"Dragon Age: The Veilguard" Review - The Endings Stick

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: Bioware

Platforms: Playstation 5 (Reviewed for), Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows

There comes an important point in Dragon Age: The Veilguard if you have a certain two cast members in your party. These characters are talking about a weekly serial in a newspaper, and one of the characters expresses delighted shock that the story has a happy ending. To this, the other character responds, "and if you don't read the sequels, those endings stick." I remember sitting there, not moving the protagonist for a little while after hearing that. It was there that I started to feel an overwhelming sadness: this character was right, but she couldn't have known how right she was.

I've made it no secret that Dragon Age: Origins is my favorite game of all time. I have a time-honored tradition where I play each new Dragon Age until I see the sun through the window on release day because I did that entirely by accident the first time I got my hands on Origins. I've read all of the books. I overall liked Dragon Age 2 despite the fact that it was objectively a bad game. Dragon Age: Inquisition was my GOTY for 2014 despite its myriad of problems, and I have about 300 hours played on that one. It's safe to say I'm a rabid fanboy who is easily pleased by just about anything with this hyperfixation to end all hyperfixations. But I, like just about everybody, started having concerns a couple years after Inquisition when Bioware saw a mass exodus including all the people who created (and continued to flesh out) the world. 

The first thing to come out after Inquisition was Mass Effect: Andromeda, which was lambasted for its terrible writing, marvel villain, terrible story, and lackluster technical polish. The gameplay was good, but nobody comes to Bioware for gameplay. Then, after that, there was Anthem, which was the biggest live service failure in existence at the time. It also suffered from terrible writing and having a marvel villain. To everybody watching, it was clear that EA CEO Andrew Wilson had completely lost his mind and was meddling too much in Bioware's affairs...only then it turned out that the blame was almost entirely on Bioware itself. In an expose published by Jason Schreier, he painted a picture of a newly-lazy Bioware beset by arrogance and incapable of making executive decisions. And then, as if that weren't enough, word came out that the next Dragon Age game was going to be a live service just like Anthem...a decision that Andrew Wilson peddled back from after a couple of notorious other live service failures. But this newfound freedom for the team didn't ease anyone's burdens. This meant that Bioware could make the game they wanted, sure, but it also meant that a lot of stuff would have to get restarted, and this was amidst a couple more project leads quitting. Late 2024 rolled around, and even more concerns came pounding at the door. Firstly, they changed the name of the game from Dragon Age: Dreadwolf to Dragon Age: The Veilguard. It's bad enough that the latter name is terrible, but it cannot possibly be a good sign when a team pivots that hard a handful of months before the hitherto unannounced launch date. Finally, the Xbox Showcase came around...and with it came that trailer. The first trailer with any kind of substance we got for this game that had been in development hell for ten years was filled with quips, a terrible 80's rock backing track, and an overall gen Z feeling that actually made me depressed. We all had our suspicions that things were going to be bad, but this was worse than I could have possibly imagined. From all angles, this trailer made it look like the live service elements remained, resulting in a game that seemed like it was going to be full of floss dancing and the kind of script we've been subjected to time and time again since Joss Whedon single-handedly destroyed the art of writing all those years ago. 

Now, I've played through Veilguard, and in a way, it's an improvement over Bioware's track record over the past 10 years...it has merely wildly inconsistent writing and two marvel villains! I'm being a bit facetious here, so to put it more genuinely: there are many ways in which the fears for this game were unfounded, and just as many ways in which things are so much worse. The result is likely a final chapter that ultimately feels more like some kind of fever dream than a finale to my favorite series. A send-off on the level of The Rise of Skywalker in both its foundation of contrivance and the clear lack of care in regards to the story and the world...but one that also has some flashes of brilliance that are likely given directly by the previous writer. This is possibly the longest introduction I've ever written, but I feel like the context is more important here than in any other review I've written. So...let's get this over with. Oh, and there WILL be spoilers in this review...not a whole lot of them, but plenty, because why should I care when Bioware clearly doesn't?

One last thing...I did everything possible in my playthrough. All quests, all companion stories, all optional bosses, everything. So when you read my opinions ahead, know that it's truly coming from a full-picture view.

In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, you play as Rook: a fully-customized character from one of about 7 backgrounds who is recruited by series regular Varric Tethras to fight a threat the likes of which the world has never known. 

In the previous game, Inquisition, the Inquisitor had a steadfast ally named Solas: an elven hermit with an obsession with the veil that divides our world from the realm of spirits and demons (and where we all go when we dream). At the end of that story (and a supplemental DLC), it was revealed that Solas was actually something far more powerful than some wandering mage. He was, in fact, the Dread Wolf, Fen'Harel: the trickster god of the elves who set a cunning trap for the other gods by locking them away and creating that veil in the first place in the dawn of time. As the story wraps up in an emotional swell, Solas reveals that none of the elven pantheon were actually gods...they were all tyrannical warlords and powerful mages granted godhood by nothing more than the passage of time and the game of telephone that is history. He then declares his true purpose: to destroy the veil that he created in order to return the world to its original state and restore the elves to their former glory...ultimately destroying the world we know in the process. With genuine care in his voice, he begs the Inquisitor and their followers not to try and stop him, and to instead spend their time with their loved ones to die in comfort.

That is the threat that you, as Rook, face: a creature not quite a god, but still powerful enough to tear the world asunder. A game of cat and mouse ensues, with Rook constantly chasing after Solas and Solas always being one step ahead. Solas acts in the shadows, stirring up trouble wherever he goes and upending entire systems of government with his charisma and revolutionary ideas. And above all else, he gains a multitude of elven followers by promising a world where their constant mistreatment and subjugation ends and they rise to power once again, causing the most historically oppressed people to be viewed even more skeptically for how likely their allegiance to the enemy of all other races is...

Or, at least, that was supposed to be the story. Had you going there, didn't I? No, instead, Rook stops Solas in the prologue and accidentally releases two other elven gods who just happened to be standing there right in the spot where Solas was performing his ritual. 

These elven gods, Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, are, you guessed it, godDAMN marvel villains who rub their hands together about how eeeeeevil their eeeeeeeevil plans are when they aren't calling you an "insignificant insect." The two of them seize power at every corner of the world instantaneously, pulling all the strings of every negative thing that has ever happened like a somehow-returned Emperor Palpatine. They control the Darkspawn, the Venatori cultists, the Antaam branch of the Qunari, every party member's personal enemies, your MAGA uncle who has 25 DUIs, little Ricky Simmons who gave you a wedgie in 3rd grade, parking cops, mosquitoes, the scratches your cat gave you, the 2-year lifespan of mice and rats, Professor Hyde White trying to scare people away, gas prices, the scratches you get on discs that makes them unplayable, that slight pain in your neck, the fact that women don't want to talk to me, literally everything because Bioware no longer employs writers with any talent or eye for proper storytelling. They trade in a tortured idealist regretfully destroying the world out of a since of necessity and guilt in favor of two of the worst-written villains since Mass Effect: Andromeda. As you can guess, there's a whole lot of contrivance that goes into explaining how the gods managed to get all these groups on their side. 

Take the Venatori Cultists, for example. They're a Tevinter Imperium supremacist group that wants to restore the Imperium to its former glory. Do you know what the Imperium was like in those days? They conquered the elves and took them all as slaves right after Solas created the veil. So now restoring the Imperium to its former glory involves....living under the rule of the gods of the people they relished in conquering? How does that make any sense? The explanation given for this? The Venatori want power. That's it. And that's the explanation they give for every alliance the gods have made except for the Darkspawn, for which the explanation is "because our writers said so." For another example, take the Antaam branch of the Qunari. First things first, they've evidently broken away from the Qun (I should also point out that the Antaam is led by the Arishok: not the kind of character to break away from tradition), which is completely ridiculous. This branch of the Qunari now, as I said, rejects the Qun for its superstitions and restrictions...but somehow they're ok with working for gods? Power...that's what they want, evidently...don't think, just consume product. These are far from the only contrivances you'll find in the story (and I mean far, far from the only ones), but we'll get to some others in a little bit. 

While the story itself is a problem, an even bigger problem is the game's pacing. The major news outlets have talked about Veilguard having a "slow start." What they don't tell you is that this means a slow "entire first act." The story doesn't pick up at all until the second half. And as contradictory as it sounds, things are anything but slow in that slow first act. In fact, the pacing in this slow part of the game is breakneck to the point that it feels like we're getting rushed through as many locales as possible. It's just bizarre, and it has the effect of making an already overall shallow story experience feel even more shallow.

As I said in the introduction, there are flashes of brilliance to be found, but you cannot convince me that any of the writers who worked on this game came up with them. I think it's far more likely that series writer David Gaider left some instructions on how he wanted some of the new lore twists to be handled (specifically the fate of the titans and the creation of the blight), and the team begrudgingly followed them even though it kept them from their precious OC-Do-Not-Steal story. And you know what the truly devastating thing is? These flashes of brilliance are truly, truly excellent. It takes more than half the runtime to get there, but these little bits are good enough that I almost forgave everything else until I forced myself to remember how depressed I'd been most of the time leading up to this point. 

So, let's talk about characters. This time around, there are 7 total companions you can take with you on missions.

Lace Harding is a dwarven scout that featured heavily in Dragon Age: Inquisition's story. Her story is absolutely the best one on display here, and it's also the one I want to spoil the least, so that's where I'll leave her for now.

Neve Gallus is both a Tevinter detective and a top-tier love interest. And that's kind of all, as her storyline is a nonstop boring chase across the same old city slums looking for leads on a boring evil mage that nobody cares about.

Bellara is an excitable and curious elf with a love of all things magical. I was expecting to despise her based on the trailer, but that made her look far quippier than she actually is...I mean, in the beginning, she is quippy, but she stops as time goes on. Moreover, while her storyline isn't quite as good an examination of grief as Just a To the Moon Series Beach Episode, it's still an exploration of grief that I felt deep in my heart given the events of this year. 

Lucanis Dellamorte is known as "the demon of Vyrantium": an Antivan Crow assassin with a penchant for killing mages. But this assassin is slightly more tortured than many assassins are, as he is possessed by a demon of spite following an unpleasant imprisonment by Venatori cultists. Why does being demon-possessed give him ironic crow wings during combat? Beats me, the lore doesn't matter anymore according to this team.

Davrin is an elven Grey Warden with a stupid name and a contrived task: to raise a new generation of griffins. In the Dragon Age lore, griffins are extinct, but because the lore doesn't matter anymore, it turns out the extinction was just a lie that the wardens wanted everyone to buy...for some reason. Davrin is undoubtedly the most boring character, as he's kind of just a guy....but he's a good guy I'd want to be friends with, so he's got that going for him!

Emmerich is another character I was sure I was going to hate based on that one trailer: one of Nevarra's key professors of necromancy. Instead, this guy was my absolute favorite character. He's like an enthusiastic but measured college professor who brews you a cup of tea during office hours as he patiently and cheerfully explains the concepts of his last lecture that you didn't quite catch. More of a quiet "this is quite interesting" kind of professor, rather than a "isn't this awesome?" kind. And then there's his ironic twist: that despite being a necromancer, he suffers from an absolutely crippling fear of death: a fear that goes beyond what any normal person feels about the subject. His storyline is one of the other truly boring ones, but I always loved spending time with this pleasant dude.

Finally, there's Taash, who you likely already know about. Taash is a fire-breathing Qunari who is Bioware's first non-binary character...and also the most complex character amongst the cast. Given how boring some characters in this cast tend to be, it's a (fiery) breath of fresh air.

I saved Taash for last there because their storyline is home to some of those additional contrivances that really cheesed my onions. It makes for a good segue to the subject. 

As Taash starts to come to terms with their identity, they find themselves in need of someone to relate to. In response to this, Neve mentions that there are plenty of people like Taash...in Tevinter. In case you aren't familiar with Tevinter's social landscape: they are just about the only nation on this continent that actively frowns on homosexuality and runs people out of town for being transgender. Not only that, but they're quite literally the most mustache-twirlingly evil nation. Now, are there counter-cultural social movements in any country? Of course. I'm not a non-binary person, but I imagine such a person would prefer to have such conversations in a place where they aren't in active danger the whole time...am I wrong? It's like the writers forgot how this world works or something. Just in case you think I'm reaching, consider this...among all the countries, Rivain is the most liberated of them all. It's a pirate nation welcoming of people of all stripes. If ever there were a safe place to have conversations about non-binary identity, this would be the place. Would you like to guess where Taash lives? Every piece of their story other than this one is all about pushing them either to embrace Qunari culture or embrace another culture....would you like to guess what that other culture is? The answer to both questions is Rivain. Every supportive option you come across is one that suggests leaning more on Rivaini culture than the Qun. So...why does Taash not talk to anyone in Rivain? Why Tevinter? It's not the end of the world by any stretch, but it does bely a unique lack of care in the writing. Equally careless is a thing Taash says that marked the first time that I lost hope in Veilguard. While talking about their upbringing, Taash says "the Qun isn't a prison, you can leave whenever you want."

No. No you can't. The Qun is an authoritarian religion that punishes anyone who deviates by giving them a cruel label and hunting them down to kill them for as long as they live. Under the Qun, the only freedom of choice you have is the freedom to live in your assigned role or the freedom to be killed for not submitting. "The Qun isn't a prison, you can leave whenever you want" is the kind of thing a Qunari priest would say as a gaslighting attempt. It's literally a thing that the Arishok tells Hawke in Dragon Age 2. It's the kind of thing that even someone with a passing knowledge of the lore knows...but somehow the writers just decided to say "nuh-uh." 

But Taash isn't the only character with contrivance in their story. Davrin runs into a roadblock in following leads for his plot...until some completely random nobody character shows up to say that she was in charge of the griffins initially and she just so happened to find the diary of the villain of this arc. Word has it she also has a dagger that shows the way to the next plot point if you hold it up at the exact right spot at the ruins of the Death Star! But even beyond this contrivance, there's another bit of carelessness: this person trained to be a warden, but didn't undergo the joining ceremony to actually become one. So, we're now supposed to believe that the Wardens, known for their extreme secrecy, decided to let someone who couldn't fully commit to their cause in on their biggest secret? Come off it! More insulting than anything else, though, is something that is a spoiler, but not nearly as big a spoiler as it sounds....Grey Wardens no longer are the only ones who can kill an archdemon, and killing one doesn't kill the warden as well. The explanation for this? Basically just "because we said so." Do you see what I mean? Do you see how these writers don't care about this world and its lore? Do you see how they massacred my boy? Do you see the laziness and the immense sense that they just gave up?

I was going to end it there, but then I started looking over my notes and realized I had so much more left to discuss....so, sorry. As I mentioned, at the very beginning of the game, you accidentally release two elven gods. By the time you wake up from being knocked out maybe a day or two later, those gods control everything bad. Let's leave that nonsense by the wayside for now and focus on everything else wrong with this. 

Firstly, it appears every elf in the world automatically knows that the gods were always evil...that's just wrong. Dalish culture is all about the blessings of the gods and adherence to the traditions they founded. One of the big gut punches revealed in Inquisition is that the tribal face paints the elves wear as a proud demonstration of their heritage were, in fact, slave markings given to them by the gods that gradually came to be viewed as a cultural identity through thousands of years of history. But somehow everyone just knows that the gods were always bad now...it's just so unbelievably lazy.

Secondly, it seems like every living being on the earth just readily accepts that the elven gods are real and that they can bestow power upon them or bring them to their knees. This game takes place what, maybe 10 years after the events of Inquisition? The world had already seen a so-called "god" arise and threaten to destroy the world not long before this entry, and that guy got his ass handed to him by some nobody who rose to power off the back of would-be divine nepotism. That god's cultists are, in fact, reeling in humiliation from that defeat in this very story. And yet somehow when two gods (these ones claiming to be from a pantheon belonging to a people that most of the world spits on and views as superstitious fools) come around saying "ohh this time it's really gonna happen, we're gonna destroy the world!" nobody is laughing at them about it and going "yeah, right!" Instead, countless characters look at some slightly strange things happening in the world and go "oh yeah, I guess that does explain why things are ever-so-slightly off now!" Seriously, the most sane individual in this game is the leader of the Grey Wardens. He's a tremendous asshole who blows you off when you mention there are gods involved because that is, of course, a ridiculous idea. And yet he's treated like the bad guy for ignoring Rook's frankly insane claims

Thirdly, there's Rook himself...he's not a bad character or anything, but why does literally anyone in the world care what he says? Yeah, he was the person chosen by Varric to lead the task force against Solas, but that's as much as anyone in the know knows, and most people are not in the know. The Hero of Ferlenden was as much of a nobody as Rook, but he and Alistair had old treaties on hand compelling various factions to lend them aid in the event of a blight. Hawke was as much of a nobody as Rook, but he rose to power by clawing his way out of abject poverty and making a name for himself with hard work and taking down several threats to Kirkwall with the help of an infamous writer known for being able to spin anything into an interesting story. The Inquisitor was as much of a nobody as Rook, but they were appointed as the leader of a massive church-backed organization signed into being by writ of Divine Justinia. They employed an entire army, a network of spies, and the world's top diplomats to get things done, so it made since that the Inquisitor could recruit support from just about anywhere. But as far as the titular Veilguard goes (and by the way, never once is the word "Veilguard" said in this game), it's just Rook and seven other people. No treaties, no elbow grease, no armies, no diplomats, no spy networks; just Rook, his friends, and whatever favors those friends can call in. And yet, somehow, this nobody with no backing of any kind just happens to be able to get the armies of literally all of northern Thedas on board just on his say-so? In a story full of contrivances, this is a contrivance to end all contrivances! 

In speaking about Rook and the Grey Warden leader, I was reminded of one other set of characters that needs to be discussed...the cameos. Towards the beginning of the game, Morrigan shows up for two seconds to tell Rook what a good golly holly swell guy he is and say she'll support him. It's done with all of the incomprehensible desperation of a Star Wars writer putting that godDAMN holographic chessboard in yet another scene in yet another movie. Isabela from Dragon Age II (and partially Origins) also shows up in a cutscene to say "I'm here too!", and as time goes on, she also turns up to do the cringiest arena announcer dialogue I've ever heard. The Inquisitor also shows up for two seconds to tell Rook what a good golly holly swell guy he is and say she'll support him. It's done with all of the incomprehensible desperation of a hardcore Red Jumpsuit Apparatus fan commenting "he just has bronchitis" on a live performance video for the 1000th time. Are you seeing a pattern? There are little bitty cameos here and there, but they're all just like little Disneyland meet-and-greets. The only good exception is Dorian from Inquisition, who plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of Tevinter politics. But even then, it all goes back to my complaint about Rook. Eventually, it comes time to crown a new Acheron for Tevinter (because the old one got assassinated off screen literally right before this point with no fanfare), and it's a choice between Dorian and some lady we've never met until this game. Not that these are candidates chosen by the Tevinter people, mind you, but let's just ignore that. Rook makes the decision. Of the 7 backgrounds Rook can have, only one is Tevinter, and yet he ultimately has say over who leads the Imperium next. With time, I came to somewhat eagerly anticipate what cameo would be next so I could see how poorly they did it. The only cure for sadness is laughter, so I hear.

One last thing before I finally take my red shirt off and leave Blizzcon: a couple examples of the inconsistent writing. 

1): The main villain of Bellara's storyline says "I am your nightmares made flesh" in the boss fight.

2): There comes a point where Rook and company are exploring a destroyed, blighted village. One character seriously mentions how recently this devastation must have been brought down, but I happened to walk too close to a ballista and that line of dialogue got cut off abruptly so the characters could banter as follows:

Rook: Check out this ballista! Could be useful!

Character: Hah! You just want to shoot stuff! 

3): If you have Bellara in your party while fighting in the arena, Isabela yells out "give a Halla for Bellara!!!" to the crowd. The Halla is the sacred animal of Bellara's people, the Dalish...but it just sounds like Isabela is some Gen-Z floss dancer saying "holla at yo girl" or something like that.

4): I swear by everything that is holy, if I hear ONE more self-satisfied writer write the lines "He doesn't look happy" or "I think I made him angry" when a large monster appears on the screen, I'm going to throw hands.

5): On more than one occasion, you'll be on a quest to find a missing person, and then you'll stumble upon some random darkspawn enemy and rook will go "oh no, it's {person we're looking for}"! How does he know? And also, blighted people who aren't born as darkspawn are ghouls, not darkspawn themselves, but I digress. 

6): At the end of the Antivan Crow questline, the characters mention a guy named Jacobus who evidently is in a bad way. And in the final push in that quest, Jacobus turns into a darkspawn (again, not possible, they're ghouls) as part of a heroic sacrifice to stop another evil plan. At that point, I put one thing in my note sheet. Here it is, verbatim: "Crow final quest, who the F*** is Jacobus?!" Why is this guy getting treated like the biggest hero ever, all he did was turn up in one cutscene to be a turd, why is he important? If the guy turned up earlier than that, that's all the more damning because I couldn't remember him to save my life!

It all just goes to show that the Bioware of old, the Bioware known for its excellent writing is really, truly dead.

Unfortunately, the developers also gave up when it comes to quest design. Remember, I did everything...so I've seen every quest there is to see. There is not one, literally not a single good side quest. None of the side quests are even passably good. And even more unfortunately, many of the main quests aren't good either. The side quests in Inquisition typically weren't anything to write home about when compared to the first two titles, but they were passable inasmuch as the most throwaway ones didn't waste your time. Here, though, the remnants of the live service model are there on display for everyone to see. It's always "collect x of this thing", "go to these three spots and kill x number of guys", or "please find my loved one who definitely isn't dead already." Every time. Not even companion story quests are that good. There are some exceptions (two Taash quests where you slay high dragons, one Davrin quest where you end up in a secret Grey Warden vault, and a couple Harding quests where you go to the otherwise inaccessible deep roads), but the vast majority of these quests are either "travel to this tavern and have a conversation with the character" or "go to this place to do this thing but don't actually succeed in doing the thing"....more on that last one later. And while there are some decent main quests towards the end, most of them are just "go and grab 5 of these things" or "go and talk with this person." In Origins, story missions had you ridding a boy of demonic possession or seeking a legendary historical artifact deep in the mountains. In Dragon Age II, story missions had you navigating escalating tensions between the temporarily-displaced Qunari and the citizenry of Kirkwall. In Inquisition, story missions featured time travel, repelling massive armies as they traveled down the mountain, and courtly intrigue to foil or aid an assassination attempt on an Empress' life. In Veilguard, you go and collect five blight samples. There are one or two cool setpiece moments, but they're too few and far between. 

What's worse than this is the fact that a lot of these quests are padded with "go and come back" moments. You'll chase down a threat to its layer but face some kind of roadblock, then the characters involved will say they'll work on getting you in and to check back later. This happens without end, constantly getting teased with the conclusion of a story only to be told "come back later" for the trillionth time. I can't stand this method of storytelling. Give quests a proper conclusion now or don't create them at all! You can build off a resolved quest easily enough, but it's worthless if you treat one single questline as 10 quests!

One positive to be found with the quests is that the recommended level system from Inquisition is gone...or at least, that's what it seemed like. There's no "recommended" level listed in quest descriptions, so you could be forgiven for thinking that no such system exists...but that isn't the case. Some quests will have enemies at high levels, but it doesn't tell you what that level is, so you're SOL if you're not already overleveled by doing absolutely everything like I was. Some quests don't have any levels for enemies at all, and there doesn't seem to be any consistency in whether it's main quests or side quests that have these things.

Given everything I've already said about quests, it surely seems like I can't possibly have any more complaints, right? Wrong! There's also the game's "puzzle" design, which rears its ugly head in quests. It's either God of War-style "getting the right angle on a thing you need to hit" puzzles, contextual button press puzzles, or "bring a certain number of glowing objects to a keystone" puzzles. In the last example's case, you can't have more than one glowing thing with you at a time, so it's a fantastically effective time-waster! And you know what makes that even worse? If you pass some invisible line a little ways away from the puzzle without completing it, your progress resets entirely...and I mean entirely. The puzzle progress resets, the enemies (including minibosses) respawn, and dialogue repeats, all if you stray just the slightest bit too far looking for, I don't know, the next piece of that puzzle! I had this happen at least twice, and it was maddening each time. And for a lot of these puzzles, it seems like the pieces are randomly generated...and if they aren't, then the technical polish is so absent that it makes them appear to be randomly generated. For instance, there was a time where I had to contextual button-press on four glowing pedestals, but I couldn't for the life of me find the final one. Eventually I made my way back to the first one I'd interacted with, accidentally fell in a nearby waist-deep bit of water (which you drown in), respawned right before where I'd fallen in, found that the pedestal was now newly glowing, interacted with it, and the puzzle was solved. The game had just randomly chosen that pedestal as the fourth interaction point despite being one earlier, and I wouldn't have known it had I not caused some kind of soft reset of the animations.

Finally, there's a little litmus test I use for quest design that tends to be telling of the care that went into them. It's simple: when I make it to the next objective marker, have the characters gotten through all of their relevant dialogue already? Or do they get abruptly cut off? Doesn't matter if I'm sprinting or not. In this case, the answer is decidedly the latter scenario. I went through the prologue again after my first playthrough to further test this aspect of the game, and there's not a single stretch of that mission where dialogue doesn't get abruptly cut off. It tells me that the level designers and the writers were not working together, and that the dialogue must not have been that important in the first place. It's not the most damning thing ever, but it says everything it needs to.

So, here I've been bellyaching to high heaven about everything and everyone involved with this game, how did I make it all the way through (other than sheer fanboy power and fruitless optimism)? Well, it's because this is the best that combat has ever been in a Bioware game. In fact, I'd say the combat does all the heavy lifting here, because even in the worst quests, you have some of it to look forward to. As always, you get to choose one of three classes (or two if you're a dwarf, because dwarves can't do magic): warrior, mage, and rogue. While combat is always going to play somewhat the same no matter what class you choose in any Dragon Age game, this is the first time that I can say it feels different to any significant degree. As a rogue, you attack with dual daggers as your main offensive method, but you also have a bow with a slowly refilling number of arrows. As a mage, you can switch between two styles: a slow-moving staff that has a farther attack reach or an orb-and-dagger combo that attacks faster but has less range, plus a little ice beam for some additional ranged damage. As a warrior, you can also switch between two styles: this time a two-handed weapon like a warhammer or a sword/shield combo, with the ability to throw a shield in either stance for that added ranged damage. Each class also comes with a heavy attack, a charged attack, and a parry style for each stance. While it probably seems like the rogue got the short end of the stick there, it more than makes up for the lack of additional combat stances by being the most fun to play as. You'll be doing all sorts of acrobatic flips and extra backflips if you shoot an arrow in the middle of a double dodge...it's so flashy and it's just a pretty coat of paint, but it's a good coat of paint. The other two classes are plenty flashy too, it's just that they prioritize other styles. 

As for how it all works, like in any game you'll be taking enemy health bars down to zero, but as tends to be the case in Bioware titles, many enemies will also have an armor or barrier bar to contend with before you start chipping away at the meat. Armor bars are stripped away with heavy attacks, while the special ranged attacks for each class are handy in taking down barriers. Beyond these, you also have special abilities to deal a little bit of extra damage plus an ultimate attack once you build up the relevant gauge. It all feels sufficiently weighty, it's consistently fun to look at, and people who complain about enemies being too spongey definitely didn't play Inquisition! Finally, there are status effects and primers/detonators for each. I couldn't begin to tell you what any of the status effects do (if anything) despite having gone through the game on the middle of the road difficulty, but suffice it to say there's a handful. Certain abilities will "prime" (meaning "apply") the effect, while others will "detonate" the effect to end the effect's duration and cause a large amount of damage. Each of your party members has a certain loadout of these. One party member may only have the ability to prime the "weakened" effect, another might only be able to detonate the "sundered" effect, and another might be able to prime one effect and detonate another. With this in mind, it should be pretty clear how you choose to put your party together...and therein kind of lies the rub.

For all of the heavy weight the combat lifts, it's not without its faults. One is what I just alluded to: this game officially makes the shift from the traditional Dragon Age three party-member system to the Mass Effect two party-member system...and this was not the right call. Typically Dragon Age squad choices are as follows if you're, say, a rogue: you'll pick your favorite mage character, your favorite warrior character, and then either another rogue or your next favorite party member regardless of class. That's how the whole thing typically comes together: you have a solution for every problem and one backup of your choosing to adapt to whatever circumstances you're about to be up against. This time, however, it's literally just the priming and detonating that drives these decisions...and a lot of the time, this can mean doubling or tripling down on having the same class of character in your party. For example, if you play as a rogue, depending on an early choice, you spend the entire first mission with nothing but rogues on your team. The fact that having party members with you in the field helps increase their bond faster makes this even messier. You'll end up having your love interest in the party with one other person whose abilities don't have synergy with theirs, and you'll just have to deal with it. I can see what they were going for by having party members not really have "classes", but rather a set weapon style and unique abilities, but it just feels wrong and I don't like it. There's also a lock-on system, but it will constantly disable itself if you dodge just a little bit too far past an enemy, so you'll constantly be having to slowly turn the camera back around and lock on again, assuming it even works the first time. I must've checked the accessibility settings looking for some option to make the lock-on stick a hundred times, but I never found one. Finally, there's the bosses...they may have different appearances, but they're almost exactly the same. You'll whittle the boss down by a third of their health, they'll enter a cutscene to generate a barrier around them, you'll whittle down the barrier and another third of their health, they'll enter a cutscene to generate another barrier around them, and you'll just keep whacking away from there until they're dead. Some will also summon minions, which is always definitely a fun thing! The combat experience during these boss fights is still excellent, but again, it's not what I come to a Bioware game for.

Just like combat, technical fidelity isn't exactly high on people's lists when they settle in for a Bioware experience. They're never bad overall in the tech department, just always a little janky in front-and-center ways. This is another area in which Veilguard is uniquely strong among its peers. It's possible that there were infrequent framerate dips, but I don't personally remember any. Textures never had a hard time loading in (which is more important than you'd think, given the infamous "banner drop" scene at the end of Inquisition's prologue). There were one or two times where the soundtrack abruptly cut out and turned on again, but they were few and far between...plus Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe carry a surprising amount of dramatic weight with their OST. And in a Bioware first, the character hair and physics involved therein are industry-leading, all without the staff abuse that goes into the hair physics in something like The Last of Us: Part II. All-in-all, pretty great, but there's one thing I have to point out as a major negative. If you're talking to a character who would be labeled as "female" in the database, that character will spend 99% of the game with her right hand resting on her hip and her hip jutting out a little bit. If it's a character labeled "male" in the database, that character will spend 99% of the game with both hands on both hips with his chest puffed out. This is every character for every conversation that ever happens. You'll have a circle of people with their hands glued to their hips and the only one who will break the formation is Rook (occasionally). Don't believe me? If you have the game installed, fire it up now and go talk to Isabela at the Hall of Valor. You'll see what I mean. Solas is largely the coolest character by default because his hands never go anywhere near his hips. 

And while we're on the subject of character looks, time to talk about the redesigns. Every Dragon Age game does massive design overhauls for just about everything in its world. I'll use the Qunari as an example. In Origins, the Qunari were simply big dudes with dark skin and white cornrows. Starting with Dragon Age II, the Qunari went from just being big dudes to being hulking horned men with ash grey skin...the most badass character designs in gaming, in my opinion. Starting in Inquisition, they went from that kind of strong design to just big dudes with horns. And starting in Veilguard, they became just slightly tall and super lame dudes with horns. Every single redesign in Veilguard is uniformly terrible in a way that makes it seem like some developer's edgy teenager is responsible. Demons, for instance, used to be designed based off the emotions they represent. Rage demons were somewhat amphibious-looking monstrosities made of lava. Despair demons were withdrawn in little black cloaks. Pride demons stood several heads taller than everything else. Things like that. Now they're all just Kingdom Hearts-style hooded figures denoted only by the color of the little lightning skeletons they have under the cloaks. Except for rage demons, which are now like prowling dogs or something like that...the designs are just a mess. 

But as bad as the demons have it, it's worse for the poor darkspawn. Each darkspawn type is based on the race of the broodmother who conceived them (at least, in the hands of writers who care): hurlocks are humans, genlocks are dwarves, shrieks are elves, and ogres are Qunari........................and people who aren't born of a broodmother and just happen to survive the taint of the blight (without the archdemon blood necessary to create a grey warden) are GHOULS. Throughout the saga, the designs of the darkspawn have reflected this: hurlocks have typically looked like humans, genlocks have been shorter and stockier, shrieks have been lithe, and ogres have been massive and horned. Now it's all just unspecified marvel movie fodder enemies, ogres, and ghouls (that for some reason nobody gets turned into when they come in contact with the blight). These are some of the most embarrassing redesigns I think I've ever seen, at least since that one attempted restoration of that Jesus painting several years ago. I don't even know where to begin because there's nothing distinguishing about any of these new designs. They're all weirdly lopsided and nondescript save for little things like centurion helmets or boils. Did the original designs 100% ape from Lord of the Rings? Of course. But at least those had some kind of personality and weren't just terrible. 

"If you don't read the sequels, those endings stick," as Neve Gallus says to Bellara while you're out and about. By this point in the game I'd already started to lose all hope, and the sadness hadn't quite melted away to anger yet. I would eventually get to experience the bits of brilliance that make this experience even remotely worthwhile, but at the time I was desperate for things to finally pick up and to finally see even the smallest amount of care go into the game. And then, this conversation happened, and I just stopped for a second. As I sat there, I had to ask myself a serious question: "do I regret buying this?" Did I wish that I'd just ignored the fact that this sequel existed and instead frolicked in the once-vibrant joy of what could be when the end of the Trespasser DLC came out? I don't think I would've been able to live with myself had I not gone through this game and done absolutely everything for myself, but that's more out of a sense of hyperfixated duty rather than anything resembling joy. I'm glad that I got to see some of the last lore twists that David Gaider (and none of the writers responsible for this) came up with to tie things up, but I could've easily just gotten that from a supplemental book or watching a playthrough or lore discussion after the fact. My friends....I think I do regret it. I wish Bioware had just axed this project, and I wish I could tell the heartbroken younger me that would've existed in that timeline to be grateful he didn't have to see his favorite world of all time treated with as much wanton disregard as it got treated with in Veilguard. Whenever someone complains about a sequel, there's always a copium-clouded clown crowd ready to mention that a bad sequel doesn't take the older stories away. That much is indeed true, but there's an undeniable crossing of the Rubicon that happens when one opens up a sequel, and it simply isn't possible to put that back into its box once it's opened. As a game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn't bad. You'd be hard-pressed to find a better core gameplay loop in almost anything this particular year, in fact. The mediocre side content does make the good brain chemicals happen if you're willing to subject yourself to that kind of thing. And if you're blissfully unaware of the world and its lore, it can be just like the would-be cinema these writers clearly would rather be working on: a brainless popcorn-eating affair to fill your time with without leaving any lasting impact. Yes, as a bare-bones game, it would be hard to even call Veilguard mediocre overall. But it isn't just a bare-bones game: it's the heir to a long and proud legacy, and it doesn't act with the decorum expected of it. So...do I recommend Veilguard? Well, if you're excited by the prospect of this sequel because of how things wrapped up in Inquisition, no. Even if you didn't play that but you played an earlier game and want to see where things go after the blight or the Kirkwall Chantry incident, the answer is still no. Because if (and only if) you don't read/play/watch the sequels, those endings stick.

Let us review:

Marvel villains - 0.5

Terrible plot - 1.0

Disregard for lore - 1.0

Over-reliance on contrivances - 1.0

Embarrassing redesigns - 1.0

Mediocre mission content - 1.0

Small combat woes - 0.3

Small tech woes - 0.2

The final score for Dragon Age: The Veilguard is...

4.0/10 - Below Average

Goodbye, Bioware.