Yesterday, Kai checked out a behind-closed-doors media presentation of Dragon Age: The Veilguard; you can read his report here. Today, BioWare is sharing the first 15-minute gameplay video with everyone, and they’ve also sent a fact sheet that clarifies several details and features of the upcoming action RPG.
Let’s start with the first juicy details on the storyline of the fourth mainline installment in the franchise. As everyone who played Dragon Age: Inquisition and its DLCs already knows, Solas, companion to the Inquisitor player character during the previous game, is none other than the Elven trickster god of legend, also known more ominously as the Dread Wolf (the game’s previous title). All along, his goal has been to tear down the Veil between the world of Thedas and the demon world to restore the ancient elven glory and immortality, and he doesn’t care in the slightest if that means everyone else’s doom.
According to BioWare, Solas does manage to go through with his tearing ritual only to see it backfire due to the player character (named Rook)’s intervention, freeing two of Solas’ most powerful and relentless adversaries among the elven gods. It will be up to Rook and the party to clean up their own mess and stop these god-like beings from ravaging Thedas, all the while fighting other menacing foes like Venatori Cultists, Demons of the Fade, Dark Spawn, and more.
As teased by BioWare a while ago, Dragon Age: The Veilguard will portray more of Thedas than ever before in the RPG series. Lore fans will be happy to know they’ll visit the Rivain peninsula, the fortress of the Grey Wardens at Weisshaupt, the elven forest of Arlathan, the Tevinter capital of Minrathous, the Deep Roads, and more. Biomes will be as diverse as bustling cities, lush tropics, boreal forests, forbidding swamps, and the deepest dungeons. The titular Veilguard will assemble at the Lighthouse, the classic RPG-style place where you can rest and chat with companions at your leisure.
The developers also promised ‘some of the most compelling individual storylines’ in the franchise history, which is an ambitious target given that this was always one of the strengths of Dragon Age and BioWare games as a whole. The seven companions (Veil Jumper Bellara, Grey Warden Davrin, Necromancer Emmrich, returning Scout Harding, Mage Killer Lucanis, Detective Neve, and Dragon Hunter Taash) will provide expansive and dynamic stories exploring love and loss, and player choices will affect both your relationship with the individual companions and with the whole group. Each companion comes with their own individual skill tree and specialized gear.
Finally, going back to the player character Rook, players will get the most powerful character creator in the franchise yet with a vast range of customization options. As you can see from the gallery above, you can select other races as well, such as elf or Qunari. You’ll also be able to choose a starting faction as part of the character’s background. There will be six choices in this area, including Grey Wardens, Shadow Dragons, and Antivan Crows. In terms of character progression, players will be able to customize their playstyle through skill trees for three different classes: Warrior, Mage, and Rogue. As previously rumored, there won’t be any direct control of the other two members of the party, but the ability wheel allows players to perform specific skills against any given target.
In a very brief post-presentation roundtable Q&A at Summer Game Fest 2024, BioWare confirmed Dragon Age: The Veilguard would feature a ‘tremendous amount of side content’ that is entirely handcrafted rather than randomly generated in any way.
The game doesn’t have a concrete release date yet other than a generic Fall 2024 window. It will be released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X.
