Dragon Age The Veilguard review: A worthy successor but not enough heart

Dragon Age The Veilguard has certainly been a ride for me. After around 40 hours of jumping through the veil and fighting the elven gods, I can say one thing — BioWare has not disappointed me for the most part. No game can be perfect and Dragon Age The Veilguard is not without its flaws. However, my experience was quite enjoyable and has reinstated my faith in BioWare's future endeavors.

So what did I love about the game? And which areas do I think BioWare could've improved? Let's take a deeper dive into our Dragon Age The Veilguard review to answer these questions.

Dragon Age The Veilguard is a fun yet flawed game

The story and presentation: The journey in Northern Thedas had me yearning for more, however...

Returning to the streets of Thedas (Image via EA)

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Dragon Age The Veilguard's story is not bad. It was engaging enough to keep me playing, and the developers nailed the presentation for the most part. I was genuinely invested in the story and characters, except for a few places where I felt BioWare missed the mark.

Dragon Age The Veilguard's strength comes from maintaining the mystery about the elven gods and how the blight is affecting the continent of Thedas.

Being a Dragon Age fan who played Origins for the first time during my teens, I can say — the newest title does not come close to its predecessors. The Veilguard's story is good, but it is not the BioWare magic I fell in love with.

Especially as a sequel to the fantastic Trespasser DLC of Inquisition, I did expect a bit more. Don't get me wrong, While the Veilguard had an interesting plot carried by well-written characters, it can feel underwhelming compared to what came before.

That said, Dragon Age The Veilguard significantly expands on the lore of the series. This had me vested in finding and reading the various documents — telling the history of Northern Thedas — scattered on each map.

Gameplay: Loots, exploration and quests

Dragon Age The Veilguard has a fun gameplay loop (Image via EA)

I was elated upon learning that The Veilguard won't be an open-world game. For the most part, it is a linear title, but you will be able to explore certain areas like Dock Town, Treviso, Arlathan Forest, and so on. I spent countless hours roaming these areas, looking for loot, or rather pathways, to reach the next section of the map.

Exploration in Dragon Age The Veilguard is also helped by the various collectibles you can find. The Veilguard manages older gears by allowing you to find their duplicates, making them more powerful by unlocking various passives.

Side quests in Dragon Age The Veilguard are amazing. Each one is well-written and many even have their own quest chain line that expands on the plot and mystery behind them.

The only issue with exploration I found was that certain areas were tied to quests. This can ruin your flow while exploring maps.

As for combat, Dragon Age The Veilguard stands as the best in the series. I genuinely had fun respeccing skills to try out new playstyles. While I was a bit skeptical about being unable to control party members, The Veilguard's strength comes from handing you more time to actively engage in combat. This makes the encounters fun since you must learn enemy patterns to reign supreme.

Overall, Dragon Age The Veilguard is solid in terms of gameplay and emerges as one of the most fun action RPGs you can play.

Characters: Finding companionship in an apocalypse

Character interactions are quippy and fun (Image via EA)

I loved almost all the companions in Dragon Age The Veilguard. Each bore a unique personality, and doing companion quests made me appreciate most of them.

Bellara is a quirky elf with a curious nature and her fangirling over Neve and Emmrich brought some of the best interactions in the game. On the other hand, Davrin is a stoic warrior who slowly opens up to you and learns how to handle and take care of his pet griffon, Assan.

Harding is just a sweetheart, whose caring nature can often get the best of her. I genuinely think she is one of the best characters in The Veilguard. Emmrich is a gentlemanly scholar who acts like a mentor figure to Bellara and Rook. Meanwhile, Neve and Lucanis have witty remarks that reflect their worldview.

The companions are especially helped by their quests that allow you to know them better. Throughout the game, you will unlock these missions and learn more about each character's backstories, and motivations and see their growth.

While I did take a liking to most companions, I cannot say the same about Taash. Alongside Jacob from Mass Effect 2, they are probably my least favorite party member from all BioWare games. Taash seemed to be a victim of inconsistent writing that sometimes had them lashing out at you and then suddenly talking as if you were their best friend.

I don't hate Taash, as certain aspects of the story show their softer sides, but it is the inconsistency in writing that will make you question their character development.

Talking with Solas is definitely one of the best parts of the game (Image via EA)

Speaking about characters, Solas and Varric are back, and every interaction Rook has with them is fun. I selected sarcastic dialogs when conversing with Fen'Harel and the jabs between him and Rook had me laughing. Gareth David-Lloyd performed phenomenally as Solas.

The conversations that Rook has with Varric are also emotional, allowing you to form a bridge between the two: the old master advising his student on becoming a good leader.

World Design: Thedas never looked so beautiful

The elven ruins of Arlathan (Image via EA)

Dragon Age The Veilguard is a beautiful game. Each map has a spectacular design, with unique architecture and environment that makes them stand out.

Minrathous is an advanced city with a bit of arcane magic keeping the various buildings powered. The Arlathan forest is full of dangerous, yet magnificent elven structures standing with mysteries hidden in their ruins. The Hossberg Wetlands are blight-infested swamps that attach an eery vibe to the place.

Each major city, settlement, or area we visit as part of our journey in Northern Thedas has a unique and distinct look to it.

The darkspawns definitely look funky (Image via EA)

While the environment looks spectacular, I cannot say the same about some of the character and enemy designs. I do understand when people are upset over some of the design choices.

I am not a big fan of how the Qunari looks in The Veilguard. They starkly resemble humans fitted with horns as opposed to the beastly look they had in Origins or Dragon Age 2. The Darkspawns also had their designs changed, although there is a lore-related reason for that.

Performance: An elven artifact running to perfection

The game is extremely well optimized (Image via EA)

Dragon Age The Veilguard is a stunning game and also one of the most polished in 2024. Having last played the bad Final Fantasy 16 PC port, I faced no issues with The Veilguard. It ran smoothly with over 70 FPS for the most part. Here are my PC specifications:

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600X
GPU: RX 6600
RAM: 32GB DDR4

Although the game was pushing my hardware, especially my CPU, to its limit at times, that was because my machine was a few years old. The game is extremely well optimized and BioWare has finally mastered the Frostbite engine.

Not everything is perfect: The blighted side of the veil

The gods were the most boring villains in the series (Image via EA)

The Villains: Boring

I don't think Dragon Age The Veilguard is a perfect game. It has many flaws, but the biggest ones, in my opinion, are the main antagonists. Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are the two most cookie-cutter villains in the series and probably the least interesting ones in my opinion.

They are just evil for the sake of it. While there is nothing wrong with that, they have been written extremely poorly. We don't see them committing a whole lot of evil deeds that the two gods are capable of, except in a few countable instances.

BioWare had the perfect setup with Solas after the phenomenal Trespasser DLC for Inquisition. Yet, that plotline got benched for most of The Veilguard's story, and instead, we got two boring villains. Albeit this made me appreciate Solas more as a character.

Writing can get bland and inconsistent at times

To be fair, I do think that The Veilguard has the weakest writing in the series, especially when it comes to the companions. BioWare just played it safe at times and this led to some of the party banters not feeling natural. As I stated in my companion section, while I do like most of the characters, Taash got handed the worst and inconsistent writing with a non-existent character development arc.

I don't think the writing overall is all bad. The story certainly is engaging enough with its mysteries to keep you playing and while the dialogs are quippy and fun for the most part, you will often want to put down your headphones.

Also, there are several potential misses in the story — as I said BioWare played it very safe. A lack of conflict between the various companions in Dragon Age The Veilguard made the game feel like a happy-get-together story instead of a group of people banding together and saving the world by putting their differences aside.

The only place I could see a genuine confrontation was between Taash and Emmrich, but that too was mild compared to what we have seen in older BioWare games.

The inconsistent writing affects the pacing, where interesting plotlines can get sidelined for a while in favor of some generic fetch quests.

BioWare playing it safe made us miss out on some interesting conversations, but again the game more or less makes up for it with some interactions between characters.

A lack of choices in an RPG

Another major flaw with Dragon Age The Veilguard is the fact the lack of choices. It is an RPG with a dialog wheel that only provides three variations of a similar outcome. While some choices do matter in the long run, the dialog wheel mostly feels like it is there to choose the tone of your reaction. This is quite a letdown as it limits your role-playing abilities.

The game also has a lack of choices that allows you to be rude or evil, and for an RPG that can be quite disappointing. I still remember doing a Renegade run in Mass Effect because it was fun, only to realize being a massive jerk to everyone you meet has consequences.

But in The Veilguard, there is no choice but to be evil or make bad decisions. Rook cannot be rude to most people, and will always need to answer positively.

In Conclusion

Dragon Age The Veilguard is a flawed, yet fun game (Image via EA)

Dragon Age The Veilguard is a conflicting game. BioWare finally brought a new entry to one of my favorite video game franchises, yet I cannot say I fully loved the experience. Don't get me wrong, it is still a fun video game and not the worst thing that many people are making it out to be. But it is definitely not what I expected from a company that promised a return to form for years.

As someone who has been a big fan of Dragon Age since adolescence, I do not think that The Veilguard is the equivalent of what Andromeda is to the Mass Effect series. Dragon Age The Veilguard is a fun video game with an intriguing plot, well-written characters (for the most part), and a worthy successor to 2014's Inquisition.

I expected to be heavily disappointed when purchasing the game. But all I can say is, that I don't regret my purchase. It is still a fun fantasy RPG which I enjoyed and I do think I got the bang for my buck with the 40 hours I have invested.

2024 has been a good year for RPG fans, and The Veilguard is definitely one of the better games this year. While it may not be my personal favorite RPG of 2024 (That goes to Metaphor ReFantazio), it has shown me that BioWare has learned from its mistakes with Andromeda and Anthem.

While it may not be BioWare's best effort, The Veilguard is a fun experience and has me excited about what the developers are cooking with the upcoming Mass Effect. It is a game you should try out if you loved the studio's older titles but loathed Anthem and Andromeda.