen in the main story, too. Conversations are far too short and rely on mostly pointless responses. Outside of some key choices here and there, most options your annoyingly optimistic player character, Rook, picks are just there to pad out the story.
An example of the seemingly rushed and underwhelming storyline is your Rook’s background. You pick from several options of a faction you were part of. There is apparently some elaborate and fascinating backstory for your character but you don’t see it. Instead, my Rook’s epic standoff against an undead army just happens to be a quick summary noted in a couple of sentences in a couple of conversations. This was a great chance to let players experience their unique origin again, and it didn’t happen. It honestly has me wondering why it exists in the first place.
The only saving grace for the plot are the party members. In general, I liked these characters overall more than in Inquisition. Characters like the possessed hottie Lucanis was always a blast to speak with. Bellara is a little goofy and always hilarious to chat with. Heck, even a previous side character like Harding was upgraded to a full-time party member in a surprisingly great way.
The most joy I had with The Veilguard came from these chats with the titular group. Getting to know these characters showed the remaining hopeful glimmer BioWare is still in there somewhere. But even Mass Effect Andromeda had ann interesting cast. Fortunately, BioWare also continues its expertise when it comes to action RPG combat. I primarily played as a Mage, but all three classes feel better than ever in this experience.
Strangely enough, I didn’t even notice the lack of being able to play as party members. The combat is fast, fluid, and constantly engaging so this missing feature didn’t matter. Being able to command the two party members to throw down priming skills for me to detonate with my spells never got old. Battles are challenging but don’t take too long thanks to the swift pace. There is a constant flurry of effects that constantly had me in awe.
So, while I didn’t have much fun with the story or missions, the combat and party members always kept me going. Unfortunately, the locations don’t help with this, though. Dragon Age: The Veilguard takes a step back from the open-world environments of its predecessor for more linear missions. This restricted the progression of the game way too much and hindered a lot of my desire to keep going.
There isn’t much reason to explore except for mandatory puzzles and the occasional chest. I got to the point less than 10 hours in where I would rush through missions just to get to the next story beat. Even in the more opening areas, the mission structure of quests halted any enjoyment of exploration. I miss the good old days of gathering some side quests and completing them together as I go through an intriguing new locale.
The same goes for the cities, too. I looked forward to visiting the Tevinter Imperium for so long but the execution fails to deliver in any way. Like the mission areas, these cities are bland and empty of anything interesting to do. There might be a side quest to accept here and there or a merchant or two but that’s it. It seems BioWare didn’t learn from the city mistakes with Inquisition and give NPCs with memorable conversations or anything like that.
Part of the problems with Dragon Age: The Veilguard feels possibly tied to its original multiplayer focus. The mission structure, linearity, and lack of depth story-wise harken back to its origins. To BioWare’s credit, though, it could be much worse.
After all, the party members are a delight to spend time with and woo. The combat is some of the most fun I’ve had in a while with an action RPG. It is just a shame everything else falls short. The exploration is far too uninteresting, the story is haphazardly put together, and the mission structure is too linear. There is a good enough RPG to enjoy in Dragon Age: The Veilguard for diehard fans like myself, but this is certainly no second coming of BioWare. I have disliked each new Dragon Age more than the previous one and, unfortunately, The Veilguard continues that.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is available right now for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
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