Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review: One of the Best Action RPGs of All Time

With a full decade since the last release in this franchise, it's difficult to overstate the anticipation many had for Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The ability to deliver on those expectations is no small feat, but BioWare wasn't afraid to swing once Veilguard stepped up to the plate.

From complex storytelling and personal romances to dynamic combat, this journey feels like BioWare finally reaching an equilibrium after years of trial and error. They've learned both from their own development and other games in this genre. After more than a hundred hours in the game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard has earned the honor of being one of best action RPGs of all time.

Near-Perfect Character Creator

While it won't be the place you spend the majority of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, every player begins in the character creator to make their own version of Rook. This is an area where Veilguard shines right out of the gate thanks to extensive visual customization options and sliders. While there are only four races to choose from, Veilguard has included enough tiny variances that each different character you make feels unique.

Similarly, there are only three classes in Veilguard but plenty of customization in your overall build. It's easy to make dozens of variants of each class that will all feel different in combat. While it does feel as if additional classes or races would’ve added more depth, the game does a good of maximizing everything that’s there. Veilguard also does an above average job of representing larger body types within the character creator, but clipping can become quite common with certain types of armor on a larger character.

Rather than streamlining what Rook has been up to before the game began, Veilguard lets you choose between six core factions, each packaged with a specific backstory. In addition to influencing dialogue options heavily throughout the game, each faction has its own combat bonus to consider. Most have an advantage against a specific enemy, like the Antivan Crows against Antaam or the Shadow Dragons against Venatori, and an additional bonus such as increased weakpoint damage or an extra potion. They also come with different comfort clothes for non-combat moments at your home base, but others can be purchased from faction merchants throughout Veilguard.

Players will also have the ability to create a trans or non-binary character with the option of they/them pronouns included (more on how that impacts dialogue later), and none of that is tied to any of the appearance presets or decisions made during that part of character creation. You can technically set a unique first name for Rook to pair with a faction-specific last name, but you'll get called Rook so often (including in all subtitles) that it never really becomes a part of the playthrough but rather a way to differentiate between saves. Rook has four voices to choose from, two feminine and two masculine, with the option to use two different pitch settings for each.

Players will then select a playstyle based on their preferred difficulty level. Most players should stick to the standard Adventurer experience the first time around, but anyone struggling with combat can easily lower that challenge later and customize other difficulty options.

The final step before finalizing your character is to decide how some Dragon Age: Inquisition details will influence Veilguard. You create a custom look for the Inquisitor, can choose a past romance, and decide how they left things with Solas. This is one that players could easily skip, but even those who didn't play Veilguard will enjoy trying different variations here in subsequent playthroughs.

Stunning, Gorgeous, Breathtaking Visuals

The earliest section of your adventure does a good job as a tutorial in acclimating new players to the controls, but that's not what shines most when the game begins. Visually, everything from backgrounds to monster designs to artistic cutscene cinematics to overall atmosphere is just beautiful. Rook is quickly pulled into a daring race to stop a literally god-tier ritual, and by the time the dust settles you'll have already made the first major decision that impacts your companions.

If you spent an hour or more in the character creator trying to create the perfect Rook, that becomes immediately rewarding as you get to see close-ups in emotional cutscenes while making some of your own dialogue choices. Even a second time through, you might skip a few larger cutscenes in the earliest part of the game, but conversations can go in such different directions that it's easy to get drawn into seeing how a new character interacts in those moments.

The weight of some of your biggest decisions is also palpable, as one difficult situation drastically impacts an entire city. Everything about that city feels different once that moment has passed. Most cities are also full of ambient conversations that can be had with normal people in the streets, as well as a handful of merchants, but the best highlight isn't people. It's animals. Cats, dogs, and griffons in particular. You can pet the cat, and your controller will vibrate as it purrs. Dogs make their own loving grumble that can be felt in the controller when being petted, and interacting with a griffon will melt the heart of almost every player.

While the combat screen may feel cluttered for some, there are some interface options to adjust that can clear it up even more. Once you've adjusted, it becomes a welcome challenge to keep pace in any battle. Players have the option to use abilities, potions, and make a few other changes just with button presses mid-combat.

Even better, pressing RB or R1 brings up a targeting interface that freezes time during any battle. When in this screen, you can choose a specific enemy within sight to focus on and direct your companions to use their abilities or focus their attacks. The biggest battles often build to a point where Rook has access to their ultimate ability, and these are extremely satisfying to trigger.

Writing and Representation

One of Dragon Age: The Veilguard's biggest strengths is the writing for the larger story that unfolds across an entire playthrough. All the quests feel significant, and it doesn't take long to see the consequences of your decisions manifesting in conversations or important cutscene moments. Solas returns from Dragon Age: Inquisition, and he's one of many stunningly powerful voice performances in the game. Between Rook and Veilguard’s plentiful inhabitants, those performances paired with excellent dialogue writing make the story even more captivating.

You can even have certain characters comment on how long you left them on read in the quest journal while doing other side quests. Those decisions you make won't just impact a few conversations, one crucial choice will genuinely damage your relationship with a companion. They'll become hardened, slow down their ability to increase a bond with you, and some healing abilities can even become unusable. At the same time, this gives that companion an edge that will beef up some of their offensive abilities.

Similarly, players must spend time building relationships and completing quests in different regions to build up trust with allied factions. All of them will be needed in the final battle, and the work you put in along the way (or lack thereof) is manifested as the game reaches its conclusion. Some players have been frustrated with a lack of darker or meaner dialogue paths, and conflicts between companions can resolve quickly at times, but none of this detracted from the full experience in my time with Veilguard. If you’d rather keep things positive that’s easy to do, but those seeking a darker run will mostly have to neglect and ignore companions to arrive at one of the game’s less positive conclusions. 

Romance has always been a key part of this franchise, and that remains true in Veilguard. Unique flirty dialogue options let players tease out the possibility of a romance with every companion, and those will disappear for other characters if you reach the stage of being in an exclusive relationship with one companion. Gifts found in shops, special outings, preference for dialogue choices or decisions, all of this comes together to make each potential romance deliver in its own way.

While Dragon Age: The Veilguard is far from the first game to make non-binary characters an option during character creation, I've never seen a game of this scale go so far to incorporate your identity positively in the larger story. An early interaction will allow you to make Rook's non-binary identity something important to their story, and it opens up unique dialogue interactions in several conversations throughout the game. Rook can use their experiences to relate to others, and this is most welcome while building a romance.

When committing to a companion, Rook has the option of bringing up their identity again just to be sure their potential lover understands and has no issue with it, which they don't. All the romances feel unique and endearing, but nothing is quite as powerful as seeing one companion's journey towards understanding their non-binary identity unfold throughout the game. You can encourage and relate to them with unique dialogue choices if you're also non-binary, and there are almost painfully accurate but powerful scenes about the difficulties of trusting how you see yourself and coming out to family.

There's even a wonderful scene later in that companion's journey where you go with them to meet up with old friends. When one of them slips up and accidentally misgenders that character, they address it, correct the mistake, and apologize in a way that feels sincere without making the moment into a huge issue. If you choose to comment on them being open-minded after that, they'll even reveal that their group has included other non-binary members in the past.

The genuine care taken in trying to do their best to blend this representation into the story of Dragon Age: The Veilguard is clear. Some of the writing does feel particularly on the nose at times, but the voice performances all bring it home in a way that makes even more straightforward dialogue deliver. Veilguard unifies the trans and non-binary experiences, so there's not much difference if you'd prefer to make a character that identifies as trans but not as non-binary, even if you've chosen she/her or he/him pronouns rather than they/them pronouns.

Making every companion in the game pansexual but functionally playersexual also feels like a missed opportunity, especially considering past Dragon Age games did this better. Having some variance with even one or two companions being straight, gay, or lesbian instead of pansexual would've added even more to the romance of Veilguard. Making a few companions open to polyamory would've also given the game an extra layer.

There are at least three non-Rook romances that can develop if you don't pursue those particular companions. Those add some delightful extra conversation moments where Rook can encourage companions to take the leap and pursue someone, but applying a blanket sexuality keeps those romances from being more representative of different queer experiences. With all of that said, Baldur's Gate 3 making every companion playersexual never stopped me from playing it and the same is true for Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Urgent Action and Memorable Boss Battles

As much fun as it can be to enjoy those story moments and go exploring throughout Veilguard, none of that would deliver quite as well without good combat. Attempts at keeping story and combat balanced in past Dragon Age games have been met with very mixed opinions, but Veilguard is the best this series has ever been at delivering on both levels. Story choices can have direct impacts on some combat scenarios and bosses you're up against, and each fight is so action-packed that's its impossible to not be fully engaged.

This only gets amplified as you get deeper into Veilguard, but even many early battles set the tone. Between ranged enemies firing from all directions and massive melee opponents being fixated on you, combat usually includes a lot of movement and dodging.

Companion abilities can deal damage and be used in combination with primers and detonations. This also encourages you to have a diverse group with each class represented. Every combo, rogue and warrior or rogue and mage or warrior and mage, features abilities that amplify each other.

You'll also likely come to rely on support abilities from companions. The most obvious would be a healing ability which several companions have access to, but there are others like mages that can slow time and warriors that can use a taunt to take enemy focus away from you temporarily. Increasing your bond with companions grants them skill points that will further power up these abilities. As for Rook, the race to finding the best rogue builds, warrior builds, and mage builds is basically endless.

Both skills and equipment can have significant impacts on your entire combat style. Players that like takedowns or lingering conditions will have a different feel than those using a defensive tank build that thrives off perfectly timed counters, and ranged builds could focus on rapid fire bow hits or pinpoint power shots. If at any point it's too much or you're struggling to get through combat, it's easy to crank down the difficulty and keep enjoying the game at your own skill level without as much pressure on having a perfect build.

Finding your style is going to be a unique path for every player, and a single piece of gear might motivate you to respec your skills entirely (which can be done an unlimited amount of times at no cost). Wandering into battle against a much higher level enemy can immediately induce fear, but skilled players can topple some stronger enemies earlier than expected if they're good at avoiding damage. All of this culminates as you head into the final arc of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

The ways that Rook did or didn't support factions and grow bonds with companions, particularly doing companion quests until each unlocks their Hero of the Veilguard skill and legendary armor, will come home to roost in that final battle. That heavily influences the final ending you'll reach and how both companions and allied factions fare during the last stand.

With the full picture in mind, there are a few things the game could’ve done even better such as extra race and class options in the character creator or being a little more bold with darker dialogue options, but none of it is anywhere near detrimental enough to drag down the full experience. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a complete action RPG in every sense of the genre, and it’s one that players will easily get hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of.