No longer focused on Dread Wolf (Solas’ pet name, as players learn early on in this upcoming story), Bioware has returned to their storied RPG franchise with Dragon Age: The Veilguard. In one of the first semi-public demonstrations, Wccftech recently sat in on a behind-closed-door experience to take a peek at the character creation and initial story beats to the Veilguard.
As is typical for Dragon Age heroes, players first begin by picking their primary class between the assortment of Rogue, Warrior and Mage. From there, players dig into specializations that make each class feel specialized. For the Rogue that was shown off during our presentation for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, there were choices between a Duelist (parries and flourishes), Saboteur (explosives and turrets), and Veil Ranger (archery and magic). As the demo MC discussed at length, each specialization offers extensive skill trees to fit a player’s individual playstyle while also building towards unique synergies between both Rook and companions. After deciding on a lot in life, players then pick one of six factions to build out the backstory from before The Veilguard’s opening acts. Of the six factions, only five were discussed during our session: Grey Wardens, Veil Jumpers, Lords of Fortune, Mourn Watch, and the Shadow Dragons, the last of which was the faction of choice and lent to the main character’s last name. Two perks from opting to ally with the Shadow Dragons increase damages inflicted against the Venatori while also increasing the rate at which the Rogue’s class resource fills up.
The crux of the opening act to Dragon Age: The Veilguard is to stop Dreadwolf (again, Solas) from completing a ritual that would tear open the Veil and unleash daemonic foes upon the world. Minrathous, the capital city of the Tevinter Imperium, sets the stage for the prologue and the introduction to a world still populated by the likes of Varric (albeit a bit more grizzled and worn out). It’s a city that’s shown to be bustling “in a way never seen before” in a Dragon Age title, while the destruction wrought by demons introduces dynamic city destruction and set pieces.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard opens with the lead character of Rook heading into the seediest bar in Minrathous to seek out a missing contact, Neve Gallus. It’s here that players are introduced to the dialogue systems at play in Dragon Age and only a couple of dialogue options. Rather than presenting the outcome and consequence of one’s words, the dialogue wheel instead simply states what the main character will do, putting players into the seat of more immersive role-playing. Returning to the conversation are a multitude of dialogue options, from the affable and tough to the irreverent and snarky.
For the main focus of the showcase, BioWare wanted to show off the combat in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Billed as a fusion between moment-to-moment action and strategy, players will get to experience some of the fastest action combat that’s been seen in a Dragon Age title. Fighting takes a few notes from popular open-world action game with parry indications and a form of Spidey Sense that highlights when enemies are about to hit Rook and also indications for ranged attacks from afar. For players who are less comfortable engaging with the action combat, there are a number of modifiers that can be tweaked including increasing the parry indicators, or simply removing them entirely for increased difficulty.
While there is a focus on the action in The Veilguard, it wouldn’t be a Dragon Age title without implementing a form of Real Time with Pause to the strategy. Players will have access to 9 slots for abilities that can be toggled during these pause segments and ally abilities can be slotted in as well as player abilities to create synergies between followers. One such combo that was recommended was to cast a spell that would slow down time to synergize with another mage that could cast a damage-over-time spell.
BioWare touched just briefly on the companion stories but wanted to emphasize that one of the core pillars of Dragon Age was to inspire a team of unforgettable companions. Each of the seven companions (Harding, Neve, Taash, Emmrich, Davrin, Lucanis, and Bellara) has a story arc that runs parallel to the main campaign but can be skipped by players who don’t wish to get too emotionally invested in that character’s plight. The Veilguard also continues the trend of integrating side characters from the previous game as a full companion. In this instance, Scout Harding is now a proper member of The Veilguard and it’s been a full ten years since the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
For the most part, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is feature complete and the development team is currently in the midst of bug fixing when we spoke with them during Summer Game Fest 2024. This introductory mission brought technologies and ancient enemies from the Dragon Age mythos to the forefront, and our mission director talked about wanting to make the prologue feel like the final mission of another game so that players could get stakes in the action as quickly as possible. In just a matter of thirty minutes, players progressed from a bare-knuckle brawl in a local tavern to a near-apocalyptic event with Solas trying to tear the literal fabric of space and time before disappearing into a portal wrought open with two yet-unnamed folks.
Are they on par with an Elven god like Solas? Only time will tell! Meanwhile, check out the first 15-minute gameplay video and some extra details from BioWare in this article.
