Dragon Age The Veilguard: Messy But Fun

I wasn’t originally planning on playing & reviewing Dragon Age: The Veilguard ( which I will just call Veilguard for this review) when I first saw the gameplay & story trailers, it didn’t stand out to me as something worth purchasing at full price, it looked like a fairly big divergence from the older Dragon Age games and not something I’d be interested in. For reference I played Dragon Age Origins, 2 and Inquisition, they were never my favourite games but I enjoyed them and the world in which they were set, seeing how much of a different style both in graphics and writing Veilguard was taking, I decided not to purchase it. It wasn’t until I saw the polarity of the reviews on the game, from 1s to 5s to 10s, it was clear this was a game I was going to have to try for myself if I ever wanted to know if it was actually good.

The game begun very slow for me, and despite the game's story starting with a massive world-ending threat, I had little interest in what was going on. I spent around 10 hours just going through the motions with the story, not quite knowing what was going on or why I was meant to care about any of it. I wouldn’t say it magically clicked at any point or that I even loved the story, but once I had gathered all the core companions to The Lighthouse ( the games hub world) and unlocked most of the major regions, I started to enjoy the story a bit more. There were some dull and risk-averse story choices, and the lack of major player agency was a big let-down after previous dragon ages, with the only important choice you make at the end of Act 1 or during the final mission. Regardless of how risk-averse and somewhat generic the story was, it became enjoyable and finished strong for me, it won’t leave much of a mark for me, but I enjoyed it for what it was.

The main issue with the story for me was the two main villains, the evil ‘gods’ Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain. The plot revolves around these two ( though mostly the latter until the endgame) and I didn’t find either of them compelling whatsoever. Their motivations were very generic & stereotypical for two evil villains, their designs were overtly evil for two individuals who were once Elven ‘Gods’. Anytime I had an encounter with one of them I found they were written either very bland or cartoonishly evil without purpose. Unfortunately, Solas would have made a much more compelling villain and the little time I did spend in the fade verbally sparring with him was far more interesting and chilling than any encounter I had with the game's main villains.

My favourite part of the game easily was the gameplay. Without the enjoyment I got from the gameplay, it’s unlikely I would have persevered through the game's rough start. To preface I did play as the Warrior class for my whole 100h playthrough, at the time of this review I have played some mage but most of my enjoyment of the gameplay comes through the lens of this class, so your mileage may vary depending on the class played. Despite the lack of enemy variety, especially in a game of this length, I always enjoyed when combat broke out. I played on Nightmare difficulty and often took on bosses & challenges that were too difficult for me, this was always thrilling, using my limited healing and abusing my companion's abilities perfectly to pull out a victory. The upgradeable loot system as well as companions having simplistic kits to manage made me able to focus entirely on my own gameplay, which I thoroughly enjoyed, if you were on the fence about this game, I’d recommend watching some videos of the 3 classes in play, as the combat loop, while repetitive was always very satisfying for me.

The most contentious part of the game and the source of most of the online discourse is the writing. Put simply the writing is nowhere near the caliber of BioWare in the past, but I made my peace with that before I started. The dialogue is and simultaneously is not as bad as you’ve heard it is. There are times when the characters are compelling, realistic, well-acted, and intriguing and just as many times when they are awkward, goofy, out of place, and deliver lines poorly. For me the quality of the writing depended on which storyline I was following and which companions I used, unfortunately, some companions and storylines in my opinion are far inferior to others in terms of writing. Most of the writing is passable and not as bad as the cherry-picked social media examples, but BioWare quality it is not. With Baldurs Gate 3 setting a new standard for RPG writing just last year, it stings even more that Veilguard is so far behind even its own predecessors in that regard.

Overall I had a good time with Veilguard, it had great highs, crushing lows, and some exciting gameplay in the middle, I don’t expect people on either side of the fence to agree with my review, but these are my thoughts on what is likely the most contentious game of 2024.